What do you know about Monsieur Beltrame? Cast your mind back and perhaps you'll remember reading the newspaper on a warm morning in March where, on page 4, you scanned an article about a "cultural enrichment event" in Trèbes, near Carcassonne, where a Mohammedan took several hostages inside a supermarket. The police responded and negotiated. One Lieutenant-Colonel proposed a trade for the final female hostage, which was accepted by the jihadi. For a brief moment, chivalry in France revived. Hours later M. Beltrame lay dying on the cold tiled floor – shot four times and then stabbed.
His bravery and sacrifice would be remembered. Or so they said. The French Interior Minister twittered out a brief eulogy:
Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Beltrame has left us. He died for his country. France will never forget his heroism, his bravery, his sacrifice.
– French Interior Minister, Gérard Collomb
Yet several months later it has been revealed that the nearby city of Marseilles, the second most populous city in France, won't even be naming a street after the dead gendarme.
The local council feared that doing so would upset the Muslims occupying the city:
… if we give the name of Arnaud Beltrame in this district, the population will take that as a provocation.
Thirteen hundred years after Charles Martel defeated the Moors and drove them from Europe, the French have simply given up and handed the keys over.
Remember M. Armoud Beltrame, because the French won't.
