Hervé Gourdel: why his death is so traumatic to the French

Hervé Gourdel, the victim of terrorists' last execution (Photo credit: Hervé Gourdel and Google +)

The corners of the white and blue tablecloth are flying up in the house's front yard as the warm wind of a summer day awakens the tanned faces of a French family in Nice. Melon slices are disposed on the thick olive-green plate and Jamon Iberico is accompanying it.

This is the kind of scene any person who’s ever gone to the south of France can see. This is the kind of scene Hervé Gourdel, a French alpinist guide living in Nice, was likely to experience any day, if he was having lunch at a friend’s place that day.

To French people, the execution of Gourdel is particularly traumatizing. Not only is the execution of any man by ISIS or ISIS-related groups dreadful but the assassination of Gourdel, a man who is exactly the way every French person thinks of herself or of her neighbor, jolts the French to their very core.

The man, who was executed on Wednesday by an Algerian jihadist group, was a French citizen, a husband and father of two. He was an alpinist guide. His two passions: traveling and shooting photos. Born and living in Nice, he was a guide for the Mercantour Park, the national park north of Nice, which most French people know for its beauty and its endangered wolves. Last Sunday, he was on his way to a ten-day trip across the Djurdjura Mountains in Algeria with friends he knew in a town, east of Alger. Gourdel liked to travel.

Photographs by Hervé Gourdel

With his backpack, his striking-color shirts, his lime down jacket or his warm fleece sweater, Gourdel was the epitome of heartland and southern France. Every thing about him screamed French: his glasses coming down on the tip of his nose, his dark thick eyebrows below his white hair and above, his broad smile. This guy, to most French people, is their next-door neighbor.

The ISIS executions and recent related conflicts have occurred prominently in the Middle East. Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, the West of North Africa, though not immune to tensions, seemed safer. Algeria, as a country that is home to many French people, seemed safer.

France shares strong ties with Algeria. Ties of war and blood. Ties of culture and community. The occupation of Algeria by France and the 1954-1962 war of Independence of Algeria from France were not usual – in terms of colonial historical events. The roots of the connection French communities have established in Algeria are sunk deep into the political, economic, and social nexus of the country. Those roots have tied the two countries together. Many a French family has relatives in Algeria. Many a family in Algeria has relatives in France.

Therefore, to most French people, having a French alpinist guide being tracked down by an internationally-known terrorist group, abducted in the small town of Tizi Ouzou - minutes after he had told his mother on the phone that all was fine there - killed in the most gruesome way and his execution staged for the world to see, is something any French person can’t possibly wrap her head around.

The way the beheadings of Foley and Sotloff had a particular impact on the British people when they recognized a faint British accent in the voice of the executioner, prompting them to multiply their efforts to deter the recruitment of jihadists from UK's heartland, the execution of Gourdel is an act the French are not likely to forget.

If you try to get a sense of people in France now, you’ll probably find them in great shock, and mourning.