Since May 2015, terrorist crimes of extreme violence carried out by the Daesh group have followed one another against the ancient city of Palmyra, its symbols and its defenders. The series of photos published by the jihadist group shows how these planned and staged attacks serve a strategy of cultural terror.
I would first like to pay tribute to Khaled Assaad, a distinguished archaeologist who was cruelly murdered on August 18 by barbarians. I salute the memory of him who was for half a century the head of the antiquities of Palmyra and, until the end of his life, a resister who stood courageously against the destruction of our common roots. The unspeakable crime of which he was the victim at the end of a month’s imprisonment is a tragedy for the whole world which loses with him a considerable part of the living memory of Palmyra. But beyond the immense knowledge he had at heart to transmit, it is above all this struggle for freedom that he leaves us as a legacy.
I condemn with force and anger the destruction last Sunday of the temple of Baalshamin, one of the most important sanctuaries of Palmyra, 2000 years old. It is a crime against our common heritage, a monumental loss to humanity. Beyond its crimes against civilians and its contempt for the dignity of the human person, Daesh has engaged in a real cultural purge, as evidenced by the looting and looting of 300 historic sites in Syria over the past four years.
No terrorist act can destroy history, but we must prepare for the future. I call for the unity of the international community to strengthen on the one hand our fight against the trafficking of works of art that irrigate terrorism and find, on the other hand, all means conducive to the preservation of the sites that the obscurantists undertook to destroy.
France will do all it can to mobilize researchers and archaeologists to preserve the memory of the World Heritage in this context of great tension. The President of the Republic has sent one of the institutions of the Ministry of Culture and Communication in the person of Jean-Luc Martinez, President of the Louvre Museum, to reflect on ways to protect cultural property during armed conflicts.