The decapitation of the mountain guide Hervé Gourdel has shaken France. So far, war and terrorism were far away. Now it is clear: It could happen to anyone.

A week ago, French President François Hollande the terrorists of the “Islamic State” (IS) has declared war. Now the war in France has arrived: Hervé Gourdel, 55, a mountain guide from southern France, was murdered by extremists from the group “Jund al-Chilafah” (Soldiers of the Caliphate).

The members of this group are former al-Qaida activists in August they have joined the IS. They kidnapped the French on Sunday with a hike around a hundred kilometers east of Algiers and demanded the stop of the French attacks against the IS in Iraq.

Paris refused – and the beheading was promptly followed. Staged as the bloody deeds of the American journalist James Foley, Steven Sottloff and British aid worker David Haines the video on the Internet was widespread – as a “message of the blood of the French government” and “act of revenge against the criminal French crusaders”.

Hervé Gourdel  Murder: “Beheaded, because he was a Frenchman”

Since then, the nation is under collective shock, united in grief, indignation, rage. “Barbarism” headlines the “Figaro”, “crime”, the newspaper “Le Parisien”. “Beheaded, because he was French,” said the headline of “Libération”. The murder of Gourdel even let the controversy over the failed arrest of three French jihadists into the background.

Gourdel was “cowardly, vile and shameful” executed, president Hollande said on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York: “But France will not give in to terror, which is not only our duty, but a question of honor.” The fight against terrorism will be strengthened, and the attacks would continue “as long as necessary”.

The murder of Gourdel caused a wave of sympathy and solidarity. The European Union denounced the beheading as “barbaric murder”, U.S. President Barack Obama assured France’s solidarity “in the face of a terrible loss.”

Hervé Gourdel Murder:In his home town knew him any

Especially deep seated pain in Saint-Martin-Vésubie, the hometown of the mountain guide. Until recently the family had hoped for a turn-of Islamists, now located family members and friends met, still overwhelmed by grief and anger. Almost all of the 1300 inhabitants of the village at the foot of the Mercantour massif knew the nature lovers and enthusiastic photographer who was just about to build a house here. “We are shocked,” the mayor said in front of the town hall, where the tricolor blowing at half-mast.

France’s parties unanimously condemned the “act of cruelty”, the Central Council of Muslims of France said he was “appalled” by the incident. Elisabeth Guigou, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the National Assembly, said the news channel i-télé of a “national tragedy”. Christian Estrosi, Mayor of Nice and a personal friend of the victim, called for a national day of mourning: “Hervé was a child in France, an innocent citizen who was targeted by the barbarians.”

This realization gradually dawns on the population. So far, the scenes of war, terror and murder were far away. Or they concerned – as in the attack on the Jewish Museum of Brussels – a religious minority. But now are “all French people affected,” as President Hollande stresses. On Monday, the government had called on its citizens traveling in around 30 countries to “utmost caution”.

Hervé Gourdel Murder:”The worst is still to be feared”

The Islamists in Algeria are as a command receiver of the “Islamic State”. And he had called to kill citizens of all countries who relied on by the United States connected coalition against him on Monday his followers. In particular, the threat of French and U.S. citizens were named as the destination.

“France is the explosive target,” writes Frederic Encel, Professor of International Relations in Paris, on the website of the magazine “Le Nouvel Observateur”. “Those who live outside our borders need to be extremely vigilant.”

Also Mathieu Guidère, Islamic scholar at the University of Toulouse, is concerned: “The fact that the head of the ‘Islamic state’ issues the command to attack the French, these operations makes their own deeds,” said Guidère. “And since the IS a modus operandi of extreme barbarism followed, the worst is still to be feared.”

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