Retailleau: "There is a France that does not forget" October 7 victims

Bruno Retailleau, the candidate of France's conservative Les Républicains in the 2027 presidential election, visited the site of the Nova music festival on Wednesday morning to mark three years since the October 7 attacks by Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

"Three years ago, here, thousands of innocent young people were dancing at dawn. 364 of them were massacred by Hamas terrorists, others were abducted and tortured. Because they were Jews," he wrote on X.

He said more than 1,200 people were killed that morning, most of them civilians, and 251 were taken hostage, including children, women and elderly people. Fifty-one French nationals died, either on October 7 or in captivity, in what he called "the worst pogrom since the Shoah."

Retailleau said he came to Israel to honor the victims' memory, to grieve with their families and to tell them that, despite a resurgence of antisemitism that "shames our history," there is "a France that does not forget." That France, he said, does not downplay the atrocities committed by Hamas or look for excuses for "Islamist barbarism," and represents "the overwhelming majority of the French."

"Before their faces and their names, I swear it: we will not forget you," he wrote.