Boulevard Voltaire

Boulevard Voltaire, it is one of yesterday’s terrorist attack sites. More than two centuries ago most of Europe was living under dark times brought by the oppression of the Catholic Church in conjunction with the absolutist monarchies. What Europe didn’t know by then is that this dark period was going to be taken to its end by some enlightening minds. It was Rousseau, Diderot and Montesquieu. It was Voltaire. It was the Paris of the eighteenth century where such concepts as the well-known ‘liberté, egalité, fraternité’, the separation of powers, the separation of the religion from the state, the freedom of speech, the freedom of religion, were being taken into debate. And it worked, it worked in France and from there it was spread to the rest of Europe. They created what we know now as a modern state. We owe them too much. But basically what we owe them is to keep what they reasoned. Although nowadays highly underestimated and undervalued, is our duty as free men not to forget our freedom. There are some people that want to take us two centuries back but fortunately people from all over the world are on the same side against this major problem.

Our freedom was built in Paris; our soul is built with Paris.