Template:Did you know nominations/List of terrorist attacks in France

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Allen3 ^talk 16:12, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

List of terrorist attacks in France edit

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... that over 100 people have been killed in terrorist attacks in France since 1961?

Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Halfdan Ragnarsson

Created by Prioryman (talk). Self nominated at 20:57, 7 January 2015 (UTC).

The article is new and long enough. The list includes 19th century events which were not described as terrorist attacks in their corresponding articles. Taking in consideration definition of terrorism (... and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants (e.g., neutral military personnel or civilians)), they should not be considered as such. Napoleon was not neutral non-combatant. The article mentions UTA Flight 772 which is not listed. Without it the article would have less than 1,500 characters. As far as I know, French airplanes are considered as part of French territory and are under sovereign French jurisdiction? If that is so, this attack should be included in the list and number of killed people increased to over 200. If not, this nomination has length issue. The citation which supports hook assertion does not mention total number of people killed in terrorist attacks in France since 1961. Are there some sources which does? QPQ done. The hook is interesting and not too long.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 09:07, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not going by the corresponding articles (as you know, Wikipedia articles can't be used as citations) but by the cited source in this list - the newspaper Le Parisien, which here lists (and graphs) the casualty tolls of attacks in France since 1800. The 19th century attacks were assassination attempts which did not harm the targets but did kill and injure a lot of non-combatants (basically anyone in the vicinity), so even if Napoleon was not a "neutral non-combatant" (whatever that means in this instance) the victims who were collateral damage certainly were. The numbers are simply a cumulative addition of the cited casualty tolls in each attack. Because each individual number is cited, there's no need for a separate source for the simple maths of adding them all up. Finally, because the article is about attacks in France I've not listed UTA 772. The main cited source doesn't either. It's fair enough to mention it as having the highest toll (as I've done) but because it didn't happen in France I don't think it belongs in a list of attacks in the country. Prioryman (talk) 23:21, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't speak French. Does source you pointed to describe 19th century events as "terrorist attacks"?--Antidiskriminator (talk) 00:08, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

The article is a discussion of historical attacks ("attentat[s] terroriste") in France, starting with the Charlie Hebdo attack and saying that "you have to go back to the 19th century to the attempted assassinations of Napoleon and Louis-Philippe" to find comparable attacks. The bar graph in the middle of the article lists the 19th century events alongside the 20th century ones. It's not a modern phenomenon by any means - let's not forget that the word terrorism originated in France as far back as the 18th century. Prioryman (talk) 08:11, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I am sorry, but I don't think source you pointed to describe 19th century events as "terrorist attacks". I used Google Translate and it says that Charlie Hebdo massacre was immediately qualified as terrorist by Hollande. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 15:27, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I've added three additional sources which describe the events as terrorist acts or their perpetrators as terrorists. Hopefully this resolves the issue. Prioryman (talk) 19:20, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

The article has 1564 characters, which is slightly over the criteria but only because of UTA 722 (which does not belong to the scope of this article). Without UTA 772 the article has about 1300 characters which is not enough and should be expanded.
Can you please present a quote from "The Foundations of Modern Terrorism", page 53, which says that attempt by Giuseppe Mario Fieschi to assassinate King Louis Philippe I was terrorist attack?--Antidiskriminator (talk) 12:55, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

First, it's not your job as a DYK article reviewer to decide what is within the scope of the article. You are meant to assess whether the article length is a minimum of 1500 characters - that's the limit of your responsibility as a reviewer. UTA 722 is in scope, as it's the deadliest attack in terms of French lives lost, so it needs to be mentioned in the narrative but not in the list, as it was not within Metropolitan France. It's mentioned in that specific context in the cited Le Parisien article. Second, I would have thought the Fieschi incident's categorisation was clear enough as it's covered in a chapter on "The Foundations of Modern Terrorism", but to make the point even clearer I've changed the citation to another source which describes "the assassination attempt on Louis-Philippe, orchestrated by the Corsican terrorist Fieschi." Prioryman (talk) 13:39, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

You first said that article in Le Parisien presents 19th century events as "terrorist attacks", although it does not.
Then you brought other sources claiming they present 19th century events as "terrorist attacks", leaving Le Parisien as source (why?).
I picked only one of them and asked for quote to check what you said. And Voilà. It did not.

Instead to acknowledge issues with your source misinterpretations you began with questioning my job here. My job as reviewer is of course not limited to determintion of the article length. Me as a reviewer have also to check if article meets core policies and guidelines. This topic deserves to be treated with care and attention it deserves. That is why I politely ask you, before I conclude this review, to please present quotes from all three sources used in section about "19th century" to check if they really describe 19th century events as "terrorist attacks".--Antidiskriminator (talk) 19:31, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Le Parisien discusses all of the 19th century events in the context of the most recent attacks, saying explicitly that you have to go back 180 years to find anything comparable in terms of the toll (for some reason disregarding the 1961 train bombing). I would suggest that the problem here is not misrepresentation of sources but your apparent lack of reading comprehension. Napoleon's Wars: An International History refers to "the terrorist bomb that almost cost Napoleon and Josephine their lives". Who was Who at Waterloo: A Biography of the Battle refers to "the assassination attempt on Louis-Philippe, orchestrated by the Corsican terrorist Fieschi". Creativity and Crime: A Psychological Analysis states that "as the case of Felice Orsini [who carried out the attack on Napoleon III] illustrates, terrorism ... often involves the application of cunning and ingenuity". The book also specifically covers Orsini's attack as a case study of terrorism, in a chapter called "Terrorism: A Case Study". You really can't get much clearer than that. Prioryman (talk) 23:06, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. So Le Parisien points to the 19th century events "to find anything comparable in terms of the toll" without qualifying those events as "terrrist attacks"? It is neccessary to be very careful here because use of the term "terrorist" is subject to frequet misuse which actually started in France at the beginning of the 19th century when political opponents of the regime were indicriminatelly labeled as terrorsts.
What do you think about renaming I proposed at article's talkpage?--Antidiskriminator (talk) 12:51, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Le Parisien quite clearly covers all of the attacks from 1800 to the present in the context of terrorism. The narrative and bar chart, which plots the toll of all of them, makes no distinction between 19th and 20th century attacks. Let's not forget that the French invented the concept of terrorism (the word is French) so this is something they sadly have a lot of experience of. As for renaming, I'm OK with it. Prioryman (talk) 07:38, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Let's not forget that people in France also invented the concept of misuse of the term. Le Parisien does not qualify 19th century events as terrorist, and present them together with 20th- and 21st-century events because they are comparable in terms of toll. An attempt to murder Napoleon organized by his political opponents can hardly be referred to as terrorism. Presenting Napoleon connected assassination attempts as terrorist incidents together with contemporary terrorist incidents could diminish real terrorist nature of the latter. I still believe:
1. this article should not cover Napoleon connected assassination attempts and
2. that it should be expanded to have more than 1,500 characters of the text which covers its scope.
I would appreciate if nominator could again reconsider my remarks. I am going to pass this nomination, AGF for non-English sources. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 09:17, 12 January 2015 (UTC)