恐襲陰影下法國人的生活

Normally, after the parties of Bastille Day, the French begin drifting off on holiday. People disappear to country homes, beaches or resorts where they spend weeks eating, drinking and lazing. Meanwhile foreign tourists — one of France’s few growing income streams — flood the world’s most visited country.

“巴士底日”（Bastille Day，即法國國慶日）狂歡後，法國人通常會開始外出度假。人們遁往鄉間別墅、海灘或度假勝地，享受數週的休閒時光，吃喝消遣。與此同時，外國遊客（法國爲數不多還在增長的收入來源之一）也會紛紛涌入這個世界最熱門的旅遊目的地國。

But after a jihadist in a truck killed 84 people in Nice on Bastille Day, the French are trying to comprehend their new normal: terror attacks. As prime minister Manuel Valls admitted: “France must live with terrorism.” In just 18 months, the country has fundamentally changed.

但經歷了國慶日當天的尼斯慘案（一名聖戰分子駕駛卡車衝進人羣導致84人死亡）之後，法國人正在試着接受他們的新常態：恐怖襲擊。法國總理曼努埃爾•瓦爾斯(Manuel Valls)承認道：“法國不得不與恐怖主義生活在一起。”不過一年半時間，這個國家就發生了翻天覆地的變化。

There are three layers to French life. Layer one is everyday perfection: that glass of wine in an ordinary bistro in a commonplace street. The Germans call it “living like God in France”. Layer two is economic stagnation, the sense that set in early this century that the country’s model is stuck. In December 2014, a fairly typical survey by BVA-WIN found that only 17 per cent of French people thought 2015 would be better than 2014. That ranked France 60th out of 65 countries for pessimism. Moreover, the French were unhappier than people in other rich countries — a finding now so commonplace in happiness research that it’s known as the “French paradox”.

法國人的生活包含三個層次。第一層是完美的日常生活：在街頭巷尾普通的小酒館裏喝上一杯。德國人稱“在法國活得像上帝”。第二層是不景氣的經濟，本世紀初人們就開始覺得法國模式不行了。2014年12月，法國民調機構BVA與WIN聯合進行的一項相當具有代表性的調查發現，僅有17%的法國人認爲2015年會比2014年更好些。因此以悲觀程度而言，法國在65個國家中排名第60位。此外，與其他富裕國家的民衆相比，法國人的幸福感更低——在關於幸福的研究中這個結論已是如此常見，以至於被稱爲“法國悖論”。

And French pessimists were right: 2015 began with the deadly attacks on Charlie Hebdo newspaper and the kosher supermarket in Paris. Since then, the surface layer of French life has been fear of terrorism.

法國的悲觀論者沒看錯：2015年一開始就發生了針對巴黎《查理週刊》(Charlie Hebdo)總部以及猶太超市的致命襲擊。自那時起，對恐怖主義的恐懼就成了包裹法國人生活的表層了。

This fear is the parents’ meeting to discuss whether terrorists could break into your children’s school. It’s the university seminar you can only attend if you register in advance, with full passport details. It’s the security guard who searches you before you can enter your local post office. (Incongruously, the booming anti-terror sector has created thousands of jobs for low-skilled Muslim men.)

家長們聚在一起討論恐怖分子是否可能闖入孩子們的學校；只有提前登記並提供完整的護照信息，你才能參加大學研討會；走入當地郵局前，你得接受保安人員搜身——這些無不體現了這種恐懼。（奇怪的是，急速發展的反恐產業爲沒有一技之長的穆斯林男性創造了數千個就業崗位。)

The French now live with the constant worry that the sky could fall on their heads. One glorious afternoon during the Euro 2016 football tournament, over a drink in Marseille’s Old Port, the friend I was with half-joked: “Shall we go, before this terrace is raked with machinegun fire?” The terror in Nice soon afterwards was terrifyingly predictable. The previous day in Paris, passing a poster advertising James Watkins’ new movie Bastille Day, about a massive terrorist plot, I had thought: Don’t let this be prescient.

如今，法國人生活中揮之不去的擔憂是：天可能會塌下來。2016年歐洲盃賽事期間一個陽光明媚的下午，我和一位友人在馬賽老港(Marseille’s Old Port)喝酒，朋友半開玩笑地說：“我們是不是該在這個露臺遭到機槍掃射之前離開？”不久後發生的尼斯慘案被料中了。慘案發生前一天，在巴黎街頭走過詹姆斯•瓦特金斯(James Watkins)執導的關於一場大規模恐怖主義陰謀的新電影《巴士底日》(Bastille Day)的宣傳海報時，我心想：但願這不會成爲預言。

France has experienced some variety of terrorism in every postwar decade, but never as bad as this. The last seven months have seen the two deadliest acts of terrorism in modern French history: the Paris attacks in November that killed 130 people, and Nice.

戰後每一個十年中，法國都經歷了某種形式的恐怖主義，但情況從未像今天這樣嚴重。過去七個月見證了造成法國現代史上傷亡最慘重的恐怖活動：去年11月導致130人遇難的巴黎恐怖襲擊以及剛剛過去的尼斯慘案。

Before Nice, fear was focused on Paris. Almost every aspect of French life is overcentralised, and the capital had suffered disproportionately from terror. But if hell can break out in a sleepy beach town that lacks only a sandy beach, a place where millions of French people have happy holiday memories, then nowhere in France feels safe.

尼斯慘案發生前，恐懼主要集中在巴黎。法國人生活的幾乎每一個方面都過度集中，因此，首都巴黎是遭受恐怖襲擊最多的地方。但是，在一座悠閒的只差一片沙灘就完美、給數百萬法國人留下開心假日記憶的海濱城市都能發生如此殘暴的襲擊，那法國就沒有任何能讓人感到安全的地方了。

Like other recent terrorists, the Nice jihadi seems to have acted alone. Whereas al-Qaeda liked to orchestrate elaborate attacks, Isis has “crowdsourced” terrorism, says the Soufan Group, a security consultancy. And France has a reservoir of thousands of potential do-it-yourself jihadis.

像近期其他的恐怖分子一樣，製造尼斯慘案的聖戰分子似乎是單獨行動。安全諮詢公司Soufan Group表示，基地組織(al-Qaeda)喜歡精心策劃複雜而周密的攻擊，而ISIS已將恐怖活動“衆包”出去。而法國境內存在成千上萬的潛在的“獨狼”聖戰分子。

Terrorism that requires barely any planning beyond renting a truck is almost unstoppable. The French authorities cannot turn the entire country into a kind of airport security zone. Perhaps it’s lucky that France lost the final of Euro 2016 to Portugal last Sunday. Had Les Bleus won, the crowds waving tricolours in every town square could have been targets. Only one other developed country lives with comparable everyday danger: the US, with its bizarre gun laws.

只需租一輛卡車就可以發動的恐怖襲擊幾乎無法被阻止。法國當局不可能把整個國家變成一個類似機場安全區的地方。法國在2016年歐洲盃決賽中輸給葡萄牙或許並非壞事。如果法國隊贏了決賽，每個城市廣場上揮舞三色旗的人羣都可能成爲襲擊目標。在其他發達國家中，只有一個國家的民衆每天生活在類似危險中——有着奇怪槍支法律的美國。

So far, the French have remained surprisingly tolerant in the face of Islamist terror. The annual survey by the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights found that racism decreased in 2015. In regional elections last December, just after the worst attack, the French mainstream voted tactically for Socialist and Republican candidates to prevent the anti-immigrant Front National from winning a single region. Voters may repeat the trick in next year’s presidential elections.

迄今爲止，法國在面對伊斯蘭恐怖主義時仍保持着驚人的寬容。法國國家人權諮詢委員會(CNCDH)進行的一年一度的調查發現，種族歧視在2015年有所減輕。去年12月在地區選舉中（就在那次最嚴重的襲擊發生之後），法國主流選民有策略地投票支持社會黨和共和黨候選人，以防反移民的法國國民陣線(National Front)在任一選區獲勝。在明年的總統選舉中，選民們可能還會這樣做。

Still, if the French were pessimistic and unhappy before the increase in terrorism, imagine the national mood now.

不過，如果說在恐怖活動增多前法國人就已經感到悲觀、不幸福，想象一下現在國民該是什麼樣的心態。