Press: Terrorists cross "a historic line"

"War in central Paris" was splashed across center-right daily Le Figaro's front page of the terror attacks that claimed over 120 lives in the nation's capital on Friday night.

"This time it's war," declared Le Parisien daily to the city still reeling fromthe Charlie Hebdo shooting in January. "In the name of the true martyrs of yesterday, the innocent victims and in the name of the Republic, France will be able to stay united and stand together," the newspaper said.

The "terrorist barbarism" has crossed a "historic line," wrote Laurent Joffrin in an editorial for the left-leaning daily Liberation.

"It is impossible not to link these bloody events with the battles raging in the Middle East. France is playing its part there. It must continue to do so without blinking," Joffrin said.

"We were Charlie. We are Paris!" wrote the Republique des Pyrenees regional daily.

Fueling hatred

The Dutch Handelsblad led with reports that the attackers shouted: "This is for Syria" while shooting at the concert audience in Bataclan.

"So, this was about revenge for the French support of bombings of Islamic State in Syria. … Now, France stands still. State of emergency, borders shutdown, public buildings are closed for the time being. The fear of terror attacks will continue to hold France in its grips for a while," the newspaper wrote.

"Security experts kept warning after Charlie Hebdo that more threats would surface from violent jihadi groups connected to "Islamic State" (IS) or other entities. But nothing of this magnitude, in the heart of the capital, had ever been mentioned as a possibility," says the British Guardian.

"Muslims in France will now increasingly fear being associated with fanaticism and terror. Populist, far-right groups may well fuel more hatred (…) It will be key for French officials now to send the signals that might prevent the kind of social dislocation and national breakdown that those who orchestrated this latest onslaught are no doubt trying to provoke."

Mad war at Europe's doorstep

Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is warning war "will continue as long as the attackers have war in their heads."

"Everybody is a target for these terrorists, everybody can become their victim, they will spare nobody and no place is safe. That is what the perpetrators want to prove with each and every one of these attacks," the newspaper wrote.

The Paris massacre "would hit us deeper than every other instance of terror we had to deal with so far," said the conservative daily Die Welt.

The attackers, who mowed down more than 100 young people, would soon publish a video justifying the act with "their hot-air ideology and their moronic fantasies," according to the newspaper.

"Nobody would be able to stroll down Boulevard Richard Lenoir, without thinking about those pools of blood. They have managed to bring their mad war to our doorstep," wrote Sascha Lehnartz in an editorial.

"This is about us. About our way of life. Our freedom. All of us would need to fight for them."

dj/jlw (dpa, AFP)