What's in a Hero?

Will wonders never cease? A man of the Right, and a Catholic at that, is being lauded as a hero even by the MSM and the Left in France.

From The European Conservative

By Hélène De Lauzun

At last, we're talking about one of our own. At last, this counter-society that we laboriously try to preserve against the ill winds of progressivism is enjoying the limelight.

The intense emotion that gripped French public opinion following the knife attack on young children by a Syrian in Annecy is already beginning to subside. But the figure of the young man, Henri, who came between the assailant and his victims, has been haunting people’s minds and consuming the press ever since. What does the deep-seated infatuation with this boy reveal? Our society, in need of heroes, has found one that has almost fallen from the sky, and the media’s unexpected enthusiasm for Henri has been cheered by observers far beyond the small sociological milieu from which he comes. 

Ever since videos of the terrible attack in Annecy circulated in France and abroad, the unusual profile of the young man nicknamed ‘the rucksack hero’ has been making a buzz. The headlines have multiplied, as have the probing articles in newspapers, whatever their format or tendency: dailies and magazines, tabloids and general-interest papers, the Catholic press and the regional press—they have all asked the same question: who is he? Who is this famous Henri who armed only with his hiking bag, tried to stop the mad rage of a Syrian migrant who was blindly stabbing innocent children?

Who is Henri? The best answers come from the man himself. After initially wishing to remain discreet, he then took up his mission, or could we say his apostolate, and decided to give a wide-ranging account, granting interviews to all who were willing to listen. And the words that come out of his mouth sound strange in today’s media landscape, saturated with individualism and vulgarity as it is. 

On the set of the hugely popular talk show Touche pas à mon poste, whose host, Cyril Hanouna, feeds daily on scandal and coarseness, young Henri sings unabashedly of his love for the cathedrals built by the faith of our fathers, inviting the French to raise their eyes to Heaven. For unpolished TV star Hanouna, it’s clear that, in his own words, “there’s no coincidence” in Henri’s speech. He doesn’t dare use the dangerous word, but Henri adopts it: “You know, I’m a Catholic, and I call that Providence.” Through him, the ancient and eternal struggle between Good and Evil is re-enacted—and Hanouna is at pains to contradict him. What’s more, he greets him and ends up agreeing: Providence is exactly that. At the peak of audience ratings, millions of French people rediscovered with Henri the existence of this discreet presence of divine power among human beings.

On the 24-hour news channel BFM TV, Henri also testified to his faith with a rare intensity. 

Who is Henri? In the Macronist France of 2023, Henri is, in a way, the pure product of everything that the government, fashion, and the Zeitgeist fiercely despise and vomit out. He is a member of a large family—dismissed by the Left as polluting the planet. He was involved in scouting—frequently labelled as racist and affiliated with the Hitler Youth. He spent his entire school career at an independent Catholic school—undermined by the French state and excoriated as a training ground for separatists and rebels against the ‘values of the Republic’. He is a traditional Catholic—suspected of clinging to outdated and retrograde rites. And yet, precisely these characteristics, so detested in this day and age, have enabled him to be the right man, at the right place, at the right time; from these sources he learned the courage, self-sacrifice, and duty to help those in need and which appeared to be of the utmost utility on that day of June in Annecy.

It is amusing to note that just a few days later, the world of sport was forced to crown another ‘hero,’ the tennis champion Novak Djokovic, who in another category also ticks all the boxes of what the world is supposed to hate: he loves his country deeply, he claims to be a Christian first and foremost, he has been with the same woman for 18 years, and demonstrated a rare freedom during the COVID-19 pandemic by refusing to have a vaccination he considered dubious imposed on him. His ‘flaws’ are precisely what have given him strength and fighting spirit over the years—until he was able to claim his victory on the court. 

In the space of a few days, Henri’s Instagram account, designed to keep track of his journey to discover cathedrals, has grown from a few thousand to more than 130,000 followers—and this number has certainly not stopped climbing. Here is the proof that there is a real desire lodged in the hearts of our contemporaries for something nobler and greater than what is offered to us daily through the media soup, washed down with ideology. 

The conservative community’s fancy for Henri is understandable. At last, we’re talking about one of our own kind. At last, this counter-society that we embody and laboriously try to preserve against the ill winds of progressivism is taking centre stage and enjoying the limelight. Hundreds of thousands of people are discovering that this counter-society exists, and those who already suspected its existence are realising that it is bearing good fruit. 

If you look at the forums or the reactions on social media to Henri’s actions, you’ll see that the good people who read the mainstream press in droves are unprejudiced—or rather, they admire him. On the contrary, the ‘heroes’ to whom the media have accustomed them, such as the ex-Liverpool footballer who was present in the Annecy square but contented himself with continuing his jogging while castigating the clumsiness of the police, have proved to be ineffective.

Some of the left-wing press yet tried to spread their bile and destroy our popular hero. The daily newspaper 20 Minutes explained that the attacker and young Henri had a lot in common, while Daniel Schneidermann, an editor for the left-wing newspaper Libération, wrote a rather disgusting column in which he implied that the whole thing was a sham designed to do the business of the right-wing channel CNews. But this attempt at denigration didn’t work. The editor-in-chief of Libération, Denis Olivennes, even disassociated himself from Schneidermann’s column and literally confessed his personal admiration for Henri. From a newspaper as ill-intentioned towards all things Catholic as Libération is, this is almost a Damascus road. 

It is now accepted that Henri is a hero. Even if he refutes the appellation, with the modesty that his good upbringing has taught him, he is one. He has asked President Emmanuel Macron for no other reward than to be able to attend the inauguration of Notre Dame, in keeping with the guiding principle he has set himself: to look upwards and towards the beautiful, to find the good and the true. He has come to quench the thirst of our fellow citizens, who feel that, in order to move forward, they need figures who inspire admiration.

He is not a martyr because he did not have to give his life, but he bears witness with a rare power. How many thousands of French people will once again turn their gaze towards the steeples of their neglected cathedrals thanks to him?

The good news is not that this boy exists: we who grew up in much the same nursery as he did, and who believe in the priceless virtues of the education he received, one we ourselves try to pass on to our children, are not surprised.

The good news is that the light he spreads around him reaches far and wide into the seemingly washed-out and arid hearts of our contemporary age. He is proof of the universality of grace.