Demagogue

Paris on Friday was full of reminders of what had happened in London on Thursday. Of course, the bombings were all over the newspapers, and the Gare du Nord was quite chaotic in the late afternoon: it is the terminus of the high-speed trains to London via the Chunnel, so the extra security and delays at Waterloo created serious knock-on effects in Paris.

But the thing that, for some reason, most caught my eye was the cover of L'Equipe, the French sports newspaper. French sports fans were crushed by London's narrow upset victory on Wednesday over Paris for the right to host the 2012 Summer Olympics. Then came the bombs on Thursday. On Friday, the cover of L'Equipe was black, with the bold headline: "Tous pours Londres"--a sports fan's way of saying, "Everyone behind London!" Thus the sporting version of Le Monde's famous post-9/11 headline, "We are all Americans now."