Talk:April 2017 Champs-Élysées attack/Archives/2018

Kalashnikov
The link to Kalashnikov rifle is inappropriate in the lead, which should refer generically to an automatic rifle. That it was a Kalashnikov, favorite of terrorists worldwide, could be mentioned later. Sca (talk) 23:33, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Move to 2017 Champs-Élysées shooting
Any thoughts? El_C 12:27, 21 April 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm in. But I rather have the name changed to 2017 Champs-Élysées attack as it is called an act of terrorism by the french government. JBergsma1 (talk) 08:26, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Also, refering to Champs-Elysees in the title is a more accurate describtion of where the incident occured.JBergsma1 (talk) 08:35, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Support move to 2017 Champs-Élysées attack. Consistent naming with other attacks. Joseph2302 (talk) 08:41, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Support.Zigzig20s (talk) 09:41, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Why was this not on the Main Page?
We have some inconsequential b.s. about golf up for several days, but a terrorist attack perpetrated yesterday by a persistent enemy of Western civilization in the capital of a major nation days before said nation's presidential election doesn't get so much as a mention? C'mon, I think this might be a *little* more salient than guys hitting little balls with sticks around a lawn. I had to hear about it from alternative media, then jump through several links just to get to this page - that's ridiculous.CitationKneaded (talk) 18:18, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Maybe it makes more sense if you think of it as one man almost nobody has heard of killing another, and the persistent enemy of Western civilization simply being invoked by the presidential candidate who routinely runs on that platform. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:20, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
 * We discussed it, but the nomination was closed by User:Stephen within two hours.Zigzig20s (talk) 00:45, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Born in Tataouine Tunisia
Is there any source that the attacker was born in Tataouine, Tunisia. The Berlin attacker was born there, maybe it is a copy paste error?--217.247.47.14 (talk) 01:05, 22 April 2017 (UTC) http://www.lepoint.fr/societe/paris-coups-de-feu-sur-les-champs-elysees-20-04-2017-2121296_23.php says he was born in Livry-Gargan France? I have removed "Tataouine Tunisia" as the place of birth unless someone as a source.
 * Most sources agree with Livry-Gargan. Then lived in Chelles. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:16, 22 April 2017 (UTC)


 * We already had a source saying as much, but apparently misread it. Fixed now. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:25, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Victim was gay rights activist
User:WWGB: You reverted referenced info about the dead policeman being a gay rights activist, saying it was "irrelevant". If both The New York Times and The Guardian have whole articles about it, it's not irrelevant. Can you please restore it?Zigzig20s (talk) 07:51, 22 April 2017 (UTC)


 * No, I will absolutely not. The sexuality of the deceased has no relevance to the circumstances of his death. We are not writing a biography of the officer. If you think it belongs in the article, please make an argument on this page. Something being mentioned in the media does not automatically make it notable. WWGB (talk) 07:58, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
 * He was a member of the French LGBT police organization. It's not about his sexuality per se, but about his activism, as highlighted by The New York Times and The Guardian. For example The Guardian says, "On Friday, it emerged that Jugelé was a proud defender of gay rights. A member of Flag, a French association for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender police officers, he had joined protests against Russia’s ban on “homosexual propaganda” before the 2014 Olympics." [...]“He was a simple man who loved his job, and he was really committed to the LGBT cause,” Mikaël Bucheron, the president of Flag told the New York Times. “He joined the association a few years ago and he protested with us when there was the homosexual propaganda ban at the Sochi Olympic Games.”."Zigzig20s (talk) 08:10, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
 * A sentence about the specific group and specific protest would be clearer than simply characterizing him as a gay rights activist. A few years doesn't define a 37-year-old, and the BT crowd aren't exactly gay. No more or less relevant than the bit about attending the theatre. Victims shouldn't get near as much background info as killers, but in this case, the disparity is exceptionally huge. Another factoid on top of the one doesn't tip the balance against the twelve or so the kiler gets. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:41, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
 * The organization he was involved with has a long article on the French Wikipedia.Zigzig20s (talk) 01:19, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
 * ✅ Support putting Xavier Jugelé's background as an LGBT+ activist back into the article. It is entirely relevant to understand something about who the victim was, it was a major part of his life, and this has been widely reported as a significant theme in different national newspapers, because it is of public interest. There never has been a Wikipedia policy that states that key facts of public interest about a person's life should only be mentioned in a stand alone biography, and it seems obvious that we are not going to create an article about Jugelé when we have an article about the shooting. I find it disappointing that basic relevant information like this, which is well supported by sources, has to be argued over. --Fæ (talk) 09:53, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

English sources
These are sources with LGBT or gay in the title, but every other article I have seen on this today, includes his work as an activist and many mention his partner. --Fæ (talk) 10:56, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
 * 1) New York Times Xavier Jugelé, 37, Officer Killed in Paris, Was Defender of Gay Rights
 * 2) The Guardian Xavier Jugelé: policeman killed in Paris was gay rights activist
 * 3) Out Xavier Jugelé: Policeman Killed in Paris Attack Championed LGBTQ Rights


 * This is an article about an attack, not a biography, and certainly not a memorial. WWGB (talk) 12:27, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, and these articles by national newspapers are about an attack, not a biography, and certainly not a memorial. It strikes me that were someone to add "leaving a family of three children" or "a practicing Muslim" then there would be no threats to revert as "irrelevant". Please step back and let valid content be added to this article. --Fæ (talk) 12:31, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you should step aside if your personal persuasions affect your editing preferences. WWGB (talk) 12:42, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I have no idea what you are talking about, could you explain exactly what you mean by "personal persuasions"? Nothing here has been mentioned about my personal life, only opinions based on reliable sources. --Fæ (talk) 13:05, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

As there has been no response here, I have gone ahead and added the background on Jugelé including his length of service with the police force. It is not controversial and widely reported in national press. --Fæ (talk) 22:11, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
 * That seems reasonable. Rivertorch   FIRE WATER   04:46, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Husband/Civil Partner?
We use a source which says "Xavier Jugelé était pacsé"; however, much of the English-speaking media refers to Etienne as Xavier's husband (e.g. CNN here]). Certainly in English he is referred to much more often as his "husband" than his "civil partner" (though there are also instances of "boyfriend" and "partner"). Is any more clarity on this possible? Is it more unanimous in the French-speaking media? TSP (talk) 09:39, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * It's PACS; I added a wikilink. Gay marriage came later and they probably didn't see the point in changing their legal status.Zigzig20s (talk) 10:40, 28 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Either way, in my experience of being in a civil partnership and same sex marriage, 'husband' is respectful and correct to use in English, 'boyfriend' is not appropriate. --Fæ (talk) 12:45, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Use of the noun "attack" to describe the event
I have questions about the widespread use of the noun "attack" to describe this event. These questions similarly concern other accounts of violence where the use of the word "attack" seems related to the country of origin or religion of the alleged perpetrator or perpetrators. I will therefore try to raise this concern elsewhere as well. (For this reason, please bear with me if you see this comment elsewhere and it seems repetitive.)

My concern is roughly as follows. First, calling such an incident an attack uses the register of war to characterize the event. (Consider for example the widespread use of the expression _armed attack_ in the UN Charter and in other instruments treating the laws of war.)  This is a very specific move and seems to me to be one of consequence in our understanding of such an event. This is to say that the use of war as an animating backdrop into which to integrate our understanding of the event is a very specific choice, and by no means the only option at our disposal. Using the noun "attack" and the backdrop of war to characterize an individual event assimilates it to the plane of collective action. Assimilating an individual act to wider collective action is a very specific interpretive choice, and one that is not disinterested. For example, characterization of an event as a crime does not generally carry the suggestion of collective action. It might be objected that characterizing such an event as a crime is not apt because of the apparent political motivation of the violence considered. Options other than imposing a frame of either war or collective action onto our understand of an event are nonetheless available. Consider our understanding of the Oklahoma City bombing or the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre, for example. No one doubts the political motivation underlying either event, yet our understanding of neither of these events is animated by the suggestion of either war or collective action more generally. If it is wished to indicate a wider conspiracy underlying an individual event, such a conspiracy should be indicated explicitly, not by means of suggestion or innuendo. In a dispassionate account with ambitions of being held out as a reliable encyclopedia article, collective action should be demonstrated by the evidence provided. Collective action should not be an unsubstantiated, hollow spectre that looms over every corner of such an account.

Second, even in the case that collective action--specifically, war--is chosen and adopted as the animating register for the discussion of this event, "attack" is a particularly odd choice in characterizing it. To repeat what's already stated above, both war--and more generally, collective action--are specific interpretative choices for our understanding of this event, neither is obvious or necessary. If such an interpretative choice is adopted, such a choice should be explicit and, ideally, demonstrated by the evidence--deserving a discussion of its own. Now, in the case that collective action and war is chosen as a rubric in which to understand this event, "attack" carries an added suggestion. "Attack" suggests the initiation of hostilities. Once again the claim being made is not explicit, but is glossed over by means of suggestion and innuendo. Again, one suspects that the claim comes by way of suggestion and innuendo because it would collapse if it were made explicitly. The Pentagon and Whitehall began bombing Afghanistan in October 2001, Iraq in March 2003, Syria in September 2014, and Somalia since at least October 2016. French and affiliated NATO forces began their occupation of Afghanistan in December 2001, and of Libya in March 2011. (France has also announced a bombing campaign of the Sahel region in August 2014, that includes parts of Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Algeria, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea, Cameroon, Central African Republic, and Ethiopia.) One is by no means obligated to understand an individual act of violence in the United States, UK, or France in the context of "war" that includes these military campaigns singularly or collectively; as already emphasized, taking such an act to be one of war is the result of a specific interpretive choice. However, in the case that this route is selected--and an act in the United States, Britain, or France is taken to be part of a war--it seems highly misleading to further portray such an act with an incipient or initiating flavor that "attack" suggests. This portrayal is again glossed over without discussion and seemingly counter to all evidence: if an individual event is understood as a collective action that is part of a wider war, using language that suggests or attributes an initiating character to such an event seems highly dubious when that event takes place 15+ years into the supposed war. Characterizing such an event as an attack seems to want it both ways: to push an account of the event as a collective action that is an act of war, and to at the same time avoid any discussion of that wider war ("attack" with its suggestion that t=0; as opposed to "response," usually reserved for justifications of the ensuring state-violence).

Use of the word "attack" to describe such an individual act thus seems to me highly incoherent. It is an interpretive choice that on the one hand suggests collective responsibility for an individual act of violence, and does so by means of innuendo rather than explicitly (for doing so explicitly would seem dubious in the absence of specific evidence that is often simply not there to be found). And on the other hand, substantive discussion of the wider war being suggested as the animating context in which the event occurs is avoided; "attack" carries with it the suggestion (again, pure innuendo unlikely to survive serious discussion) that the event has an initiating character, glossing over the possibility that such an event could be the response to something.

For these reasons, this word does not seem worthy to form the basis of a discussion which aims to be neutral or dispassionate. Rather it seems highly politicized, and on even a moment's inspection, a tendentious characterization that summarily assimilates an individual event to a collective act of war, while at the same time denying the continuity of the very war being supposed ("attack" bearing the suggestion that event initiates, rather than responds to anything). Moreover, one wonders if the term carries slanderous suggestions; the spectre of collective responsibility cast by the word seems particularly given to scapegoating. "Conspiracy theorist" is a term of derision often used to characterize the speculations of those that suppose collective action or a plot in the absence of good evidence. Well, in addition to its being unthinking newspeak--in its current, and now longstanding, uniform use--"attack" is nothing if not a term of the conspiracy theorist. Collective action is supposed in the absence of evidence. The fear-mongering of supposed collective action gives rise to the war-mongering of suggested collective responsibility.

The innuendo and spectres that one might expect to litter Pentagon briefings should not provide the basis for an encyclopedia article that aims to be disinterested. Alfred Nemours (talk) 15:50, 5 July 2017 (UTC)


 * A word to the wise. Screeds like the above are unlikely to be productive, and posting them in multiple places just makes it worse. If you want other users to read, let alone actually consider, what you post, you need to summarize. I got bogged down in the verbosity, but I think what you're saying is that you want to retitle the article and perhaps also purge it (and other articles) of the word "attack" because you think the word inevitably carries specific connotations. If that's the case, then I disagree. The wording used in Wikipedia articles is largely based on the wording used by reliable secondary sources, and the use of "attack" in this article seems entirely consistent with that.  Rivertorch   FIRE WATER   17:15, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Attack neither means nor implies collective action, nor war. It just plain doesn't. The word is in the register, to employ your term, of violence, which seems appropriate. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 18:02, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

"Attack" has an established meaning in International Law. It invokes the register of war. It denotes collective action. It at the same embodies a claim about who is initiating such a war, indicating collective responsibility. These are very specific interpretive choices, presented as if they amount to straight description. I would expect to find them in a Pentagon briefing that seeks to justify an ensuing military campaign. I am surprised to find them in an article that aims to be disinterested.
 * Alfred Nemours (talk) 02:31, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Without agreeing or disagreeing with your assertion about the meaning of "attack" in international law, why should WP be constrained by the meaning of a common English word in a specialist context? Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 03:03, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) :This article isn't about international law. It's about an occurrence that has been widely described as an attack, which is a word that entered the English language around 400 years ago and is used uncontroversially in all manner of contexts. For instance, I was attacked by a dog many years ago, and even before that, I was attacked by a human. It isn't an "interpretive choice" on my part to say I was attacked—I don't use the word advisedly—but rather the first word that comes to mind and probably the most apt word. In any event, let's cut to the chase: exactly what changes are you proposing should be made to this article? Rivertorch   FIRE WATER   03:06, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Person of interest
I removed the content under WP:UNDUE / WP:BLP: the subject was cleared of any wrongdoing. Preserving here by providing this link. K.e.coffman (talk) 20:21, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 28 June 2018

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move the page at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasu よ! 21:56, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

April 2017 Champs-Élysées attack → Champs-Élysées shootings – Clearly disambiguate from June 2017 Champs-Élysées car ramming attack and also clarify that it's a shooting incident (WP:RECOGNIZE). Also removes the need for a year, which is especially beneficial here as it's already a pretty long 'April 2017'. Gateshead001 (talk) 21:30, 28 June 2018 (UTC) --Relisting. Dekimasu よ! 17:45, 12 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Oppose I choose to oppose because WP:COMMONNAME. MayMay7 (talk) 07:58, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I disagree. A Google search reveals that both 'attack' and 'shootings' have been used by the media. The only reason it has been called 'attack' by some is because it's a shorter form for 'terror attack'. At the end of the day this was a shooting incident. Also calling it 'shootings' supports WP:RECOGNIZE. --Gateshead001 (talk) 10:59, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
 * The attack was investigated and treated by French police and prosecutors as terrorist attack under French law. The law describes it as "murders with terrorism intent". So a shooting made with terrorism intent is treated as terrorist attack. MayMay7 (talk) 10:24, 30 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Oppose. The date, the year especially, is very important for recognizability.  This is definitely so historic place amended only otherwise with the a very common word ("attack" is ambiguous), but it should be accepted as a general rule for isolate events.  As the even becomes old, the year in the title becomes increasingly important.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:33, 20 July 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.