Terror threat

The terrorists have come for the young and the free, and there is only one possible response

November 13’s coordinated Paris massacres sent a message to young people across the world that they are targets. The under-40 crowd, wherever there is freedom of movement and spirit, are all Generation Bataclan.The latest victims have been killed for the alleged “crime” of being as carefree as you afford to can be in a contemporary job market and society where few have stable work. Life is increasingly precarious and expensive. Take the murdered Bataclan concert-goer Christophe Lellouche, 33, who had just lost his job as a communications officer with Peugeot, but still decided to go to the much-anticipated Eagles of Death Metal concert. Chances to meet potential lovers and mates face to face outside of online forums are limited. But there are exceptions in the havens of tolerance in unassuming public spaces in these gentrifying parts of the world’s great metropolises, like Paris’s 10th and 11th arrondissements.