Vallejo’s coffee roasting Frenchman reacts to Paris terror attacks
By Rachel Raskin-Zrihen, Vallejo Times-Herald
01/10/15,
Vallejo coffee roaster Fabrice Moschetti – a native of France – said he’s been glued to his TV since the terror in Paris started this past week.
Moschetti, who was born in Nice but lived all over the country, including outside of Paris, moved to the Vallejo/Napa area 26 years ago.
“I started seeing stuff about it on Facebook, so I started looking at the French news sites,” he said. “I didn’t know what was happening.”
The massacre of the editor and cartoonists of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and the subsequent murders of police and hostages in a Kosher market over the past two days, has left Moschetti concerned about the future of his country of origin, where his parents still live. In fact, they recently returned there from a visit here, he said.
“Of course, I’m concerned,” he said.”They’ve been attacked three times in the last four years. It’s a very scary world.”
Though careful not to generalize about any particular group of people, Moschetti said it is inescapable to conclude that “there’s a percentage of Muslim youth in France that have been radicalized. Sometimes they go to Syria or Yemen for training and come back and do these horrible things.”
France, he said, appears to be at a crossroads: Facing off with a group of religious fanatics at war with modernity.
“It’s very frightening. I think these terrorist actions will give the French a lot to think about,” he said. “We have to make a choice about what kind of future we want.”
In France, like the United States, “citizenship is in the soil,” so, if you’re born there, you are automatically a citizen, he said. But, the inability or refusal of a percentage of French North African immigrants to assimilate into French society is bound to be a major topic during the next elections there, Moschetti said.
“They’ll have to do some soul searching,” he said. “They’ll have to decide how they want to live.”
Moschetti said he remembers thinking the world was heading toward permanent peace when he was growing up.
“The war was over, the wall came down,” he said. “But, now there is this growing hatred, anti-Semitism. It brings you back to the worst part of the Nazi era. It’s frightening to think you can be killed over making a joke, a cartoon. Very tragic, so sad.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With the Times-Herald since 1999, Rachel Raskin-Zrihen has been a reporter, writer and columnist for several print and online publications for nearly 30 years. She is the married mother of two grown sons and lives locally. Reach the author at or follow Rachel on Twitter: @rachelvth.
