Nice mayor Éric Ciotti has written to FIFA requesting a minute's silence before Tuesday's World Cup semi final between France and Spain, in tribute to the 86 people killed in the July 14, 2016 attack on the Promenade des Anglais, ten years to the day before the match kicks off.
In a letter to FIFA president Gianni Infantino, published on his social media accounts, Ciotti wrote that the tribute "would be received with profound emotion by the victims' families, survivors and all of France," and that a minute's silence would speak to "the values of fraternity, peace, respect and unity that FIFA and football owe it to themselves to promote on every pitch." A parallel letter went to French football federation president Philippe Diallo, asking for the federation's support in securing FIFA's agreement.
The match falls in the middle of three days of commemoration in Nice, which began Sunday with a solemn march retracing the route taken by the attacker's lorry through the crowd, and continues Tuesday with an official ceremony on the Promenade des Anglais led by President Emmanuel Macron at 6pm, followed by a drone display and the now traditional lighting of 86 beams at 10.34pm, the time the truck entered the crowd in 2016. Ciotti's request follows a similar public appeal from Jonathan Gensburger, director of a play staged in Nice about the attack, who called on the French team, its supporters and viewers at home to observe a silence of their own regardless of what FIFA decides.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0