Arthur Pereira, edited by Ophelie Artaud
modified to
8:23 p.m., July 09, 2022
Japan is in mourning after the assassination of Shinzo Abe. The former Japanese Prime Minister was shot twice in the neck on Friday while delivering a speech ahead of senatorial elections scheduled for Sunday. A suspect has been arrested, a 41-year-old man believed to have belonged to the Japanese Navy.
And, if his motives are quite vague, he admitted to having deliberately targeted Shinzo Abe. On the spot, the assassination of the one who remained Prime Minister in Japan the longest shocked part of the population.
“It is difficult for the moment to see what the consequences will be”
“The assassination of Shinzo Abe is an extremely significant shock. Japan is a country that is extremely safe and much less accustomed to public violence than, for example, the United States or even our societies which have experienced numerous terrorist attacks”, explains Valérie Niquet, specialist in Southeast Asia.
“For the moment, it is difficult to see what the concrete consequences will be, it will depend on the motivations behind the act of this man. The reactions will be different if it is a blow of madness that strikes a personality very well known, but an act like this has already happened several times in Japan, including recently. Behind this act, there is also a political discourse which could have consequences in terms of mobilization”, adds -she.
“He left an imprint in all kinds of fields”
For his part, Guibourg Delamotte, an expert in Japanese political science, explains this very particular emotion by the place that Shinzo Abe had taken in the political life of Japan. “Shinzo Abe is such a figure in political life, he has been present every day, every day, in the media, all the time, for all these years. So for the population, indeed, he is an extremely familiar. He was still someone who had been able to mobilize, who had been able to carry out a certain number of projects. So he left an imprint, a really important trace in all kinds of fields”, she said. estimated at the microphone of Europe 1.
The assassination of Shinzo Abe also made the international community react. For Emmanuel Macron, Japan loses “a great Prime Minister”. “It’s a tragedy,” said Joe Biden.