Patrick Pelloux has good reasons to be angry after last week’s attacks in Paris; he’s been through two terrorist attacks in his city so far this year.
Pelloux had just gone through an emergency services simulation of a terrorist attack last Friday morning when, just hours later, that training scenario turned into a reality.
He was at a hospital when the victims began coming in after six attacks rocked the French capital Friday night.
READ MORE: RCMP following up on ISIS recording possibly voiced by Canadian
Pelloux and his colleagues were able to help save 16 people that night thanks to studying military medical journals and learning skills such as how to treat gunshot wounds, in the months since the last terrorist attack in Paris — the shooting at the office of French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo that left 11 people dead.
Pelloux was also working as a writer for Charlie Hebdo at the time. He said saw eight of his co-workers die that day.
READ MORE: Why was Charlie Hebdo magazine targeted in the Paris shooting?
WATCH ABOVE: Dawna Friesen’s extended interview with Dr. Patrick Pelloux, where he describes what he thinks about France being at war and the what Canada and the rest of the world need to do.
After two attacks in less than 12 months, Pelloux said France and the world need to act against terrorism.
ISIS claimed responsibility for last week’s attacks and in the days that have followed, French fighter jets have unleashed a barrage of airstrikes on the terror group’s stronghold in Raqqa, Syria — the de facto capital of its self-declared “caliphate” — and carried out a series of raids on the hideouts of suspects and suspected accomplices.
French President Francois Hollande this week said the country is at war with ISIS.
At least two people died in the raid, including a woman who blew herself up with a belt loaded with explosives. French authorities have not yet said whether 27-year-old Abaaoud or fellow suspect Salah Abdeslam were killed in the raid, but neither were in custody.
But Pelloux knows retaliation for the terror attacks goes far beyond hunting for these two suspects; eight other suspects died during the Friday night attacks, which killed 129 innocent people and wounded 368 others.
Pelloux says he agrees with President Hollande calling on other nations to go to war with “Daesh” — an Arabic name for ISIS that is meant as an insult.
READ MORE: Here’s why world leaders are calling ISIS ‘Daesh’
But he knows that could come at a cost — the potential for more attacks on France and other countries involved in the international coalition fighting ISIS.
Despite the call for more international cooperation to eradicate the extremist group, which has carried out mass atrocities in Syria and Iraq, Pelloux is aware that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau plans to scale back Canada’s involvement in the anti-ISIS mission.
Pelloux said that’s “a mistake.”
And he warned that Canada could endure what Paris already has if they don’t stay in the fight.
Pelloux said he can’t imagine Canada not assisting France in avenging the terror attacks and wiping out the threat ISIS poses, given Canada’s role in liberating France from the Nazis during the Second World War
“He must help my country,” he said. “It’s not a Canadian attitude.”
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