Symbolic Attacks on Symbolic Monuments

Suppose that, whether it be by war, terrorism, or any conflict, that a country's symbolic monuments were destroyed. Would it have a large blow to morale, be used as a propaganda tool, or actually foster revenge and nationalism?

Example: (although quite implausible) during the Paris attacks of 2015 (not the Charlie Hebdo ones), the Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame were destroyed/damages by ISIS. How would this affect French society?
 
Well, possible case study...

Were people in New York significantly affected by the fact that it was the WTC that was destroyed, as opposed to some no-name building hosting a roughly equal number of victims?

Granted, the WTC might not exactly qualify as a monument per se, but it's the closest thing I can think of. My own guess would that a downed monument would obviously be conscripted for propganda purposes, but there likely wouldn't be a noticable impact on the actual public mood. X Number dead is still going to be X number dead, whether or not a famous structure went down with them.
 
It's really hard to destroy big buildings. WTC needed to be hit by planes. Al Qaida had that budget, and in fact originally planned to hijack 12 planes and destroy 11 monuments, before scaling down; ISIS so far does not, and commits vanilla bombings in the cities its members live in. It's far more likely that ISIS would attack crowded monuments but not attempt to destroy them; that would be the equivalent of bombing Times Square.
 
The most obvious case is the statue of Nelson in Dublin. After the IRA had a pop at blowing him up, the Irish Army came back and used far more explosive to blow the whole thing up properly, complete with cheering crowds.
 
Reminds me somewhat of how in Barcelona in 1968 militants blew up the monument to the Condor Legion in defiance of the fascist government but nothing really changed. I think such events can foster nationalism and outrage among those who are already inclined to nationalism but for the vast majority of people they'll continue on with their lives as though nothing happened and, frankly, you can destroy as many statues and monuments as you want but it won't change the economics and politics of a nation state.
 
You would need a lot of explosives to destroy Notre-Dame de Paris, and even more to bring down the Eiffel Tower. I think the loss of the former would be infinitely worse in terms of both the cultural damage and the capacity for casualties (Sunday Mass there... full of tourists, the Archbishop celebrating, oh my). They would rebuild, of course, but so much beauty would be lost forever. And knowing the French Church they would include some awful postmodern edifice. That said, the twisted ruins of the Eiffel Tower would make for some wonderful photographs.
 
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