In 18 months France has been the target of three major
terrorist attacks claimed by jihadists in which more than 230 people have died.
Candles and white roses are displayed on the French flag in Toulouse on
November 14, 2015 as a tribute to the victims of the attacks in Paris in which
128 people were killed. Islamic State jihadists on Saturday claimed a series of
coordinated attacks by gunmen and suicide bombers in Paris that killed at least
128 people in scenes of carnage at a concert hall, restaurants and the national
stadium.File Photo The country has also been kept on edge by a succession of
shocking but less bloody attacks and attempts to kill, often by lone
extremists. With the Islamic State group claiming responsibility for the latest
massacre in Nice in which 84 people were killed, we ask why France has become
such a target for jihadist violence:
Fight against terror
From sub-Saharan
Africa to the Middle East, France is in the front line of the fight against
radical Islamist groups. It is the second biggest contributor to US-led
airstrikes against IS in Iraq and Syria. Ahead of Thursday’s Nice attack,
President Francois Hollande announced that the Charles de Gaulle aircraft
carrier, a symbol of French military power, was being deployed anew in the
Middle East. France has declared itself “at war” since the November 13 attacks
in Paris in which 130 people died, which investigators believe was planned by
Islamic State from Syria and Iraq. In sub-Saharan Africa France has 3,000
military personnel on the ground taking part in Operation Barkhane, targeting
several jihadist groups such as Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) But
despite being weakened by French military intervention in Mali in 2013, AQIM
continues to mount spectacular attacks such as those in the Burkina Faso
capital Ouagadougou and at Grand Bassam in the Ivory Coast.
Hated secular model
France’s strict
secular laws which ban the Islamic veil in schools and covering the face in
public have outraged Islamic hardliners, according to religious historian Odon
Vallet. “For them France’s clear-cut secularism is incompatible with Islam,” he
added. The country’s commitment to freedom of speech, which allows unfettered
criticism of religion, has also put it in the jihadists’ crosshairs. The deadly
attack against the Charlie Hebdo magazine in January 2015 came out of the
assailants’ fury at the satirical weekly’s controversial cartoons of the
Prophet Mohammed. “France is the country where the debate over Islam” gets the
most heated, argued sociologist Raphael Liogier. But “history is also a hidden
reason”, Vallet said, pointing out France’s “role in the break up of the
Ottoman empire” in 1920 which led to the end of the caliphate. The Sykes-Picot
agreement that carved up Iraq and Syria between France and Britain is often
cited by Islamic State as the root of the region’s problems. This “colonial
history makes France one of IS’s principal enemies,” Vallet added.
‘Social apartheid’
France is home to the biggest Muslim community in Europe, estimated
at five million people. Most are descended from families from the country’s
former northern African colonies, with which France has a painful shared
history, with hundreds of thousands dying during the Algerian war of
independence. Job discrimination has further hampered integration, with some
third- and even fourth-generation immigrants claiming they are not made to feel
properly French. Tensions with the police are never far from the surface in
some of the rundown suburban housing estates with large immigrant populations,
where youth unemployment runs at more than 40 percent. Prime Minister Manuel
Valls went as far as to talk of “a territorial, social and ethnic apartheid” on
some of the estates that exploded into three weeks of rioting in 2005.
Homegrown fighters
As many as 600 French citizens have rallied to the IS flag
in Iraq and Syria as well as many French-speaking Tunisians and Moroccans.
Returning fighters “can slip very easily into the country”, said Patrick
Calvar, head of the French domestic intelligence agency. “There are multiple
targets and the terrorists can strike at the easy ones.” The suspected
mastermind of the November 13 attacks in Paris, the Belgian Abdelhamid Abaaoud,
is one such returning fighter. He first came to notoriety in Syria filming IS
atrocities there.
Weakened government
Just as security experts say France is the Western country
most at threat from attack, the authority of its Socialist government is
wavering as a 2017 presidential election looms. Francois Hollande is one of the
most unpopular French presidents on record and, as in other European countries,
the far-right is on the rise. Jihadist attacks, which are designed to divide
and polarise, have added to the febrile atmosphere with polls putting the
far-right ahead in the first round of the presidential vote.
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