Tragedy in France again

As France reels from the tragedy in Nice, the third major attack in 18 months, the deaths of over 80 people will likely provide more fodder for the anti-Europe and anti-immigration line of the Front National (FN). If France is to combat both terror and the calls of the extreme right, it will need to ensure aggressive counter-terrorism mechanisms are complemented by a far-reaching counter-radicalisation strategy promoting the values of equality, liberty and fraternity. Such a strategy is in place, but it is years behind similar projects in other countries. Some catching-up is required.

The background of both the Nice attack, in which a lorry was driven for more than a mile through the crowds assembled to watch the Bastille Day fireworks, and of its attacker, identified as a 31-year-old man of Franco-Tunisian origin, are still being clarified. But FN leader Marine Le Pen wasted little time in using the event to score political points against the French government’s response to terrorism, fanning the flames of domestic discontent. Speaking to Le Figaro, she advocated measures to deprive terrorists of nationality, close Salafi mosques and ban certain organisations.

The FN has repeatedly warned against Islam and led arguments against immigration and gay marriage. And the party is doing well in the polls, with Le Pen expected to reach the final round of the presidential election in April 2017. No doubt the attack will also be further fuel for its anti-European stance—Le Pen has been calling for a French referendum on European Union membership for three years. Until recently, FN was considered a fringe movement. But research on countering extremism conducted by RUSI in France in the wake of the Paris attacks suggests that, for many, the extreme right now represents the mainstream.

And it is Muslims who are bearing the brunt: with each terrorist attack comes a further entrenchment of negative views of Islam, and greater conflation of ordinary Muslims with terrorists. As one young French Muslim told our researchers, “these attacks give people an excuse to say ‘look at these people who lived in France and destroyed the country’… they give Islam a bad name, and the excuse to vote Front National.” After three major attacks, many French think their leaders are impotent against the enemy.

France’s Muslim population count for some 9.6 per cent of the population. Some of them believe that the FN and similar parties should be perceived as radical in the same way that Muslims extremists are. One French Muslim girl told us, “When people vote FN, there is simply an impression of not being radical, because this is just a vote in the ballot box.” Moreover, the French right is fostering anti-Islamic movements abroad, including in the Netherlands and Germany. In the wake of Brexit a host of European far-right parties welcomed the result and vowed to push for similar referendums.

Meanwhile, terror attacks in European cities have global ramifications. The framing of the discussion about radicalisation as related to Islamic State obscures the daily security concerns affecting people’s lives. We found that violence and assaults on ordinary Muslims increase exponentially in the wake of Al-Qaeda or IS-related attacks. In Canada, Muslim women reported Islamophobic abuse and attacks in the wake of the Paris massacre in November 2015. Women who wear hijabs described how, in the subway, they walked with their backs to the walls for fear of being pushed onto the tracks—as has happened in one case in London. Community resilience is tested by one difficult event after another. And this resilience is crucial to prevent further radicalisation.

And this is part of the problem. Terror incidents impact on the ability of communities to feel comfortable with one another, and restrict discussion about how to combat extremism of all kinds in the public space. This tendency has already been noted: in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo killings in January 2015, and the public grief after Paris, events in Nice have revealed stark divisions between people of different political views, and within the government itself, over how to deal with these threats.

How the French government responds to the Nice attacks will have far-reaching ramifications. The French president François Hollande has extended the state of emergency instituted in November for another three months. He announced, yet again, that France is “at war” with the threat of Islamist terrorism. A further 10,000 army reservists are to be deployed and activities will be “strengthened” in Iraq and Syria.

These measures, particularly if conducted at the expense of efforts to deal with the underlying issues, are likely to be counter-productive. Increased efforts are needed to implement and strengthen France’s counter-radicalisation strategy and to address some of the root causes or drivers. This matters far more to France than its armed response. French people participating in our study expressed a strong sense of helplessness in the face of terrorism and little confidence in the government’s ability to address it. Ridiculing attempts by the government to counter terrorism through efforts to encourage reporting of suspicious activity, one French man said “The problems are deeper than that.”