It was 1971 when France last went a calendar year without a terror attack.
An attacker shouting « Allahu Akbar » (God is greatest) beheading a woman with a knife and killing two other people in a church in Nice, France, before being shot himself by police has further inflamed tensions between France and Muslim communities. It follows a similar beheading of a teacher in Paris two weeks before. What happens now with the « war on Islamist ideology » and is it a case of « when » and not « if » a bigger attack takes place on French soil? France is open in its war against radical Islamist ideology. « We are in a war against an enemy that is both inside and outside, » French interior minister Gerald Darmanin told RTL radio, admitting that more terror attacks in France are inevitable. « We need to understand that there have been and there will be other events such as these terrible attacks, » he said. France has recently increased its efforts, with clear calls for regulation of social media and introducing a national bill specifically to fight radical Islam. Officials have closed a mosque and proposed to ban a number of Muslim groups considered extreme by authorities. This is all to defend, French ministers say, France’s secular state, away from any religious interference. « Very clearly France is under attack, » French President Emmanuel Macron said after the most recent attack, but he was clear in his calls to unite France rather than embrace the « spirit of division. » With tensions rising, it not just French ministers that are warning about an escalation in violence. In 2015 including the attack on Charlie Hebdo’s offices and the November 2015 Paris attacks, there were 36 terror attacks in France, killing 161 people. « The political temperature is being raised and the French government response is part of that, » Frank Foley, senior lecturer in international relations at King’s College, London, tells Newsweek. « This expansive approach of tackling radical Islam, very broadly defined, the results don’t look very good. France’s extremism problem is as bad as it ever was. » This is further exacerbated by nations with majority Muslim populations saying that France has overstepped the mark with its response to extremism. Macron is « attacking Islam, » deciding to « deliberately provoke Muslims » and « encouraging Islamophobia, » according to the Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has called for a boycott of French goods and told Macron to « go get your mental health checked, » saying that he « needs mental treatment » because of a speech given about radical Islamism.
