The sophisticated, military-style strike on Wednesday on French weekly Charlie Hebdo, known for satirizing Islam, staggered a continent already seething with anti-immigrant sentiments in some quarters, feeding far-right nationalist parties like France’s National Front.
“This is a dangerous moment for European societies,” said Peter Neumann, director of the International Center for the Study of Radicalization at King’s College London. “With increasing radicalization among supporters of jihadist organizations and the white working class increasingly feeling disenfranchised and uncoupled from elites, things are coming to a head.”
French academic of Islam and radicalism Olivier Roy called the Paris assault — the most deadly terrorist attack on French soil since the Algerian war ended in the early 1960s — “a quantitative and therefore qualitative turning point,” referring to the number of victims.
Illustration: Yusha
“This was a maximum-impact attack,” he said. “They did this to shock the public, and in that sense they succeeded.”
Anti-immigrant attitudes have been on the rise in recent years in Europe, propelled in part by a moribund economy and high unemployment, as well as increasing immigration and more porous borders. The growing resentments have lifted the fortunes of established parties, including the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in Britain and the National Front, as well as lesser-known groups, such as the Patriotic Europeans Against Islamization of the West, which assembled 18,000 marchers in Dresden, Germany, on Monday.
In Sweden, where there have been three recent attacks on mosques, the anti-immigrant, anti-Islamic Sweden Democrats party has been getting about 15 percent support in recent public opinion polls.
Paris was traumatized by the attack, with widespread fears of another.
“We feel less and less safe,” said Didier Cantat, 34, standing outside the police barriers at the scene. “If it happened today, it will happen again, maybe even worse.”
Cantat spoke for many when he said the attacks could fuel greater anti-immigrant sentiment.
“We are told Islam is for God, for peace, but when you see this other Islam, with the jihadists, I do not see peace, I see hatred. So people cannot tell which is the real Islam,” he said.
SECULARISM
Charlie Hebdo magazine in its raucous, vulgar and sometimes commercially driven effort to offend every Islamic piety, including the figure of the Prophet Mohammed, became a symbol of an aggressive French secularism that saw its truest enemy in the rise of conservative Islam in France, which is estimated to have the largest Muslim population in Europe.
On Wednesday, Islamic radicals struck back.
“This secular atheism is an act of war in this context,” said Andrew Hussey, a Paris-based professor of post-colonial studies.
Hussey is the author of The French Intifada, which describes the tangled relations between France and its Muslims, still marked by colonialism and the Algerian War.
“Politically, the official left in France has been in denial of the conflict between France and the Arab world, but the French in general sense it,” Hussey said.
The attack left some Muslims fearing a backlash.
“Some people when they think terrorism, think Muslims,” said Arnaud N’Goma, 26, as he took a cigarette break outside the bank where he works.
Samir Elatrassi, 27, concurred, saying: “Islamophobia is going to increase more and more. When some people see these kinds of terrorists, they conflate them with other Muslims, and it is the extreme right that is going to benefit from this.”
German Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maziere told reporters on Wednesday: “The situation is serious. There is reason for worry, and for precautions, but not for panic.”
However, with each terrorist attack, the acceptability of anti-immigrant policies seems to reach deeper into the mainstream. For example, in Britain, which also has a large Muslim population, UKIP has called for a British exit from the EU and sharp controls on immigration, emphasizing what it sees as dangers to British values and identity. The mainstream parties have competed in promising more controls on immigration, too.
“Large parts of the European public are latently anti-Muslim and increasing mobilization of these forces is now reaching into the center of society,” Neumann said. “If we see more of these incidents, and I think we will, we will see a further polarization of these European societies in the years to come.”
Those who will suffer the most from such a backlash are the Muslim populations of Europe, “the ordinary normal Muslims who are trying to live their lives in Europe,” he said.
Nowhere in Europe are the tensions greater than in constitutionally secular France, with as many as 6 million Muslims, a painful colonial history in Algeria, Syria and North Africa, and a militarily bold foreign policy. That history has been aggravated by a period of governmental and economic weakness, when France seems incapable of serious structural, social and economic reform.
The mood of failure and paralysis is widespread in France. The Charlie Hebdo attack came on the publication day of a contentious new novel, Submission, by Michel Houellebecq, which describes the victory of Islam in France and the gradual collaboration of the society with its new rulers from within. Houellebecq, like the well-known caricaturists and editors who were killed at Charlie Hebdo, has been a symbol of French artistic liberty and license, and his publishers, Flammarion, were reported to be concerned that he and they could be another target.
However, the atmosphere has been heightened by the rise of the National Front and its leader, Marine Le Pen, who runs ahead of the Socialist Party in the polls, campaigning on the threat Islam poses to French values and nationhood.
‘DOUBLE HONEY’
There was much recent attention to another best-selling book by conservative social critic Eric Zemmour called The French Suicide, attacking the left and the state for being powerless to defend France against Americanization, globalization, immigration and, of course, Islam.
Another new novel, by another well-known French writer, Jean Rolin, called The Events, envisions a broken France policed by a UN peacekeeping force after a civil war.
“This attack is double honey for the National Front,” French Foundation for Strategic Research director Camille Grand said. “Le Pen says everywhere that Islam is a massive threat, and that France should not support attacks in Iraq and instead defend the homeland, and not create threats by going abroad, so they can naturally take advantage of it.”
The military-style attack creates major security questions for France, a senior French official said, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on such a delicate matter.
“We knew this would happen, but we did not know how efficient it would be,” he said.
After a series of three apparently lone-wolf attacks on crowds during Christmas in France, and other attacks in Ottawa and in Sydney, Australia, there was speculation that this attack might also be a response to the September call of Islamic State group spokesman Abu Mohamed al-Adnani for supporters to strike at domestic targets of the nations attacking the Islamic State.
Grand said that at least 2,000 young French citizens have traveled to fight with the militants in Iraq and Syria.
“So how do we manage our Muslim population?” Grand said.
“This kind of attack is very difficult to detect or prevent,” he said, adding that the state must not overreact, which is what the radicals want.
Still, even given that the number of radical Muslims is a tiny minority in France, “there are definitely more than 50 crazy guys,” so it is important to know whether the attackers had been to Syria or “wanted to go and did this instead,” he said.
Francois Heisbourg, a defense analyst and special adviser to the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris, said that the professional military acumen of the attack reminded him of the commandos who invaded Mumbai in July 2011.
“This is much closer to a military operation than anything we have experienced in France, and that may limit the political impact,” he said.
“Between this attack and whatever real societal problems we have in France there is a great gap,” Heisbourg said. “These were not corner shop guys from the suburbs.”
The mood in Paris, near the scene of the attack, was both apprehensive and angry. Ilhem Bonik, 38, said that she had lived in Paris for 14 years and had never been so afraid.
“I am Arab, Tunisian, Muslim and I support the families, the journalists and all the people involved,” she said. “This is against Islam.”
When journalists are killed for expressing their views, it is one step away from burning books, Annette Gerhard, 60, said.
“It’s like Kristallnacht,” Gerhard said, adding that her family had died in Nazi deportations. “There is no respect for human life.”
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