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623 points franzb | 4 comments | | HN request time: 0.946s | source
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jmspring ◴[] No.10563642[source]
The repeated attacks, heavy immigration of refugees...I'm hoping for the best, but I feel like there is a powder keg here. Whether or not it is based in any fact, how this is handled and plays out is a serious concern.
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vonnik ◴[] No.10563843[source]
It's really important to understand the Muslim community in France, and not evoke false connections.

We don't know if the attackers had anything to with the flux of Syrian migrants moving across Europe now, but my guess would be: they had nothing to do with it.

There are about 5 million Muslims in France, which accounts for about 7 percent of France's total population. France has deep, long-standing and often troubled ties to several Muslim nations, notably Algeria. The French presence in Algeria lasted from 1830-1962.

During the Algerian civil war of the 1990s, France was targeted by terrorist attacks several times. One of those bombings EDIT: injured more than 100 people, which may be the number lost in the attacks today.

There are several basic facts that may help people understand why these attacks happen in France (I'm going to make some crude and unsympathetic generalizations that stem from the years I spent there):

* It's close to Middle Eastern and North African countries torn by conflict, notably Libya and Syria. These are training grounds for would-be attackers, many of whom originate in the west.

* Because of that, and of the fact that France rejoined NATO in 2009 and put itself firmly on the side of the US, it is also a proxy for the US, and will be targeted by those unhappy with American policies.

* It's racist. France has not dealt with the fact that people other than the French live on its soil. If you are the child of immigrants who were invited to France to help its post-War growth, you soon learn that a Muslim name will exclude you from many opportunities.

* Its economy is stagnant. France is no country for young men. They will face limited opportunities regardless of their ethnicity, unless they belong to the elite passing through the grandes écoles. This leads to a lot of frustration. When people cannot build a life in one direction, sometimes they are susceptible to morbid, violent ideologies.

* It's sloppy. I lived in France for 14 years, on either side of the 9/11 attacks on Manhattan. The French were really slow to put respectable security systems in place. CDG airport leaked like a sieve for years and I have no reason to believe that has changed.

Anyone who wants to know more about Islam in France should read Gilles Kepel:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_Kepel

He wrote a particularly good book in the 1980s called "The suburbs of Islam".

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1. tonfa ◴[] No.10563925[source]
Correction: 1995 attacks killed 8 and injured 100 (Puts the current attack in perspective, I don't think anything similar ever happened)
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2. vonnik ◴[] No.10563953[source]
I stand corrected. Thank you. A terrorist attack killing more than 100 happened in 1961, during the Algerian war for independence.
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3. e12e ◴[] No.10564089[source]
And not to detract from your points above, there's been terror attacks on "both" sides: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_massacre_of_1961
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4. mercurial ◴[] No.10564949{3}[source]
That was a pretty nasty time. The French military tortured and assassinated on very large scale in Algeria (thousands of people). On the other side, the FLN was fighting a guerilla war, combined with terrorist actions (mostly bombings) against civilian targets. To compound this, once De Gaulle announced that Algeria would be become independent, hardliners from the military as well as from the Pieds-Noir community (people living in Algeria of French descent) formed a terrorist group known as OAS, targeting both FLN, Algerian civilians and French authorities (including attempts to kill De Gaulle).