Unite, not divide

Last Friday evening news began to come in of a series of terrorist atrocities in Paris: gunmen had been indiscriminately shooting at diners in restaurants and bars and spectators at a sports stadium and a concert hall. Having killed 129 people and injured many more, some potentially fatally, the gunmen blew themselves up. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has claimed responsibility for these outrages. Coming less than a year after the massacre of journalists and staff at the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, and shoppers at a kosher supermarket, the latest killings imply that France is a particular target of Islamic terrorists.

There have been suggestions that the French state’s strict — some would say strident — secularism is partially to blame. The niqab, for example, is forbidden in public spaces and public buildings. Overt religious symbols (the Christian cross, the Jewish Star of David, and so on) may not be worn by public officials or schoolchildren. This stance, it is argued, alienates France’s Muslim citizens and drives some into the arms of Islamic extremists. The solution — so the argument runs — is to temper the state’s secularism.

The analysis and the so-called solution are deeply flawed. It seems that those behind the latest atrocities were not actually French, but Belgians of North African descent; and if not actually born in Belgium, certainly brought up there. Belgium is, of course, also a secular state, but does not have the same emphatic secular tradition of the French. The idea that Belgian Muslim extremists should wish to murder French citizens because of France’s secularism is far-fetched. Anyway, the idea that the French state should be pushed into moderating its secularism by terrorist action is offensive.

Much more plausible is the explanation that France was targeted on this occasion because of its actions in Syria. Before the shootings in Paris the French Air Force had undertaken many strikes against the ISIS positions in Syria, more than any other European power. In fact, France has intensified its attacks against the ISIS in response to those shootings. It is right to have done so. Again, the idea that extreme Islamists, who are prepared to kill and maim French citizens at random, should be permitted to dictate French foreign and defence policy is unacceptable. What is more, the airstrikes — and not just those of the French Air Force — appear to be having success, albeit slowly. With the assistance of American airpower, Kurdish-led forces have retaken some 200 villages from the ISIS since October. Other European countries should follow the French lead.

However, whilst a robust response is required in some areas, it is not required in others. In particular, the pseudo-solutions of the right-wing, particularly those of Marine Le Pen, should be rejected. Ms Le Pen, leader of the hard right Front National, in the wake of the killings called for France to abandon Schengen: the agreement between continental European countries which has removed internal European border controls. Disappointingly the French President, Francois Hollande, has echoed Ms Le Pen and called for Schengen to be suspended. It does appear that the passport of a Syrian “refugee” found at the scene of one of the shooting, belonged to one of the gunmen. It seems he landed in Greece in early October and made his way to France. However, this is no justification for abandoning Schengen. The reimposition of border controls would provide scant protection. The idea that a terrorist, prepared to kill and maim many innocent people and to blow himself up in the process, would be deterred by border posts and a requirement to give passenger details, is fanciful. It is also a dangerous distraction.

There are problems with the Schengen system, but they stem not from the absence of internal borders but from the weakness of the European Union’s external frontier. Significant extra resources need to be devoted to strengthening it. In particular, there has to be much deeper and closer coordination between European Union member-states in the policing and protection of the EU’s perimeter, something European member states — jealous of their sovereignty — have been reluctant to engage in. Given that terror recognises no states, state-based anti-terrorist structures are inadequate. A European intelligence agency of some kind must also be part of the solution.

To be rejected even more forcefully is the language used by Ms Len Pen in response to the killings and the sentiments behind it. Ms Le Pen has called for the “annihilation” of Islamic radicals. She has demanded the closure of Islamist mosques, the banning of Islamist organisations and the revocation of French citizenship of those preaching extremist doctrines. Others on the hard right in the rest of Europe have been using similar language. Of course, there are fundamentalist imams in a few mosques, preaching hatred and violence, but the vast majority of Muslims in France (and the rest of Europe for that matter) find the events in Paris as appalling as the vast majority of non-Muslims.

However, the language of the kind used by Ms Le Pen and others ignores this. Instead, it implies that Muslims have been harbouring an enemy within, that they are somehow suspect and that they cannot be loyal citizens. Such language risks creating precisely the kind of alienated, embittered and radicalised minority she claims to want to crush. After an atrocity of the kind just witnessed, the focus should be on unity and inclusion, not blame and recrimination.

Europe will win against the ISIS by remaining united, inclusive and resolute. Retreat into national silos, religious division and indecision is exactly what the ISIS would wish to see and must be avoided.

The writer is a lawyer and a keen observer of European affairs. He works in the UK and France