AMONG the distressing questions that crowd the French consciousness after the latest terrorist horror, one of the more familiar is: why France? This was the third major attack on French soil since the Charlie Hebdo killings in January 2015, and the bloodiest ever in France after the Bataclan murders of November last year. It is hard for many French to understand why their country has suffered so much more than others in Europe. But this latest attack raises an even more puzzling question: why Nice?
With its ornate churches and palm-tree-fringed beaches, Nice is best known as a tourist destination. Less well-known is the fact that it faces one of France’s most intractable problems of Islamic radicalisation outside the Paris region. French news reports have named the suspect in Thursday’s atrocity as Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a French citizen of Tunisian origin—and a resident of the city he attacked.
By the start of this year, at least 55 residents of Nice and other towns in the department of Alpes-Maritimes, which covers the Côte d’Azur, had left to fight in Syria or Iraq. That included 11 members of a single family. The...Continue reading
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