After the attack on the editorial staff of Charlie Hebdo magazine in January 2015, the socialist François Hollande was still able to successfully argue for national unity. Politicians and the population took to the streets together en masse, everyone said I am Charlie, and the terrorists were the common enemy.
That sentiment slowly faded after the attack on the Bataclan, ten months later. Then the French had the idea that not only cartoonists, but everyone had become a target of terrorists. People got more scared.
In the summer of 2016 it was already hit. There was one on July 14, the national holiday terrorist attack on Nice boulevard. Again with ordinary French as victims. And this time also with politicians who, for the first time, quickly and openly criticized what they think was too lax government policy.
National unity had completely disappeared. The three attacks resulted in fear, discontent and division.
Political division
The call for tougher measures increased in politics. Politicians no longer demonstrated together against terrorism, but openly criticized the government in the French media.
It was a legacy that left Hollande’s successor, Emmanuel Macron, after his election in 2017: persistent terrorism, worried French and political divisions over the approach.
Because the attacks continued. Since the attack on Charlie Hebdo in 2015, more than 260 have been killed by terror, according to an inventory from a major French newspaper. In more than five years, 25 attacks were committed in France in the name of Islam.
Macron against Muslim extremism
Macron is in a sense with his back to the wall, is one of the conclusions of a group of French scientists in their book Faced with Attacks, that has now appeared.
The president, like his predecessor, advocates unity. After the attack by a Muslim extremist on churchgoers in Nice last month, he said: this is an attack on all French. That is a necessary message. If there were major divisions, this could lead to social tensions between population groups.
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