Unlike the response in January after attacks at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and elsewhere left 17 dead, there were no grand public appeals for solidarity with Muslims after the Friday attacks that left 129 dead in Paris. There were no marches, few pleas not to confuse practitioners of Islam with those who preach jihad.
Instead, there was a palpable fear, even anger, as President François Hollande asked Parliament to extend a state of emergency and called for changing the Constitution to deal with terrorism. It was largely unspoken but nevertheless clear: Secular France had always had a complicated relationship with its Muslim community, but now it was tipping toward outright distrust, even hostility.
The shift could be all the more tempting because the government is struggling to find its footing politically as it is threatened on its far right by the anti-immigrant National Front party.
Already, tough talk from officials in the government shows them shifting rightward, calling for new scrutiny of mosques, extending the state of emergency and possibly placing restrictions on the 10,000 or more people loosely indexed as possible threats to the state. France needs to “expel all these radicalized imams,” Prime Minister Manuel Valls declared Saturday. » | Adam Nossiter and Liz Alderman | Monday, November 16, 2015
