“France is under attack,” said French President Emmanuel Macron this week after the Nice cathedral slaughter, announcing that 7,000 troops would be posted at schools and religious sites around the country.
But France has been under attack for some time. In 2015, in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, 10,000 troops were deployed around France, and thousands of police were sent to guard Jewish sites, including synagogues, schools and community centres. Indeed, police and armed forces’ protection of Jewish sites has become the norm in French life. To be a Jew in France means that state protection from the threat of jihadist terror is not the exception, but the norm.
As for the 7,000 troops Macron deployed this week, that’s merely an increase over the 3,000 troops that had already been deployed to protect schools and religious sites before the Nice attacks. Given the enormous number of Catholic churches in France, large and small, to say nothing of schools and other institutions, if the French state would seriously attempt to protect them all it would require something akin to martial law.
No comments:
Post a Comment