World News – UA – For French Muslims, every terrorist attack raises questions about their loyalty to the republic

Chair in Global Islamic Politics, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalization, Deakin University

Greg Barton Receives Funding From Australian Research Council And He Is Engaged In A Range Of Projects To Understand And Counter Violent Extremism In Australia And South East Asia That Are Funded By The Australian Government

Fethi Mansouri receives funding from the Australian Research Council He is the director of the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalization

After three people were killed in a knife attack in Nice this week that French President Emmanuel Macron called an “Islamist terrorist attack,” there was a sense of déjà vu – we’ve seen it before

Amid the sadness of innocent lives taken in the most gruesome manner, there is a sense of dread as to what is about to come, based on what has happened so often before

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The French people have experienced so many terrorist attacks in recent decades It is not just the terrible violence associated with the rise of ISIS, but a seemingly endless series of attacks dating back to the Strasbourg-Paris train bombing in June 1961 which killed 28 people

In 2014, the rise of ISIS saw the start of a different kind of terrorist attack in France Assault weapons featured in the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and kosher supermarkets of January 2015 and in the ‘attack on the Bataclan theater in November 2015

In some ways, most shocking of all was another lone actor attack in Nice On June 14, 2016, a truck driver drove past hundreds of pedestrians celebrating July 14 on the promenade, killing 86 people and injuring more than 400

The outrageous beheading of well-meaning professor Samuel Paty on October 16 and a similar attack on a 60-year-old woman and two other people in Notre-Dame Cathedral in Nice two weeks later were acts of violence calculated to provoke the anger

A public opinion poll after Paty’s murder found that 79% of those polled believed that « Islamism had declared war » on France and the French Republic. An even higher percentage considered the approach France’s rigid secularism was threatened

In a society where nearly one in 10 people is an immigrant, being French means acting in French, and secularism means that there is no place in public life to express identity or religious engagement – unless it is aligned with French Catholicism

For French Muslims, each Islamist terrorist attack triggers a new wave of public questioning about their loyalty to the republic and its values ​​

After Paty’s murder, the French Council of Muslim Faith (CFCM) sought to dispel any doubt about the position of French Muslims:

The horrible assassination […] reminds us of the scourges which sadly mark our reality: that of the outbreaks in our country of radicalism, violence and terrorism, which claim to be Islam, making victims of all ages and under all conditions and all convictions

In a moving speech at a national ceremony for Paty, Macron expressed similar sentiments, saying

Samuel Paty was killed because the Islamists want our future and because they know that with quiet heroes like him, they will never have it They divide the faithful and the unbelievers

Tragically, while much of what Macron said is consistent with what the vast majority of French people (Muslims and non-Muslims) believe, it leaves Muslims in France in a corner. No matter how hard they try, they can’t be French enough unless they stop being Muslims and, in public at least, turn their backs on their faith

Macron was immediately denounced by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who questioned his sanity, and by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who tweeted more thoughtfully:

This is a time when President Macron could have provided a touch of healing and denied space to extremists rather than creating more polarization and marginalization which inevitably leads to radicalization

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, meanwhile, didn’t even try moderation when he tweeted provocatively:

Muslims have the right to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past

In their statements, Erdogan and Khan had their eyes on domestic politics Mahathir, who has a long history of provocative statements, seemed to just seek attention, reckless of his playing with fire

In responding to the terrorist attacks in France, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau echoed the thoughts of the French Muslim leaders of the CFCM, declaring

They were heinous and criminal acts, unjustifiable in all circumstances and an affront to all our values ​​

The criminals, the terrorists, the cold-blooded murderers who carried out these attacks do not represent Islam. They cannot define Muslims in France, Canada or elsewhere in the world

Francophone Trudeau understands France well, but he also understands the multiculturalism of immigrant societies like Canada in a way Macron does not understand

Macron runs a deeply plural society shaped by immigration, but France is a nation struggling with the language and practice of pluralism

The multiculturalism of Canada, the United States, Australia or New Zealand, on the other hand, is much more relaxed These countries have an approach of national unity that allows the public expression of difference

In the hours following the Nice attack, a man threatening a North African trader with a pistol in the French town of Avignon was shot dead by police after refusing to drop his weapon

He appeared to be wearing a jacket emblazoned with the “Defend Europe” logo of the far-right anti-immigrant group Generation Identity, a group that espoused conspiratorial ideas similar to those of the Australian who slaughtered 51 people in mosques in Christchurch – ideas of a « great replacement » of white Christians by Muslims

As France enters a second wave of COVID lockdown, its economy on its knees and its population anxious and fearful, the specter of dueling extremism and a growing cycle of violence is the last thing the country needs

It’s a tough time to be French, but it’s especially tough if you’re a French Muslim

Macron understands this, he recognizes the barriers presented by soaring unemployment rates for young French people in general and young Muslims in particular, and he recognizes the huge problem of systemic racism and bigotry.

But, so far, he and the French nation are stuck in a rut, endlessly repeating the mistakes of the past, weighed down by an imperfect identity framework and an unnecessarily narrow path to belonging Already seen indeed

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Mahathir Bin Mohamad, Islam, Emmanuel Macron, Prime Minister of Malaysia, Malaysia