France: where to?
Now that the dust has settled somewhat in Paris, the question is, what next? First, although shocking, the attacks were not entirely surprising. Many French citizens had joined the jihad in Syria. And the attack on Charlie Hebdo showed that there's a sustained risk of terrorist actions in the heart of Europe.
The important question is if the attacks were entirely home-bred, or the attackers had received instructions and support from abroad. The current influx of refugees into Europe is mainly from Syria and Iraq, which also underlines the risk that jihadist groups could have already infiltrated the EU using the chaos of the mass refugee flood.
There'll certainly be political consequences as well. The attack happened just a few days after France's only carrier, Charles de Gaulle had set off for the Gulf to assist in the campaign against ISIL. France has already been conducting air strikes in Syria and Iraq, since September. Now Hollande has activized the French operations in that region, and the situation is getting more complicated. There are just too many players involved there, and the battleground and the air above it is packed up with belligerents.
From a political standpoint, these attacks are drawing the attention back to the ethnic tensions in France that erupted a few years ago, and away from Germany which used to be in the focus for a while because of the refugee crisis. Lots of immigrants have entered Germany from the south and east, and few have continued to France. In result, France has remained relatively passive and reserved on the issue of containing the influx - although it's generally on Germany's side in its attempts to find asylum to as many refugees as possible, and find a comprehensive way to distribute them across the EU.
We could expect the massacre in Paris to provide ammo to those groups who are calling for stopping the refugee flood, and shutting the borders of countries like Germany and Sweden, and most of Central and East Europe. Inevitably, the popularity of xenophobic populists like Le Pen and her FN will increase. Le Pen was mostly composed after the Charlie Hebdo attack, but that didn't prevent her popularity from rising. Because she's been known for her consistent anti-immigration stance.
Hollande also saw a slight spike in his popularity back then, mostly due to the way he reacted to the crisis. But it's unlikely that this will repeat now, because he did promise anti-terrorist measures after January, and now people will be asking some tough questions about how adequate those measures have been.
And then there's Sarkozy, who's got years of firm position on security issues on his record. He has also run a campaign much in this vein recently, and now he's expected to defeat the much more moderate Alain Juppe in the race for their party's nomination for the 2017 presidential election. And after the Paris attacks, he could expect even more support - probably relying on people's short memory span (he was the one who pushed the hardest for removing Gaddafi, who had been holding the refugees in checks for decades, after all).
The bigger question now is, will France capsulate itself in reaction to the threat, and will Europe fragment itself again, put barbed wire and checkpoints along its borders, and all in all, amp up security and start to limit civil rights and do compromises with its stated principles of openness for the sake of more safety. It's a delicate balance that has to be found, and obviously no one has the right recipe. So it'll be a traumatizing process. And Europe certainly won't be the same when it's done.
The important question is if the attacks were entirely home-bred, or the attackers had received instructions and support from abroad. The current influx of refugees into Europe is mainly from Syria and Iraq, which also underlines the risk that jihadist groups could have already infiltrated the EU using the chaos of the mass refugee flood.
There'll certainly be political consequences as well. The attack happened just a few days after France's only carrier, Charles de Gaulle had set off for the Gulf to assist in the campaign against ISIL. France has already been conducting air strikes in Syria and Iraq, since September. Now Hollande has activized the French operations in that region, and the situation is getting more complicated. There are just too many players involved there, and the battleground and the air above it is packed up with belligerents.
From a political standpoint, these attacks are drawing the attention back to the ethnic tensions in France that erupted a few years ago, and away from Germany which used to be in the focus for a while because of the refugee crisis. Lots of immigrants have entered Germany from the south and east, and few have continued to France. In result, France has remained relatively passive and reserved on the issue of containing the influx - although it's generally on Germany's side in its attempts to find asylum to as many refugees as possible, and find a comprehensive way to distribute them across the EU.
We could expect the massacre in Paris to provide ammo to those groups who are calling for stopping the refugee flood, and shutting the borders of countries like Germany and Sweden, and most of Central and East Europe. Inevitably, the popularity of xenophobic populists like Le Pen and her FN will increase. Le Pen was mostly composed after the Charlie Hebdo attack, but that didn't prevent her popularity from rising. Because she's been known for her consistent anti-immigration stance.
Hollande also saw a slight spike in his popularity back then, mostly due to the way he reacted to the crisis. But it's unlikely that this will repeat now, because he did promise anti-terrorist measures after January, and now people will be asking some tough questions about how adequate those measures have been.
And then there's Sarkozy, who's got years of firm position on security issues on his record. He has also run a campaign much in this vein recently, and now he's expected to defeat the much more moderate Alain Juppe in the race for their party's nomination for the 2017 presidential election. And after the Paris attacks, he could expect even more support - probably relying on people's short memory span (he was the one who pushed the hardest for removing Gaddafi, who had been holding the refugees in checks for decades, after all).
The bigger question now is, will France capsulate itself in reaction to the threat, and will Europe fragment itself again, put barbed wire and checkpoints along its borders, and all in all, amp up security and start to limit civil rights and do compromises with its stated principles of openness for the sake of more safety. It's a delicate balance that has to be found, and obviously no one has the right recipe. So it'll be a traumatizing process. And Europe certainly won't be the same when it's done.