After the attacks that have left Paris soaked in blood, a series of fears and questions now grips France. The attackers – the Kouachi brothers and their ally, Amedy Coulibaly – were killed by the forces of law and order. Their deaths might have brought an end to the climate of anxiety, but just the opposite is happening, with a very unpleasant stench, a gas, hanging over France.
The context, the backdrop, is known. There’s been the very strong advance in recent years of the ideas of the Front National; the economic crisis continues; and in this environment, how does one limit and fight against what we call the amalgames, those infernal shortcuts in public opinion: jihad = Islam = immigration?
Will life carry on as before or are we going to witness huge political and sociological jolts?
First, we must remember that there is, in France as elsewhere, no direct link between Islam and jihadism. My country is home to one of the largest Muslim communities in Europe (5-6 million). More than half of the 200,000 immigrants arriving in France each year are from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia or sub-Saharan Africa. But it is primarily because many are among the poorest social classes that their children are easy targets for the sectarian movement that is international terrorism.
Another misconception: contrary to analyses too quickly heated, full of emotion, it’s largely the government parties which are benefiting from a surge in popularity, not the Front National. In recent days, French television has shown many images of solidarity between communities – words and gestures that we had not been used to seeing. And another rare thing – Muslim, Jewish and Catholic groups will unite today at a vast gathering in Paris.
The question is: what will happen once emotions have calmed? Will the drive behind “national unity” survive once the terror has passed? Several mosques were damaged last week, in different cities in France, from gun shots or homemade bombs. This is not the first time. But these attacks are usually not so numerous, nor do they normally happen at the same time. Routinely in the polls before the attacks, more than half of French people did not hide their fear of Muslims. Today, many Muslims are understandably worried about being further stigmatised.
With the attack on the kosher supermarket in Porte de Vincennes on Friday, the Jewish community – around 600,000 people – is equally traumatised. It was anxious before the attack on Charlie Hebdo. In 2014, a record number of Jews in France made “aliyah” to Israel. Will this trend increase further still? Will the police again have to ask the Jewish businesses of the Marais and Sentier to close their doors temporarily “for security”, as was the case during the hostage crisis on Friday?
What is certain is that French politicians will struggle to escape a readjustment in their language on issues of Islam, secularism and ethnicity. So far, on both the right and left, a tacit desire to minimise the spread of “multiculturalism” has tended to hold sway. Sure, we can speak about it but as little as possible, or always as a “reversible” phenomenon. But the reality is this: although France has one of the lowest rates of immigration in the OECD, these immigrants are gradually reshaping the French landscape. Mosques are built, halal shops thrive.
During his years in office (2007-2012), Nicolas Sarkozy developed a conventional pragmatic approach to the subject. He insisted on the need to “control” migration flows and made a show of his record number of deportations. But this stance quickly ran into a numbers problem. Not only has immigration into France not fallen, but with the proliferation of conflicts in the world and the rapid increase in makeshift boats crossing the Mediterranean, the number of asylum seekers, protected by international law, has also increased.
Since coming to power in May 2012, the left, for its part, has preferred to emphasise the values of the “republic” and “secularism”; very French concepts that insist on denying ethnic categories, maintain a “colour-blind” system and keep everything concerning religion apart from the state: Muslim officials cannot, for example, wear the veil at work. These ideals are embedded deep in the history of the construction of the French nation. But they are unclear to many French people and hark back to a time when immigration was not an issue.
The problem with the approach of both Sarkozy and Hollande is that it reveals a defensive attitude, never a proactive one. So when the government begins to accept meatless menus in canteens or creates Muslim areas in cemeteries, the impression given to the French public is still that of an “abdication” faced with the claims of Muslim “lobbies”. It doesn’t, as it could, suggest an approach that’s chosen and is beneficial to the French Muslim minority and so, in turn, to the whole of French society.
Similarly, constantly brandishing the idea of a republic “one and indivisible” – as the saying goes – France judges that it is defending itself against Anglo-Saxon “multiculturalism”.
In truth, on the ground, things are very similar. De facto community organisations exist in France, as in the UK. But there’s one key difference: by acting as it does, France prevents the emergence of moderate “community leaders”. Those who manage to emerge in public debate are those who shout the loudest: the radicals.
While failing to review its “model”, France is ignorant of the extent of its mixed relationships and the children born to them. How, without accurate ethnic statistics, can we address properly this grassroots transformation of France? How to measure properly the failures of integration or the success of many immigrants, whether Muslim or not?
The way of speaking of “living together” in France is often too negative, obsessed by the most extreme behaviour, or, alternatively, it is too celebratory, as if it were absolutely necessary to embellish reality to better fight the rise of the Front National. The analyses are often coarse, unnecessarily judgmental. The always subtle, complicated reality of identity and life on the ground is regularly overlooked. All these small shifts in what and how people feel have much more to do with everyday tensions than blind terrorism.
Physicists know that the smell of a dangerous gas is detectable in the air long before becoming harmful and ends in an explosion. There are still two years before the next presidential elections. Two years to prevent French voters massively supporting the Front National , as predicted by many polls. Stopping this leak will not necessarily protect France from terrorism, but it will at least guard against another cataclysm.
Elise Vincent writes on police and justice for Le Monde. She has spent the last five years as the paper’s immigration correspondent correspondent.