Macron’s Vain Hope for an Enlightened Islam

In the course of a few weeks, France, which has the highest proportion of Muslim citizens in Europe, has been subjected, once again, to bloody assassinations by attackers shouting “Allahu Akbar”. The first was the beheading of schoolteacher Samuel Paty, who had been discussing the Charlie Hebdo cartoons with his class. This was followed two weeks later by the killing of three Christian worshippers inside Notre Dame church in Nice. The Nice attacker cut the throats of Nadine Devilliers, sixty, and sexton Vincent Loques, fifty-five. Simone Barreto Silva was repeatedly stabbed and died of her wounds. These two atrocities were perpetrated by young male immigrants from Chechnya and Tunisia. In a third incident, an Orthodox priest was wounded by a shotgun blast when he was closing his church in Lyon. These three attacks were all symbolic: targeting non-Islamic faith and criticism of Islam.

This essay appears in December’s Quadrant.
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These attacks came not…