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The Champs-Elysées Attack and the Election
I’m sure you’ve heard that last night, a terrorist opened fire on the police on the Champs-Elysées, killing a police officer and wounding three more. The security forces quickly shot him dead. The Champs-Elysées was evacuated, though it’s back to normal now. It seems there’s still a suspect at large, though news of this is only breaking now and sketchy. (Update: It’s being reported that police have detained three of the terrorist’s family members, but I haven’t seen confirmation of this.) The attacker was as usual known to police; he’d been arrested in February on suspicion of plotting to kill officers but released for of lack of evidence.
Although terrorism always takes you a bit by surprise, I’ve never been less surprised by a terrorist attack in any city I’ve ever lived in. We all knew full well this was highly likely to happen before the election on Sunday. It’s been the subject of much grim speculation here and black humor. An attack was just recently thwarted in Marseilles. I’d be equally unsurprised if there’s another one before Sunday.
ISIS claimed credit for it unusually quickly. As Rukmini Callimachi wrote on Twitter, “They claimed this attack in circa 2.5 hours. As far as attacks in West, this may be a record. Only 1 that comes close is Brussels airport. As far as attacks in West, this may be a record. Only 1 that comes close is Brussels airport. Despite popular perception, ISIS does *not* claim everything & they typically take up to 12 hrs.” I’d guess they claimed it quickly to be sure their name would be in the news for as many hours as possible before the election.
ISIS, it’s fairly clear, wants Marine Le Pen to win; at least, this is what French intelligence officials believe, and it makes sense in the context of what ISIS says about its view of the world. The timing of the attack (obviously) wasn’t random. They’ve made their strategy very clear and they explain it patiently and repeatedly: They’re seeking to eliminate what they call the grey zone. They almost certainly believe Le Pen will make life miserable for ordinary Muslims and so prove to those Muslims who live in this grey zone that they have no future in France. This, ISIS hopes in turn, will inspire them to join the Caliphate’s (diminishing) ranks, sparking civil war on French soil, which they hope to broaden to Europe at large.
Their hope is misplaced. In the first place, the French know very well that this is their strategy — it’s the subject of endless discussion here — and know this is why they attacked when they did. So I expect that for every voter who decides to vote for Le Pen as a result, another who might have considered it, perhaps for unrelated reasons, will now refuse out of determination not to give ISIS the satisfaction or allow them to direct events.
Polling stops today, per electoral law, so we won’t have any clue from that how this is apt to affect the outcome. My instinct is that it won’t. No French voter could have been be surprised by this, nor could it have changed their minds about the gravity of the threat. No one is suddenly going to realize that terrorism is a problem for France; either they knew that already or nothing will persuade them. I don’t see why this attack should change the priority voters assign to the issue, or how it would change their appraisal of the candidates’ plans for addressing the problem, or how it would affect their view of the candidates’ respective abilities to do so. I assume it will reinforce people in what they believe already.
The main risk for the candidates, it seems to me, is that if they put their foot it in it today — if they say or do something stupid; if they appear unpresidential; if they strike the wrong note — they can’t recover, because after midnight tonight, campaigning is banned. Fillon already stupidly repeated a rumor that there had been other attacks in Paris, after which he cancelled campaigning “out of respect for the victims.” I presume he calculated he had more to lose by continuing to speak than by saying nothing. Interestingly, Le Pen likewise cancelled a campaign event. Perhaps she thinks her views on the matter are well known, and that she too has more to lose by aggressively restating them — aggravating those who see her as ISIS’s candidate — than by holding her tongue.
So I expect what we’ll hear today are expressions of sympathy for the victims, resolutions never to give in to terrorism, and — among those still campaigning — a rapid return to other key campaign points. The risk of saying the wrong thing exceeds any possible gain that could be accrued from deviating from the script. Besides, they only have the rest of today to make their case about any of the other issues that distinguish them. They haven’t time to waste.
Still, there’s another actor here to keep in mind. Three of the four candidates are pro-Putin. I’m sure the advance to the next round of any one of those three (and one certainly will advance) would be to Putin’s satisfaction. But best for him would be for two of his preferred candidates to advance. The only candidate whose success on Sunday would displease him is Macron. Putin and his troll farms don’t care about laws against campaigning after midnight tonight, and they certainly don’t care about laws against polling. So I would expect that whatever Macron says or does today, the trolls will be out in force from here on in to crush him, and they may even be working off polling data to which the rest of us aren’t party.
I’m trying to think as Putin would and wondering how the Kremlin is most apt to try to exploit this. The EUObserver has a brief guide to their efforts thus far. The themes that seem to work best for them are “in the French identity, anti-Islam, and anti-globalisation areas, as well as in the areas of ‘confusion’ and ‘conspiratorial/anti-system’ sources shared in the alternative segment.” (The usual, in other words.)
So if I were Putin, what information would I release this weekend, what rumors could I start, that might so change the way Macron’s supporters think of him as to cause them to vote instead for Fillon, Le Pen, or Mélenchon? Which way would I try to push them — and how — and why?
Frankly, it’s going so well for the Kremlin as it is that perhaps they, too, will decide that they now have more to lose by saying anything then they might gain from just keeping it shut. I wonder if they might think that way.
Or maybe not. How would you play this if you were a Chekist?
Published in General
As the % of Muslims in France increases, the risk of dying from terrorism increases. And the risk of being attacked for criticizing Islam increases. Claire appears to be indifferent about these risks, but I can assure her that at a certain % of Muslims the bathtub will appear to be a good risk. But we know that this discussion bores her.
Critical mass.
Claire & all,
Here is another angle that should be obvious but due to the constant pc hand wringing over Islamophobia, it is drowned out.
French Elections: Marine Le Pen Backed By Quiet Army of Women
To call Islam misogynistic is to give misogynists a bad name. Maybe there are many quiet French women who have noticed this and grasp the danger from the never ending normalization of extreme behavior. This might be called the shy Frenchwoman vote.
Hard to know. We will find out.
Regards,
Jim
How a great society dies… ‘Peace in our time.’ never begat peace. The wolf was/is still at the door, whether you acknowledge it or not is irrelevant.
When a people have lost the will the stand for ‘something’ then they give their lives over to groups like the EU or apathy ‘leaders’ like Macron (“please lead us”). As James Gawron posted, #24, Macron basically said- ‘Terrorism; expect more of the same… get used to it.’
This is the sad state of how to destroy a people, just a little ‘norming’ at a time. Our past president put it in the same risk category as crime, ‘we just need to allocate the right resources.’… see, not more dangerous, just same kinda’ dangerous, kind of like the danger of an unarmed bath tub.
Simple, Don’t take baths!
Vote for the grown ups. Imho that will improve security in fact rather than in theory.
The supposed grown ups have helped cause the problem.
I did. The Democrats must be kept away from the controls.
I don’t really know who YOU think the grown ups are, but Trump and Marine le Pen have (or had) far better ideas on how to curb some of this than some others out there… two I know you disagree with.
Elimination of the Gray Zone will happen, no matter what we do. The only difference will be in how, how long, and how many deaths occur in the process.
These are my scenarios. Either way, the Gray Zone disappears. Which scenario do you prefer?
I don’t believe in this Gray Zone thing, or the horse it rode in on, and I intend to live and vote according to what I think is real, not what I think is imaginary rubbish.
This is not to say I don’t believe ISIS is dangerous – they are. It just means I do not accept their [ahistorical, or cherry-picking of human events at best] world view, and do not intend to de facto adopt it (this division of the world into Darul Harb/Islam/Gray Zones whatever name I call it by) as the basis of the response I support.
I don’t see becoming them to beat them as a good option.
The grownups… the superbly educated geniuses who said “we don’t have enough workers and our citizens aren’t having babies. Let’s import a bunch of Moroccans and Turks and then not assimilate them.
Here’s a grownup (she thinks without more immigration, Europe will “collapse.”:
As Fjordman put it,
Christopher Caldwell paraphrases Christophe Guilluy:
Thanks, grownups.
How do you beat ISIS? Not by radicalising people at home by validating ISIS’s message – Claire is exactly right. (And I find it amusing that some people think they know better than her what the French people want, when she’s the one living there, and people told her she didn’t understand what was happening in America because she hasn’t lived here in awhile). Nor by alienating moderate countries that you can work with to beat ISIS. Nor by propping up repressive dictators with wmd’s, contrary to your own values, which leaves his aggrieved citizens only one place to turn, the radicals – especially when that dictator has lost control of his country and the idea that the people will submit peacefully under him is a pipe dream. Here’s what you do: You defeat and destroy them and take their territory (invalidating their claim to be a caliphate) If you’re not willing to send the manpower to do so, you ally with the nearby countries who can do so in coalition.
You defeat ISIS and another group will take its place. The dirty little secret is that groups such as ISIS and the MB fall within the mainstream of Islamic practice. They may not reflect all of Islam, but pretending that they are not Islamic is incorrect.
No, you begin by not repeating the US mistake in Iraq and Afghanistan: al Qaeda is the enemy. Beat them, you’ve won. That worked so well.
ISIS may be the jihadi organization currently killing more French citizens than the other jihadi organizations, but it’s not the enemy.
In France, you’re fighting prison dawa that predates ISIS. You’re fighting
They are ISIS’ top audience: on board with the theology, but looking for the strong horse within Islam to follow. There are other contenders. Erdogan, for one. A Muslim Brotherhood front is the official organization of the French Muslim community. They’re another.
On U.S. soil, we’re fighting the Muslim Brotherhood and its front organizations, and the jihadi indoctrination in Saudi funded mosques. The smart money would bet that our domestic enemies also include Iranian front organizations (thanks, Barry) and the Gülenists. All have overseas connections, and there are others.
We’ve let the Brotherhood and the Gülenists – and the Saudis – help us define who in Islam is and isn’t the enemy. The thing is, they are all America’s enemy but we’ve let some into our camp and are helping them eliminate the brands competing with theirs.
ISIS is an enemy. The fact that ISIS has an electoral strategy in France doesn’t mean that their strategy is correct, though they are not stupid. But not doing what ISIS wants will be just fine for the brands competing with ISIS for market share. None of them are strategically non-violent, though some defer violent jihad for now… though they’re not averse to using it for political capital for their own strategies.
But Western Europe did need labour after WWII, and it needed more labour than it had handy on the continent.
France, in fact, has been importing people for some time.
Re assimilation – it’s worth pointing out that when Algeria was part of France the French still didn’t assimilate most Algerians.
Honestly – in some ways it seems to have a difficult time with this precisely because it’s cartesian by instinct, while Britain inconsistently muddles through to a better outcome. (Also perhaps why France had a revolution while the British, despite Madge’s best efforts, have Sir Mick.)
Is she wrong?
To keep on functioning will the European economy need more people than Europe is currently producing in-house?
If not, she’s wrong.
If it will, she’s sort of right.
Are ISIS-like groups truly a universal constant in the Muslim world, or do they emerge in certain circumstances?
Really looking it it historically: During the time of Harun al-Rashid? Under Timur? The Mughals? The Ottomans? The Safavids? In Dutch Indonesia? In British India? In post-1947 South Asia? In Malaysia today? In Kazakhstan under the Soviets? (My point is, this is an enormous canvas.)
If certain circumstances, which ones?
If not a constant, under which conditions do they not emerge?
When do they have power and influence? When do they not?
Frame it differently: She and her ilk are betting that the roof won’t fall in before she’s had a long, nice, comfortable life and that the few kids they have will go to Sciences Po, or Oxbridge, or Stanford, or wherever and if the roof falls in during their lifetime, they’re transnationals and the transnational economy will be good to them.
She’s also lying about the educational adequacy of the masses she plans to admit, though as recent events in Detroit have shown, higher education isn’t the be all and the end all, when the educated ones obey what they consider to be an even higher authority than the laws of Michigan, or France.
To the Mogherinis of the world, the important difference between the French proles and the brown masses is that right now, the brown masses are more likely to vote for the progressive party of the moment, and so are to be favored, especially since their birthrate is higher and they will provide more
welfare client votersworkers for the shrinking labor force. But for now, the elites in the big cities need domestic help, and as robots take over the menial jobs, live help will become a bigger status symbol.So it’s all good.
Unless you’re a French prole of course.
This needs untangling: for much of the history you mention, there was some sort of Caliphate. This is theologically significant for ISIS’ argument.
But historically: whenever Islam bordered on an arguably militarily inferior polity and had the logistic capability, (and at times when one Muslim ruler bordered on a rival Muslim polity) the phrase “Islam’s bloody borders” comes immediately to mind.
I don’t think you should hide your Jewishness. (Unless Le Pen’s elected, in which case, — though I think she’d never get the legislative support for it — she plans to ban the wearing of the kippah and other displays of “visible Jewishness.” Were she to succeed, I would advise you and in fact every decent person to boycott France.) But I think otherwise you can dress and act exactly as you would in the US. I don’t think it will put you at any significant risk, especially not in the places you’ll be going. And hiding our Jewishness is a concession none of us should dream of making to these lunatics, even if it did put us at more risk.
I guess it all depends on whether France i:
A prosperous Western secular democracy which functions more or less well, though it could do better wrt the creation of jobs and opportunity and social inclusion.
Or
A violent, collapsing dystopia where people can’t feed themselves and Muslim gangs rule the streets and no go zones when they’re not too busy terrorising Cathedrals and Synagogues.
If the former, then the roof will fall in if they don’t sort out their labour issues, not if they do.
Some of the French proles are brown and some are black.
Hopefully the Mogherinis of the world see that, even if all of us don’t.
Moderator Note:
Picking a fight.[Redacted]
For all you Le Pen lovers out there, just remember she is Leftist on most issues; wants even more regulations, is against free trade to the point of advocating for a protectionist economy and is also pro choice. And apparently she has borrowed millions from Russian Banks probably with the help of her hero Vladie.
Fillon, despite his corruption, would be my choice but his love affair with Putin is troubling.
Macron would probably continue France’s present leftist policies and all that those policies entail; he is the status quo candidate.
Melechon is a nut case. He wants to massive redistribute France’s wealth and close down France’s nuclear power plants. He even wants to implement a ‘Green Rule” that prohibits people from using more natural resources. Melechon is the epitome of Leftist insanity.
Some very bad choices indeed.
If Le Pen can show the world that it is possible to fight the European elites and their psychotic immigration policies by deporting refugees and cracking down on Islam, than all the rest of her policies will have been worth it. I don’t trust Fillon even though he is starting to talk a good game to do that.
ISIS is rooting for European politicians who believe in immigration enforcement? I don’t think so.
The “State” represented by the first “S” in ISIS is probably important. If there was a caliphate or Islamic empire controlling much of the Islamic world I doubt we would have ISIS. Maybe Erdogan will bring back the Ottoman Empire and we’ll find out.
The Freebeacon.com made fun of this last year:
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/new-york-times-bathtubs-more-dangerous-than-terrorism/
“Americans who fear they might die while taking a bath are more rational than Americans who fear a terrorist attack, according to the New York Times.
… Obama admitted in a recent off-the-record meeting with columnists that he does not see ISIS as a threat to the United States.
Although (New York Times’ Peter) Baker thinks that the 51% of Americans worried about terrorism should be more afraid of a bath, he also posits that ‘a certain number of relatively low-level terrorist attacks may be inevitable.’ Juliette Kayyem, a former counter terrorism official in the Obama administration, told Baker that treating terrorism like an irrational fear is the wrong approach for government to take. ‘As a society we’re irrational about it, but government has to accept that irrationality rather than fight it,’ said Kayyem. ‘When you’re talking about my three children, there’s no acceptable losses. We don’t want to hear that you view it that way.'”
…
“…bathtub manufacturers aren’t trying to kill us, and they’re not trying to up the body count.” — Chris Wallace, Fox News Sunday host
…
“…unlike a death caused by terrorism, a bathtub death has few, if any, political, economic, foreign policy, societal and constitutional ramifications. In other words, a spate of bathtub deaths might cause state and federal governments to seek stronger regulation of bathtub manufacturers, and the bathtub industry might be forced to design safety features whose cost might be passed on to the consumer. But that’s about it. Deaths caused by terrorism, on the other hand, can have a profound effect on society and the economy. The deaths of ten people in bathtub accidents won’t cause people to fear leaving their homes; but imagine the impact of 10 deaths in a terrorist bombing of a shopping mall, or a movie theater. And imagine if it happens more than once. The economic impact could be devastating; the impact on the emotional health of parents and children would be profound. Bathtub deaths are preventable through individual action and self-awareness. The average citizen, on the other hand, is relatively helpless in the face of a car-bombing, mass shooting, or hijacking…” — Jeffrey Goldberg, theatlantic.com, September 2, 2011
…
“…bathtub manufacturers aren’t trying to kill us.”
“I pictured Stephen King watching and getting an idea for a new horror story.” — Ann Althouse
…
American men take baths instead of showers? This statistic seems faulty.
Not everything travels in a straight line.
If Muslims do not assimilate into society, the risks will probably increase, perhaps for a very long time.
Nothing can go on forever.
I don’t know that voting for Le Pen is the best idea. She seems more socialist than the current socialist president in several ways including apparently welfare increases and increased ownership of businesses by the state. Like Bernie Sanders but not like Trump, her popularity seems to be with the young instead of the old.
However, I ask if voting for Le Pen is not the shock to the system to create change, then what would change things in France for the better?
I’ll rephrase that: the French political parties other than Le Pen’s have decided that the historically/ethnically French working class has failed them, and no longer are a useful part of the parties’ constituencies. They have chosen another people; that is the central constituency Le Pen seeks to represent.
Again:
And:
The choice is stark. Is the French – and the EU’s – immigration and border strategy compatible with Western secular culture or not? If it is not, every day it continues is a step closer to the abyss.
She would also like to ban Sikh turbans. The thing is, there’s a real problem. No Jewish theology, even the most geographically maximalist concept of Zionism, lays claim to France. Nor does the most maximalist Khalistan nationalism. That is not true for Islam, which has a globally maximalist territorial claim for Islam, a valid theological argument for achieving that goal by force and subversion, and which has currently active military, paramilitary groups for which its places of worship all too often serve as indoctrination and recruiting stations.
Is Le Pen’s aggressive laïcité the answer? I don’t know. Is the status quo viable? I don’t know that either.