France is target of choice for militants

Sociologist says 'France is the country with the most frustrations linked to Islam'

PARIS, FRANCE: The bloody attacks in Paris show that France is a target of choice for militants due to its air strikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, as well as its controversial ban on the burqa and attitude to Muslims, analysts say.

"If you can kill an American or European infidel, especially the dirty, nasty French ... then count on Allah, kill him any way you can," said an IS spokesperson, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, in 2014 as the US-led coalition launched its anti-IS raids in Iraq.

Perhaps inspired by these words, militant attacks against France over the past year have been of unprecedented ferocity.



In January, 17 people were killed in Paris in a string of attacks against satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, a policewoman and a Jewish supermarket. And in June, a man beheaded his boss in southeast France.

Friday night, a series of attacks that for the first time brought suicide bombers to Paris, left at least 129 people dead and 350 injured.

France is "a target due to counter-terrorism activities in north and central Africa as well as the perceived mistreatment of and discrimination against the Muslim minority in France itself," said Matthew Henman, head of Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Centre in London.

French troops have fought extremists in Mali and currently back African forces battling Nigeria's deadly Boko Haram militants. French jets have staged 283 strikes against IS targets in Iraq since September 2014.

In October 2015, France extended its air campaign to Syria where its fighter-bombers have carried out five strikes against IS training camps and oil sites. As part of the drive to intensify the campaign, the French aircraft-carrier Charles-de-Gaulle is due in the area in December.



A witness to the Friday's attack on a crowded concert hall where more 82 people were killed, Pierre Janaszak, said he heard the attackers say: "'It's the fault of Hollande, it's the fault of your president, he should not have intervened in Syria'".

But Shashank Joshi of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London said "the pretexts and causes of such attacks are exceptionally complicated, and rarely is there a single factor involved."

"I do not believe that French abandonment of air strikes would protect it from attacks, because there would simply be some further alleged provocation that would be cited by future terrorists," he added, saying that the level of sophistication of the attacks meant they were probably planned before France's Syria campaign began.

Aside from its international actions, France has come under sharp attack from extremists for banning hijabs in schools in 2004 and then the wearing of the burqa in public in 2010, as part of its secular legacy.

Its long tradition of freedom of expression which enables public criticism of religion too has irritated religious hardliners. The attack in January against Charlie Hebdo followed the satirical weekly's publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

France's five million Muslims, Europe's biggest Muslim community, often rightly complain of discrimination, notably on the employment front.



"France is the country with the most frustrations linked to Islam," said sociologist Raphael Liogier, adding that was why "more than anywhere else young people are ready to sign up" to radical groups.

A total of 571 French nationals or French residents have joined IS in Iraq and Syria, of which 245 have returned and 141 have died, according to official figures.

These fighters are among the first called on to strike their country of origin, and can be seen in IS propaganda videos calling for attacks against France, in the same way German jihadists urge strikes against Germany or Americans against the US.

France is far from having been the militants only target this year; more than 200 Russians died October 30 in a plane crash claimed by IS over Egypt's Sinai. And Yemen, Tunisia, Turkey and Lebanon too have paid a price.