Terror sans terrorists? Lone-wolf attacks roil France

Authorities are treating two incidents as common criminality but haven't ruled out a political motivation in the third. France is on alert over returning fighters from Syria and Iraq. 

|
Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters
French soldiers patrol the Christmas market along Champs Elysees in Paris today. French security forces stepped up protection of public places on Tuesday after three acts of violence in three days left some 30 wounded and reignited fears about France's vulnerability to attacks by Islamic radicals.

Across Europe, security officials have been raising the alarm over the return of European jihadis from Syria and Iraq. But a spate of seemingly random rampages in France has drawn attention to attacks that don't amount to organized terrorism, yet still sow terror. 

On Monday evening, a driver rammed his van into a busy Christmas market in the western city of Nantes, injuring ten people before stabbing himself, though not fatally. The previous day, a man injured 13 people in the eastern city of Dijon by running into pedestrians at various points of the city while crying “God is great” in Arabic. Authorities say both attackers had a history of mental illness. 

And on Saturday the same cry was uttered, this time by a Muslim convert who stabbed two policemen in Joue-les-Tours. They were not killed but the attacker was shot dead by police. A terrorism case has been opened in that incident.

Authorities say the three attacks were unrelated. Prime Minister Manuel Valls today urged the French to stay calm. “The events are serious and worrying,” he said on Europe 1 radio. “Even if there’s no link between them I can understand the concern of citizens.”

However, the fact that lone-wolf attackers struck in three locations on three consecutive days is a stark reminder of Europe's jitters over homegrown terrorism threats.

French President François Hollande called an emergency cabinet meeting to address the threat. And the government has dispatched up to 300 additional soldiers to patrol public spaces over the holiday season, including Paris's most famed street, the Champs-Elysees, where the city's biggest Christmas market is underway. 

As it steps up its role in the US-led bombing campaign against Islamic State militants, France arguably faces the highest threat from returning jihadis: Officials estimate that around 1,000 French citizens have either traveled to Syria or made plans to go. Mr. Valls has called that threat “unprecedented.” 

France has Europe’s largest Muslim population. It is also actively been targeting Islamist strongholds in Africa. Algeria said Tuesday that it had killed the commander of a militant group that captured and killed a French hiker in September.  

France’s interior minister,  Bernard Cazeneuve, said that the latest attack in Nantes did not appear to be religious or political. The third case in Tours could have been inspired by radical fanaticism, in the name of religion, but the motives are still unclear, he said. 

But in any case, France is on edge, in part because a series of senseless attacks without clear motivations are just as alarming as revenge attacks by militant groups. 

“We’re reacting with determination and cool-headedness,” Valls said. “People need to go about their daily lives while remaining vigilant.”

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Terror sans terrorists? Lone-wolf attacks roil France
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2014/1223/Terror-sans-terrorists-Lone-wolf-attacks-roil-France
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe