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The gunmen in Paris attacked more than a Muslim-baiting magazine. The next question is what impact the murders will have on politics, writes Tony Barber
François Hollande, France’s president, called it “an act of exceptional barbarity . . . against freedom of expression”. But the murder on Wednesday of 12 people at the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine, will not surprise anyone familiar with the rising tensions among France’s 5m or more Muslim citizens and the poisonous legacy of French colonialism in north Africa.
It must be stressed that, for the moment, the perpetrators are unidentified. No one can at this moment be certain that the murders are connected to the firebombing of Charlie Hebdo’s offices in 2011, an attack that followed the magazine’s publication of an image of the Prophet Mohammed, its “guest editor”, on its cover.
Two years ago it published a 65-page strip cartoon book portraying the Prophet’s life. And this week it gave special coverage to Soumission (“Submission”), a new novel by Michel Houellebecq, the idiosyncratic author, which depicts France in the grip of an Islamic regime led by a Muslim president.
In other words, Charlie Hebdo has a long record of mocking, baiting and needling French Muslims. If the magazine stops just short of outright insults, it is nevertheless not the most convincing champion of the principle of freedom of speech. France is the land of Voltaire, but too often editorial foolishness has prevailed at Charlie Hebdo.
This is not in the slightest to condone the murderers, who must be caught and punished, or to suggest that freedom of expression should not extend to satirical portrayals of religion. It is merely to say that some common sense would be useful at publications such as Charlie Hebdo, and Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten, which purport to strike a blow for freedom when they provoke Muslims, but are actually just being stupid.
In France the next question is what impact Wednesday’s murders will have on the political climate, and in particular the fortunes of Marine Le Pen and her far-right National Front. Anti-Islamism forms part of the electoral appeal of a party that topped the polls in May in France’s European Parliament elections. Ms Le Pen once compared Muslims praying in the streets to the 1940-44 Nazi occupation of France.
The English author Andrew Hussey, who lives in Paris, published a book last year called The French Intifada, in which he described France as “the world capital of liberty, equality and fraternity . . . under attack from the angry and dispossessed heirs to the French colonial project”. The murders in Paris throw down a challenge to French politicians and citizens to stand up for the republic’s core values and defeat political violence without succumbing to the siren songs of the far right.
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Financial Times).