Tag: Islamic extremism

[fblike]

Two weeks ago on January 7, two gunmen stormed into the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical French magazine, and proceeded to kill eleven people and a police officer.  The gunmen, Cherif and Said Kouachi, were French citizens with Islamic beliefs and their grievance against Charlie Hebdo was the magazine’s cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, who cannot be depicted per the tenets of the Islam.  Over the next two days, French police tracked down and killed the Kouachi brothers, while one of their accomplices, Amedy Coulibaly was killed after taking a kosher supermarket hostage.  Coulibaly killed four hostages and one policewoman before being neutralized.  The string of attacks shocked the French public, with many seeing the attack on Charlie Hebdo as an assault on the country’s traditions of freedom of speech and expression.  On January 11, an estimated 1.3 million people went into the streets of Paris to march against the violence, which included more than forty heads of state.  The attacks have presented President Francois Hollande with an opportunity to bolster his reputation among French voters, which has eroded over the last year due to a sluggish economy.  However, the attacks may serve to galvanize support for the French far-right, namely the National Front (FN), which has argued for immigration controls and against what they deem as the “Islamization” of France.

This topic brief will cover the status of France’s Muslim population, discuss the French government’s response and that of its international allies to the Charlie Hebdo attacks, and assess how the attacks may affect French politics before 2017 when the country will hold its next presidential election.

Readers are also encouraged to use the links below and in the related R&D to bolster their files about this topic.

Read More