EDITORIAL by Pearl Lake

Tragedy struck the French nation as a gunman went on a rampage targeting people because of their religion or due to their enrollment in the French army. The terrorist used his religion as a justification. It is terrible to think that such a thing could happen in one of only two countries where the state is secular in the world today. The French have always prided themselves on this characteristic and we should be proud to be part of an institution that holds that value strongly. The Islamic extremist threat is alive in virtually every region of the world. This particular event may have been precipitated somewhat by the xenophobia of certain-high profile politicians. But while this may have aggravated the disillusionment of the Muslim community with French society the problem does not seem to be an ‘immigrant’ one. Mohammed Merah was from a French family of three generations. By that measure, he was 'more French' than many people holding the passport, including the current President, yet he found his identity first in religious extremism and not in his nation - which is fundamentally wrong.  Religion should always be a means for hope, never for cruelty and immoral crime. The implications of this abominable act are equally serious. The far-right now have concrete backing for what they have been preaching for many years, and the fact that the deceased Jewish children are being buried in Israel and one of the dead soldiers in Morocco, and not France, pushes this point further: Who really wants to be French? Who actually puts their nation before their religion? The socialist party still have ammunition from the mistakes of the current Premiership, but many of their high-profile intellectual supporters have been made to look naive for immediately assuming these killings were a Breivik style far-right rampage (though the similarity of the two threats is interesting). Mr. Sarkozy now finds himself in the middle: does he follow more right-wing sentiment following these attacks, risking the disillusionment of the center and thus potentially further worsening his odds against Hollande, or does he stand firm, in the middle, potentially losing his electorate farther right of the political spectrum. Now that we see Hollande coming out the first round as favourite and is almost guaranteed Méchelon's supporters votes, Sarkozy has got to try and attract Le Pen's 19% and hope that they don't vote for Hollande in a bid to ensure that the Front National becomes the major right-wing party ahead of UMP.