France: from Postcolonialism to Nice
Nice is the umpteenth terrorist attack in France. This Islamist offensive concerns all Europe. Within Paris attacks on January and November 2015, about 230 people were killed in the last one year and half. So, it’s indispensable to clarify why France became an ISIS recurring target and observe the French military interventionism.
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Excepting Iraq and Syria, France conducted its military operations in Africa in the last five years: Libya, Mali, Chad, Niger, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Central African Republic. Colonialist past produce an effect on Hollande current foreign policy. 19,000 soldiers in all external operations, 10,000 troops in internal one (Operation Sentinel): nearly 30,000 French troops are active against terrorism and in several crisis contexts.
Air-bombs on Syria were the reaction after November 2015. At the same time, terrorist actions between January 2015 and July 2016 are not only an Islamist reaction headed by Daesh top brass. They hide a deep-rooted conflict which begins during the Postcolonialism in the 1950s.
Indeed, after the Second World War, a lot of French operations took place in Middle East and in former African colonies as Benin, Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Guinea or Djibouti. OAS (Organisation de l’armée secrète), PLF (Palestinian Liberation Front), Hezbollah, Armed Islamic Group of Algeria, ISIS: about 320 people killed by terrorism since 1950s.
Algerian question, Israel-Palestine conflict, French integration policy, Postcolonialism strategy are the most important reason of several terrorism attacks until 2000s. Now, the last two causes are interconnected with ISIS issue.
So, the fundamentalism becomes a social revenge of socially excluded young Muslims, how Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron told Canal Plus television after the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris: “Exclusion is a fact of life in France. I am not saying that this explains or excuses what has happened, but those young people who have been radicalized … often have no more faith in society.”
Giacomo Pratali
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