Debate around extremism has been plagued by cringe-inducing naivety
It was supposed to be the turning point in our response to violent Islamism. This week marks six years since more than a million people marched through the streets of Paris waving “Je Suis Charlie” placards in a show of defiance, echoed across the world, against the slaughter of satirists by a pair of jihadist brothers.
Today, with most Western countries reverting to type and responding to jihadist terror with obscurantism and denial, it looks like far fewer people were Charlie than was actually claimed. Not so in France, though, which is more or less united behind President Macron’s decision to confront the country’s domestic Islamist movement. In one poll at the end of last year, a staggering 79% of French citizens agreed that “Islamism has declared war on the Republic”.
