Today is the 10th anniversary of the November 13, 2015 Paris jihad, which killed 130 civilians, including 23-year-old American student Nohemi Gonzalez.
What’s happened since then? Are nearly all of the jihadis and their supporters out of prison by now? “Most of the Paris attackers were French and Belgian born citizens of Moroccan and Algerian backgrounds…” Salah Abdeslam, a Belgian man who chickened out and did not detonate his suicide vest, was sentenced to “life in prison”, but “life” doesn’t necessarily mean “life” in progressive societies.
How’s Europe doing now compared to then? Did a few years of meekly complying with lockdowns and mask orders calm Europeans down, including the jihadis? The Wikipedia page “Islamic terrorism in Europe” doesn’t seem to list attacks after 2021.
Politico says that the attacks substantially boosted government power:
The attacks forever changed the country and its politics, tipping the balance of protecting civil liberties versus ensuring public safety in favor of the latter.
Since 2015, France has passed a slew of laws meant to ensure such an event could never happen again. Members of parliament have expanded the state’s surveillance powers and its ability to impose restrictive measures without prior judicial approval. They’ve also reshaped France’s immigration policy and oversight of religious — particularly Muslim — organizations.
The French loss of liberty seems to be evidence for my theory that immigration from disparate cultures is inconsistent with liberty. If residents of a country don’t share a common language, culture, or religion, the only way for the rulers of that country to ensure safety is by taking away their subjects’ rights, e.g., the right to privacy or the right to own a gun.
Related:
- Gonzalez v. Google LLC, a case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2023 regarding the extent to which YouTube could be held responsible for showing jihad-related content to European Muslims who would otherwise have been entirely peaceful or at least mostly peaceful