PARIS — One month after 17 people were killed in the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket, the sense that things may not go back to “business as usual” is palpable. Perhaps these atrocities will serve as a wakeup call for France, after years of similar incidents — the murder of Ilan Halimi in 2006, the murders in Toulouse in 2013 and at the Jewish museum in Brussels committed by a French man in 2014. After all, nearly four million French people went into the streets to express their outrage, and seven million copies of Charlie Hebdo have since been sold. A number of governmental and legal initiatives are in the works, including beefed-up intelligence, steps against radical Islamist indoctrination in prisons, educational programs and more than 100 proceedings against people charged with publicly condoning acts of terrorism. Most importantly, our leaders seem to understand the problem. French President Francois Hollande has made the fight against racism and anti-Semitism a “great national cause.” And Prime Minister Manuel Valls, in an historic speech, declared: “Today we are all Charlie, we are all policemen, we are all French Jews,” and pledged to address terrorism in a spirit of “firmness, serenity … Continue reading
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