Deja vu. All this has happened more than once or twice. Again an attack, again on a policeman, again Islamist shouts in the name of a perverted interpretation of religion. Snide comments immediately appeared on French Twitter after Friday's attack, saying that it was probably not Pierre who did it. Will explain. The whole country was in full swing the other day after a woman from a suburb of Montpellier handed over to President Macron a question from her seven-year-old son: is it true that boys named Pierre are only in books? The reality in the suburbs is that yes, the Pierre there are more of a fairy tale characters. But drug trafficking, showdowns, riots and Islamism are a daily reality.
Statistics are stubborn things: out of 42 terrorists since 2015, only four were local. The rest are newcomers and with roots going abroad. Foreigners occupy a quarter of all places in prisons, commit 30% of all thefts and 17% of murders in the country. For various reasons, it just so happened that the newcomers settle next to each other. And in such areas, closed within their culture, members of their families from North Africa and the Maghreb continue to actively move - today 45% of immigrants arriving in France do so precisely under the family reunification program. And about a million of those already living on the territory of the republic are illegal immigrants. As is the case with this 36-year-old Tunisian who stabbed a police officer on Friday.
For ten years the man lived without papers, even received some money from the state, only last year he was given a residence permit due to the limitation period of his stay in France. For the time being, he behaved quietly, worked part-time, until quarantine happened. When everyone was locked up at home, he completely plunged into the global network, which doused him with extremist content, so much so that he drove his head. I started watching videos about jihad, martyrdom, and so on and so forth. Such, after all, now you can safely post on the Internet, because it rarely violates the rules of certain communities. So no problem. Then, in October last year, the murder of teacher Samuel Pati took place, and the Tunisian changed dramatically: he began to diligently seek out and quote on his Facebook page excerpts from the Koran, which, as it seemed to him,can justify the crime committed. He was indignant at the infidels in every possible way.
The father noticed the change, sent his son to a psychiatrist, and also briefly home, to Tunisia. Did not help. The guy had a plan, he got ready and went to kill - purposefully, confidently, with shouts for the glory of Allah. And here I am standing a stone's throw from the commissariat, where everything happened, and I'm talking to a man whose voice is trembling, because no one, as usual, expected this right here. And now the elderly woman does not hide the tears that roll from her eyes, telling how they recently burned down the chapel here and how she is afraid every day when she leaves the house, although around, it seems to me, the village is a village, lovely stone houses, cherry blossoms with might and main - you can't say that the situation is far from a rural idyll.
By the way, local Muslims also stood nearby and were just as indignant, because another psycho cast a shadow on their faith, turned even more people against it. And each offered his own options, what and how to change. Overcatch everyone, transplant everyone, and so on. But how do you catch a person who has not really appeared anywhere and in any way? How can you track down, and most importantly, identify such loners who are being radicalized not by a specially trained extremist, but by a network, a global space? In France, journalists have even coined a very precise term - "atmospheric jihadism." It is in the air, it is constantly talked about, and attacks happen regularly enough to become somewhat commonplace (23 attacks by Islamists in nine years, 271 people were killed in them).
You no longer need guides, brainwashers - everything happens remotely, by itself.
There is already so much extremist content on the Internet that you can drown in it if you want.
And there are few specialists in all the Arab nuances of Islamist ideology, especially in the western French world.
In general, there is not enough control.
Therefore, the authorities in record time have developed a law that will be considered tomorrow.
19 points.
On the one hand, the police are expanding their capabilities; they can confiscate computers, hard drives, and storage media from suspects, even if they do not give their consent. The data storage period is increased from 30 to 60 days, so that experts have enough time to crack the code in encrypted messages and restore, for example, the same correspondence. A very unusual innovation: for the first time, they want to allow the interception of communications over satellite communications. And the French intend to develop artificial intelligence, which can then help them identify dangerous content on the network, it could also adapt algorithms for this, modernize them, create new software and improve the tools already available to intelligence services. The collected data for these purposes will now be stored for five years.
The French are betting on the development of digital technologies and on total control, at least over the content that is posted on the web. Considering the powerful and dangerous effect it has on psychologically unstable people, this step seems to be very correct, albeit a little belated. But it's still better this way - late than never. If you think about it, then almost all the information that modern youth consumes, she draws from the Internet. It is through him that communication, learning takes place - yes, almost everything goes through the network. Therefore, it is logical that clear rules, frameworks and laws will also operate in this field. Moreover, they will not be dictated by individual giant global corporations, based on their personal considerations and market conditions, but it will be the state that will manage this entire array of information and open spaces.on the territory of which these companies operate, be it a social network or just a web page. Radical content appeared - hop, access to the resource was immediately closed.
The switch is needed to be proactive.
Otherwise, it will be really difficult for France to deal with atmospheric jihadism, as well as with radical lone killers.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.