France

The political ideology that feeds terrorist violence cannot be explained away by religion or colonial history

President Macron’s hate affair with the American media continues, if a recent New York Times article is anything to go by. The president is not happy, and thinks the Anglo-Saxon press fails to understand French laïcité and the universalist model, as opposed to the Anglosphere model of multiculturalism, with its distinct roots in the British Empire. While this is undoubtedly true, the more pressing issue might be the gulf in understanding of Islamism, the target of Macron’s campaign.

Four more people – all of them teenage students – have been charged in connection with the brutal murder of teacher Samuel Paty in France last month.

Three of the four students have been charged with identifying Paty to 18-year-old Chechen Abdullakh Anzorov, who beheaded him before being shot dead by police.

The fourth is the daughter of Brahim Chnina, leader of a campaign against Paty, who claimed to have been in class when he showed cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed but is now charged with lying after it emerged she did not attend his lessons.