Five years on after the Bataclan massacre, France is once again facing a resurgent Islamist threat. Over the past few months, three separate attacks have rocked the proud secular nation which champions freedom of expression: stabbings near the former office of political satire magazine Charlie Hebdo, the beheading of 47-year-old school teacher Samuel Paty, who showed his students caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, and a knife attack in Nice.
By no account were these attacks random acts of violence. Instead, they were cold, calculated and targeted the French psyche in the hope of fomenting anger, divisions and undermining the foundations of the nation. In that sense, the extremists have accomplished their goal -- almost overnight, 5.7 million French Muslims were put on trial and demonised by President Emmanuel Macron who has stirred up Islamaphobia by accusing the country's largest minority population of "separatism" and calling Islam a "religion in crisis".
France's troubled relationship with Islam is multi-faceted; a unique combination of the rocky history of the religion in French society, a growing hardline secularism stance, and a desire to uphold the Voltairean view on freedom of expression as outlined in Treatise On Tolerance. Although France was exposed to Islam as early as the 8th century when early Arabs reached its doorsteps at the height of the Islamic empire, it was the subsequent colonisation of Muslim-majority North African nations in the 19th century and practice of cultural imperialism -- suppression of local identity, forceful assimilation into the French way of life, and turning mosques into churches -- that laid the groundwork of the ideological struggle playing out today.
Even after its post-colonisation period, marginalisation of Muslims continued well into the 1960s and 1970s when guest workers from former colonies were housed in ghettos, leaving little room for integration. Today, descendants of these initial immigrants still live in dreadful conditions and as such often fall victim to the hateful ideology of fundamentalist Islamists -- practising freely in France, ironically -- who have seized the opportunity to radicalise a new breed of home-grown terrorists. By failing to address this root cause behind lone-wolf attacks both in France and Europe, the French subconscious has been further convinced to view Islam as incompatible with its values.
Yet, discrimination and xenophobia are not the only issues at play here. Complicating French-Islamic relations further is the country's secularism law -- laïcité -- which was passed in 1905 and separated the Catholic Church and state. In theory, it allows all citizens to exercise their religious beliefs without interference. Yet, in reality, it interferes with Muslims' understanding of their own religion, especially after the Sept 11, 2001 attacks, when the country adopted tougher measures in the name of laïcité by banning Islamic face coverings, including the niqab and burqini, further punishing Muslims for practising their religion.
However, the biggest question to emerge from the latest series of attacks is: What should be the limits of freedom of expression? Should borderline hateful content be allowed based on an antiquated world view? Fortunately, France itself can provide an answer because even though it prides itself on Voltaire, it also has some of the toughest hate speech laws in the world. Despite this, France has been unable to recognise or label Islamophobia and anti-Arab xenophobia as hate speech but as part of its rich heritage and tradition of social satire, muddying the waters further.
Surely in such a climate, French Muslims must feel cornered. Even if they speak the language, enjoy the same lifestyle as their "native counterparts", and believe in upholding the principles of the French state, they can never be French unless they turn their back on their faith.
What France -- and Mr Macron -- must do is differentiate between moderates and the radicals, like the Salafists who have a rigorous interpretation of the religion. The French government must avoid making the same age-old mistakes of alienating an entire population as it will likely do again by introducing new legislation. Mr Macron's approval rating has fallen to just 29%. His tough stance may provide him with a springboard to muster support from the far-right in the 2022 election but at the expense of polarising the nation.
The failings of the French model have lessons for everyone, including Thailand. Last week, The Central Islamic Council of Thailand organised a rally to show their support for one government faction over another. While the move is likely a short-term means to an end, dragging religious institutions into the political sphere is a dangerous slope to be treading on.
Like France, Thailand must ensure that it continues to embrace disparate opinions and foster religious diversity so that new divisions do not form, a threat highlighted numerous times by the ongoing protests. After all, inclusivity is the backbone that unites a nation.