The man who drove a truck into the crowd – Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel – was a Tunisian resident in France. This bald fact will provoke plenty of discussion and analysis since it is hardly the first attack on France from one of its immigrants.
In January 2015, 12 people died in an attack on the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo by the Algerian Kouachi brothers. In April 2015, an Algerian jihadi planned to attack churches and killed one person in Villejuif. Some of those responsible for the Paris attacks of last November were French and Belgian nationals of north African origin.
France’s immigrants – or its natives of North African heritage – seem to be more susceptible to indoctrination by radical groups. (There are around 600,000 Tunisians in France.)
There is also the related question of whether the French assimilation project has failed. It’s certainly true that a difficult assimilation, to say the least, can be seen in the socioeconomic condition of France’s immigrants, who suffer from a low standard of living and poor health conditions, work in precarious jobs and are often victims of discrimination. Unemployment is high among Maghrebi immigrants who are concentrated in the least affluent urban areas of Paris, Dijon, Marseille and Nice, reinforcing the divide between France and its immigrants.
Although the French assimilation project seems to be bent on creating a homogenous identity, French Muslims are still aware of their double identity. And while diaspora communities have grown exponentially over the last decades, the French discourse on assimilation changed very little.
For countries of origin, immigrants represent an influx of foreign currency, hence they work hard to maintain links with their nationals living elsewhere. Tunisia has established the Office of Tunisians Abroad, a portal for Tunisian immigrants to make sure this connection with the motherland is not severed; one of the services it offers to this community is free Arabic language lessons to the offspring of immigrants who receive a western education.
For a country such as Tunisia, whose economy is largely based on seasonal touristic activity, it is no surprise that the state would invest efforts to make French Tunisians feel welcome in the land of its ancestors. For its part, the Tunisian community abroad still observes religious rituals, follows local media, preserves culinary traditions and native dressing styles.
But these connections can have negative consequences. Despite its secularised appearance and a recent history of fostering civic rights and pluralism, some reports estimate that the largest number of Isis’s foreign fighters come from Tunisia, which could be attributed to economic marginalisation and regional inequity, but also to a conservative strain that runs deep in Tunisian society, absorbed equally in the belief system of the diaspora.
Islamic radicalism has invested heavily in reviving the past, a luring prospect for some young members of this Muslim diaspora that sees itself as marginalised and might perversely see the promises of radical Islam as glamorous. Most of them have limited education and low-skilled jobs and might be enraged by xenophobic behaviour in France. With the spread of affordable digital technology, the lure of radical groups offering an irresistible narrative has become even stronger.
Little effort is dedicated to understanding radical groups, the way they interpret the religious texts and their links with Islamic currents in the Muslim world. There is even less effort dedicated to religious reform.
There were no initial indicators that the Nice attacker had links with extremist groups. In a statement to a Tunisian radio station, Lahouaiej-Bouhlel’s brother has denied that he had Islamic tendencies, and so did some of his neighbours, although he was in jail for minor crimes .
So, if this is a war, it is not only a war against masterminds whose record in radical Islam could be tracked by intelligence, but also against individuals acting after short-term cycles of indoctrination and little training, using available means. (The fake rifles and grenades found in the truck could possibly intend to convey a coded message about the ability of terrorists to outsmart security measures when traditional weapons become obsolete.)
The Nice attacker was a delivery driver and was familiar with the city, aspects that make him a tempting target for radical groups, though it is not clear where and when he might have received any radical indoctrination. Perhaps his motives might become clearer over the next days.
Beyond Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, arguments over the causes of Islamist terrorism in France are heated. They are most neatly embodied in the public disagreements between the academics Olivier Roy and Gilles Kepel. The former places greater emphasis on individuals caught up in jihadism; for the latter, the explanation is found in France and its dysfunctional suburbs. Either way, the North African connection is key.
Imen Yacoubi is a Tunisian writer and commentator