THE killing of 84 people and the wounding of 202 others by a man who barreled into them with a truck in Nice is yet another terrorist attack in France, a country in which assaults like this are becoming a familiar routine. While this attack is more indiscriminate than the two of last year, which killed a combined 147 people, because of the number of children who were involved, the pattern remained basically the same: President Francois Hollande and his ministers visit the scene of the crime; he pledges to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice, assures that France will remain steadfast in its principles but warns his countrymen that the fight against terrorism is a long slog. In other words, these acts of terrorism will not stop soon and so brace yourself for more. This time, though, Hollande will have to handle better the questions that arose after the two previous attacks on the preparedness of his intelligence and security services. This time, he may not enjoy the relatively free ride he was offered by the conservative opposition in January and November 2015 following the attacks in Paris. He will have to do better than chair crisis talks with his inner security Cabinet. Hollande may have extended the state of emergency, but the Nice attack happened even as it was already in place. He may order strikes against Daesh (the so-called IS), but in the midst of such tragedies the French care little about reports that the group is being bombed in Syria or Iraq. If anything, the more the allies pound Daesh and push them out of territories it had conquered in these two countries, the more terrorist cells Daesh unleashes in the West. The truck's driver Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel was known to the police as a petty criminal but was totally unknown to intelligence services and was never flagged for signs of radicalization. This is becoming another pattern: every single terrorist of the now three attacks in France at one time or another spent at least some time in a French jail but had been freed, somehow escaping the radar of the country's security. It is very possible that these criminals went into jail as simply run of the mill criminals but became radicalized and ready to murder by the time they came out. Bouhlel certainly picked the best of places and times for maximum damage: a very public celebration of Bastille Day, during the summer holidays for the French and tourists, and in Nice, where security is not as tight as in the capital. It also happened after France had heaved a huge collective sigh of relief that nothing of consequence had happened in the Euro championship. But they were caught unawares in Nice, especially by the modus operandi used by the killer. This time the weapon was not a semi-automatic or a bomb but a 19-ton truck. The immediate impact of the Nice attack also brought predictable but nevertheless outrageous outcomes, notably the suggestion by former US House Speaker Newt Gingrich that all US Muslims should be tested to see if they believe in Shariah and deport those who do. The proposal was inane but not totally unsurprising, for it echoed the sentiments of Donald Trump who has said Muslims should be banned from entering the US and who was a whisker away from choosing Gingrich as his running mate. Hollande's government has so far failed to get a handle on the country's terror threat. France is a top Daesh target, the biggest source for European recruits for Daesh, with more than 1,000 fighting in Syria or Iraq. But after three deadly terrorist attacks, the French have concluded that while their police can kill terrorists, it is usually after the fact. And apparently, they cannot kill their ideology.
