France has seen in recent years several jihadist terrorist attacks and, in particular, Nice has already been the scene of a shocking truck attack in 2016 resulting in 86 deaths.
Four years later, on the morning of 29 October 2020, a new stabbing knife attack took place at Notre-Dame de Nice, a Roman Catholic basilica, leading to the kill of three people. One of the victims had her throat slit, another victim, a man, died following multiple stabbings, the third victim, a woman, was wounded inside the church, she managed to leave but she died in a nearby café. A suspect, named by French police as Brahim Aouissaoui, is a Tunisian national who appears to have first arrived in Europe last month on the Italian island of Lampedusa; he was shot by police but he survived and he has been taken into custody. Since he kept repeating the words "‘Allahu Akbar in front of us" while being treated by medics, according to Nice's mayor Christian Estrosi “there is no doubt that the perpetrator of the attack … what his intentions were”. Moreover, items belonging to the suspect, including a Quran, three knives, and two cell phones, were found by authorities.
After such news, a moment of silence was held at the National Assembly. President Emmanuel Macron visited the site of the attack later in the morning and pointed out that it was a terrorist attack attributed to Islamic extremism. Whilst calling for firmness and unity and expressing his solidarity with the Catholic community of France, he promised to protect schools as well as places of worship by doubling the presence of security forces. "We are in a war against an enemy that is both inside and outside”, added French Interior Minister Gerald Damarnin, highlighting the likeliness of more attacks on French soil, given the fact that France was engaged in a war against Islamist ideology.
We should also not forget that in the period 2015-2017, due to such attacks, the Schengen system had been called into question and gone into crisis. Articles 25 and 29 of the Schengen Code, the latter referring precisely to the continuous terroristic threat, had been used to block free movement within the EU. How will Europe respond this time? Are we going to risk a Schengen border’s crisis pt. II? Well, the answer is certainly not less Schengen.
Finally, the main responsibility in this respect had been given to the lack of cooperation and adequate communication between national intelligence agencies. Similarly and again, the only solution to an increasingly transnational problem is now a transnational response, since the risk is that such issues are assessed nationally only.
Yorumlar