The terrorist attack in Nice may have eliminated President François Hollande’s already slim chances of re-election by damaging his standing as France’s commander-in-chief — the only field in which he had seemed to live up to voters’ expectations.
Before the Riviera slaughter, the most unpopular president of the fifth republic had risen to the challenge of two mass-casualty Islamist assaults. Struggling to rekindle growth in the eurozone’s second-largest economy, grappling with high unemployment, ridiculed for his messy domestic life, he had at least shown resolve in the fight against terrorism — ordering air strikes against Isis strongholds in Syria and Iraq, extending powers of the intelligence agencies and declaring a state of emergency.
In January 2015, after French-born extremists killed Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, police officers and clients of a Jewish supermarket in Paris, Mr Hollande led a huge march through Paris flanked by world leaders. In November, after 130 died in a series of suicide attacks in Paris, his speech to the lower and upper houses of parliament brought a standing ovation.
This time, the abiding image is that of Manuel Valls, the prime minister, being booed by an angry crowd on Nice’s promenade where a radicalised truck driver killed 84 pedestrians celebrating Bastille Day. With 10 months to go to the presidential elections, the opposition swiftly attacked the government for failing to protect the French.
“Even before Nice, François Hollande was extremely weakened but now something is broken,” said Jérôme Fourquet, head of political studies at Ifop, a pollster. “One of the last aspects of his personality that held him was his role as commander-in-chief and now he seems out of his depth there too.”
Nice is testing French resilience to terrorism as never before: it was the third big attack in 18 months, suggesting the threat is far from contained despite all the security measures; it took terrorism beyond the capital to the provinces; and this time senior citizens and children were targets — another step in the scale of horror.
But the government’s response has been less than assured. Mr Hollande’s decision to extend the state of emergency, which only hours earlier he said was no longer needed, made him look incoherent, Mr Fourquet says. Mr Valls has given repeated warnings of more deadly attacks to come, but the government has not come up with any additional substantial security measures. Meanwhile, Bernard Cazeneuve, the interior minister, has become embroiled in claims, which he denies, that his office tried to cover up details of the police operation in Nice on the night of the attack.
One of the last aspects of his personality that held him was his role as commander-in-chief and now he seems out of his depth there too
“The French understand some attacks are difficult to avert but they don’t accept that the government refuses to step up its reaction,” Mr Fourquet says. “The issue is that the left seems to have reached its limit in the trade-off between individual liberties and security.”
That places the government at odds with French voters: eight out of 10 would accept restrictions on civil liberties to better combat homegrown terrorism, according to an Ifop survey released two days after the Nice slaughter. Two-thirds of those polled said they did not trust the government in dealing with the threat.
The centre right and the far right have seized on mounting public scepticism. Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right Front National party, has suggested expelling foreign-born criminals, shutting mosques with suspected links with radical Islamists and tightening criteria for naturalisation and refugee status. Laurent Wauquiez, a rising star of the centre-right Republican party, has suggested locking up “terrorist suspects” preventively. Mr Valls replied that as prime minister he would block the creation of any Guantánamo-style camp in France.
Ms Le Pen will be the ultimate political beneficiary, according to Jean-Yves Camus, a researcher at the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs, because she can point to failings by both Nice’s centre-right mayor and France’s Socialist government. There is only a small chance that Ms Le Pen will be France’s president, Mr Camus says. Leftwing voters are likely to vote for her probable centre-right opponent in the run-off, to prevent her from reaching power.
“But no one can predict the outcome of a presidential elections under the tension of another terrorist attack,” Mr Camus notes.
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