Nicolas Sarkozy reacted properly to a week's terrible events which ended in a hail of bullets in Toulouse. He condemned any attempt to denigrate the French Muslim community by associating it with the mad crimes of a terrorist. Neither caution nor authority had been much in evidence before Mohammed Merah's murderous rampage through the streets of Toulouse and Montauban. Mr Sarkozy and his ministers had wandered cynically into the terrain of the far right, with their nods and winks about immigrants, the ubiquity of halal meat, and France's superior civilisation. But when he needed them, Mr Sarkozy found the right words.
In reality, the political truce was broken long before the end of the siege of Merah's flat. A barrage of UMP statements targeted the socialist frontrunner François Hollande for opposing Mr Sarkozy's security policies, before Sarkozy's sniper-in-chief, Jean-François Copé, the general secretary of the UMP, accused Mr Hollande of not respecting the period of national mourning for the victims of the shootings. Shortly after Merah's death, Marine Le Pen pitched in by doing exactly what the leaders of France's Muslim and Jewish communities warned politicians against doing. Styling herself as the breaker of political taboos, she claimed that the government had surrendered control of the poor suburbs to Islamic radicals. The far-right leader may well see her poll ratings rise as a result, in the hope of repeating the electoral shock her father pulled off in 2002. But there is also bound to be a response on the streets tomorrow from a France that refuses to bow its head to the politics of fear.
This is slippery terrain for any mainstream candidate. Take what is happening in Britain. Since 11 September 2001, 2,050 people have been arrested for terrorism-related offences, of whom 251 have been convicted. Just over half that number were in prison last year, of whom 22 were classified as domestic extremists. Some 153 people were arrested on terror-related charges in the 12 months to September 2011. This decline suggests Britain is not facing a wave of terrorism from Islamic extremists – but it does face an Islamic extremist threat, as France also does. Those who have to ensure security at the Olympic Games genuinely fear that London is vulnerable to another Mohammed Merah, or a Mumbai-style shootout.
Whether it is the French election or the British Olympics, the threat of a lone gunman is the same. The security services need maximum public viligance and support. That will only be achieved if all communities are involved. Alienating any group for an easy soundbite during a vituperative election campaign only makes counterintelligence after a horror like Toulouse that much harder.
