France has long had a tense relationship with parts of its Muslim community, rooted in decades of conflict over French rule in Algeria and capped by an insurgency and a raft of Algerian terrorist attacks in France in the 1990s. The situation is especially acute in the banlieues, the disadvantaged suburbs that ring Paris and other large French cities, and are populated mostly by Muslims and people with Arab or sub-Saharan family roots in the French colonial past. In 2005 and 2007, violent riots broke out amid rising frustrations over social and economic inequality. In the last decade, a small but growing number of young people from the banlieues have been leaving France to answer the call of radical Islam, alarming the government and helping fuel the popularity of the National Front.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 19:14:59 +0000
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