The building, shaped like an aircraft hangar with tiny windows perched high up in its corrugated walls, stands empty and closed.
Outside is an official notice, taped in plastic against the rain, announcing its forced closure by the government for “involve[ment] in the Islamist movement”, and for sharing a social media video targeting teacher Samuel Paty.
The French government’s general crackdown on radical Islamism, in response to the beheading of the history teacher outside Paris this month, has been rapid and tough – a blizzard of inquiries, closures, plans and proposals that have sometimes been hard to keep track of.
“Fear will change sides,” President Emmanuel Macron is widely quoted as telling his Defence Council last week.
The government has announced more than 120 searches of individual homes, the dissolution of associations accused of spreading Islamist rhetoric, plans to target terrorist funding, new support for teachers, and fresh pressure on social media companies to police content more efficiently.
Nothing on this scale happened after other attacks on President Macron’s watch, despite the violent murder of some 20 people during his tenure, among them police officers, a young woman at a train station and shoppers in a Christmas market. So what’s different now?
Source : BBC
