After a short-lived phase of national unity, critics have stressed that France is now more intolerant. Furthermore, since last January, free speech has regularly been under attack by a peculiar brand of "French McCarthyism".
The French government claims its new Intelligence Bill is defined in opposition to the American and British models – but this just doesn't hold once the text is examined. Quite the contrary.
Being European is a form of life beyond ethnicity, religion, skin color, or sex; it is a peculiar ontology that is open to everybody, that is an achievement of world history.
Daesh's depravity may be as much imitative as original; and the writer considers how the battle over freedom of speech is part of a bigger game, driving a wedge between France and its Muslims.
It is our role, as citizens, to scrutinise measures taken in the name of our security and ask, once and for all, for evidenced-based policies: there are no such things as depoliticised and neutral counter-terrorism strategies.
Most Europeans, at both elite and mass level, have a grossly inflated idea of the extent of freedom of speech in Europe, a direct consequence of the uncritical and self-congratulatory discourse on the topic.
