The sporadic terrorist attacks against Jewish institutions in France over the past few years were apparently only a prelude to a torrent of assaults. If Jewish schools, synagogues, and institutions once again become targets for radical Islamists, it will undoubtedly be as part of a wave of terror that will sweep across the whole of France. Targeting Jews is one thing, and the average Islamist terrorist may think that in France -- especially among its own radical rightists and leftists and among its traditional anti-Semites -- such an attack would be only marginally frowned upon, but the three suspected perpetrators of Wednesday's attack on Charlie Hebdo's offices in central Paris, brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi and their young assistant Hamid Murad, have taken things a step further. The manner in which the attack was carried out indicated that it was the work of an organized faction, not a deranged individual; that it was meticulously planned, not carried out at random; and that some in France's North African immigrant community may have lent the three their theoretical and practical support, perhaps even harboring them after the fact. The same goes for the murder of a French policewoman, who was gunned down in the southern Parisian suburb of Montrouge on Thursday. The terrorist in this case was quite literally dressed to kill, and if he was not part of the cell that targeted Charlie Hebdo the day before, then France may be facing a multipronged threat, and who knows when it will strike again. The French public, which has so far been removed from government condemnations of such attacks, seems to have realized an escalation is in progress, and some irresponsible radicals have already taken the law into their own hands and fired at mosques. This demonstrates what little faith they have in the democratic regime's ability to deal with the horrors of radical Islam. This, of course, will do little to solve the issue. On the contrary, it is likely to make thing worse, perhaps even prompting some unclear form of civil war. France is currently in shock and it is mourning its dead. In a few days, however, the psychologists and sociologists perched on the left bank of the Seine will start explaining the terrorism away, using all-too-familiar words and phrases like "discrimination," "inferiority complex" and "alienation" to justify what happened. France can still stem this wave of terrorism if it opts to exercise its full force against homegrown enemies. Terrorism in France will not end with the events of this week -- they were only the beginning.
