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strong terrorist infrastructure in France

France is a hub of diverse terrorist activity, just waiting for a chance to perpetrate terrorist attacks. This, according to Israeli counterterrorism experts.

These experts cite French authorities’ long active ignorance of clear signs of organized terrorist efforts in several cities within France. “It is already too late to deal with the problem. What remains to be done, is to handle the outcome,” says one counterterrorism expert, and adds “there were demonstrations with a clear message, but the French authorities turned a blind eye and a deaf ear towards them.”

Major terror alert was called in France ahead of Noël (Christmas).

Yesterday evening, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls announced security forces shall be stepped up, and added another 300 armed combat soldiers, to be deployed in shopping centers, city centers and public transport.

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The local newspapers are also expressing the tense atmosphere. “Anxiety ahead of the Christmas Holiday” ran one headline in Le Parisien, whereas the national newspaper Le Figaro published an op-ed entitled “Enemies from Within”.

The wave of violence began last Saturday, when a man shouted “Allah Akbar” as he walked into a police station in the center of Joué lès Tours, attacked three officers with a knife and was shot dead. Two of the police officers he stabbed suffered severe injuries.

The following day, a driver stormed into pedestrians making their way in Dijon, wounding 13 people while shouting similar Islamic chants.

Two days ago, another person ran his car into a Christmas market in Nantes, wounding 10 people. The perpetrator then stabbed himself several times before he was arrested. One of the people he had injured died in hospital yesterday.

The French police is investigating a shooting at a synagogue in Paris’s 19th arrondissement.

The attacks are very different from one another, but they are also troublingly similar. Whereas French Prime Minister Valls already announced the three incidents are unrelated, the persistent threat of ISIS-inspired terrorist attacks is a source of grave concerning among the authorities.