What are the obstacles in Sarkozy's path?
For starters, Mr. Sarkozy will have to change the culture of the French police. Since the outbreak of the latest Palestinian-Israeli conflict nearly two years ago, the Wiesenthal Center has logged 1,000 anti-Semitic attacks in France including the torching of synagogues, burning of Torah scrolls, beatings, physical intimidation and more.
Yet official police logs reflect none of the terror or horror. The attitude of law enforcement is best summed up by a notorious incident, when Arab thugs burst onto a school bus of Jewish children brandishing guns and smashing the windshield. An eight-year-old girl was hurt. The local police insisted on logging the incident merely as a "broken window."
Shortly thereafter, in the presence of Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, President Jaques Chirac asserted that he had seen no evidence of an increase in anti-Semitic incidents. As a result of this official apathy, many French Jews have simply given up calling the police, instead opting to contact our grassroots SOS Truth and Security toll-free number, where legal volunteers still log in an average of three dozen cases of anti-Jewish harassment in metropolitan Paris every week.
... ... There is a growing awareness the French establishment must make a better effort to integrate the burgeoning Muslim population. There is a realization that a demographic time bomb could literally blow up in France's face. Thousands of disaffected, undereducated and unemployed Arab and Muslim youth are easy picking for al Qaeda-style imams, many of who draw their inspiration and funding from Iran, Libya and Algeria.
Put another way, the new Raffarin government has come to understand that even if all 700,000 French Jews left and the state of Palestine came into existence tomorrow, the challenge of reaching this increasingly disaffected and radicalized generation of young Moslems would remain. Indeed, one bloody episode last year brought home the specter of a new type of domestic terrorism, when 27-year-old Algerian Samir Berkara fired a bazooka at the car of Beziers' Deputy Mayor, Jean Farret, killing him instantly. He then opened fire on a SWAT team, shouting "Allah Akhbar" -- God is Great -- as he was shot by police.
Against this backdrop, Mr. Sarkozy insists, "We need to find a way to create an Islam of France, not merely Moslems in France."
Easier said than done. French officials and their counterparts in London and Berlin, who are used to structured relations with leaders of minority groups like the Jews, are finding it virtually impossible to do the same with the Muslim community. Firebrand imams, some of whom do not speak the language of the host country, have no interest in any relationship with authorities. Those individuals who are prepared to be spokesmen don't necessarily represent a significant constituency.
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