The French Terror Wave, 2015-2016: Al-Qaeda and ISIS Attacks from Charlie Hebdo to the Bataclan Theatre

by Marc E Vargo

A torrent of Islamist terrorism swept across France in 2015 and 2016, executed by militant jihadists on behalf of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS). Their targets ranged from the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine to the Bataclan Theatre on the Boulevard Voltaire to a parish church in a Normandy village and a beachfront promenade on the Mediterranean. This book reconstructs these and other terrorist offensives France weathered during this period. Placing each attack in its sociopolitical context, the author examines the backgrounds and motives of the perpetrators, the attributes of the victims and the legacy of the attacks for the people.

264 pages, Paperback

Published January 17, 2021

Reviews

[Jack Varley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, but had the potential to be a lot better. I'm puzzled as to why the author seemingly limited himself to 2015 and 2016. With greater work, this could have been an even broader study of such attacks including the mass shooting at a Strasbourg Christmas Market by Chérif Chekatt on December 11th, 2018. There is some great information on individual attackers like Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel but also huge amounts of extraneous details (particularly in the early chapter on the rampage at the Paris offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine).

The book begins by covering the attacks chronologically, but then discusses the Nice attack before jumping back to analyse two events which occurred before it. There aren't many conclusions in the book, besides implying that France has perhaps been too tough on Islamists, which I find to be an absurd notion. That being said, there is an irony in the prescience of this book. The author resides in New Orleans - the most recent community to be victimised by ISIS inspired terrorism after Shamsud-Din Jabbar murdered 14 people and wounded 35 more in a ramming/shooting assault.