Race, Religion and Freedom: Dominique Laurent Examines the Myriad Implications of Paris Attack
In response to the attack at Charlie Hebdo’s Paris offices by Islamic fundamentalists, Dominique Laurent, associate professor of French, examines where freedom of the press and censorship fit into the idea of French democracy and what the attack says about culture clash, a pluralistic French society and the shifting face of anti-Semitism in the country.
“In the long run, the solidarity that we are seeing now in the aftermath of this terrible event, that will erode unfortunately, and politics will come back.”
"This is a very different anti-Semitic crowd nowadays, [and] a lot of French Jews are leaving and going to Israel or to the United States because they fear the climate of anti-Semitism that has arisen.”
“For the French, democracy’s much more fragile. … That’s why the French and French journalists in particular are always on the lookout for threats to it.”