[CliffFletcher]

The reason France is suffering these attacks is it’s a defiantly secular country, where religion is explicitly excluded from government services. It’s also a highly liberal country in its art, treatment of sexuality, and political culture.

This, unsurprisingly, is going make the assimilation of groups for whom religion is inseparable from public life, and where very conservative cultural norms still dominate, very difficult.

There is an economic aspect to the alienation of some immigrant populations (though the father of Paty’s killer built up a car dealership business, and gave his son his own car). But Macron is the wrong person to go after on that count, as he’s trying to liberalize the country’s economy and make it more dynamic, a change that would make it easier for young immigrants and the children of immigrants to get a foothold in work.