Numbering five million, France's Muslim community is the biggest in the 27-member European Union but many are marginalized with poor job prospects in grim, violence-ridden suburbs and housing estates. But until Mohamed Merah, a young al Qaeda-inspired gunman, killed seven people including three Jewish children in southwestern France last March, France had not suffered a major attack since 1995 when the Algerian Armed Islamic Group killed eight people and wounded dozens bombing a Paris metro station. Trevidic said the French had to get used to the idea that terrorism was here to stay and could not be eradicated. "We will have to accept this reality without deluding ourselves. It means we have to accept that attacks will succeed and there will be deaths." http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/07/mali-crisis-france-idUSL5E9C616X20130107
....thereby perpetuating an ethnic stereotype of the French "surrendering" to any conflict and agression. :eek: