Unpopular Hollande faces new test after latest attack in France
French President Francois Hollande appeared in front of cameras on Tuesday to make a statement that has become uncomfortably familiar.
"I have come here [...] to express the solidarity of our nation with the community of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray and to be at their side," he said, after two ISIS attackers entered a Catholic church in Normandy, took hostages, and killed a priest in the latest episode of violence to hit a country that has had its fill.
"The threat is very high. It remains very high even after everything we have lived through in the last few days and years, " Hollande said.
"Today we must be aware that the terrorists will stop at nothing unless we stop them," he said. "This is our will, it's what we do, we have done what we could within the law [...] including recently the deployment of more forces."
They were strong words from an increasingly weak leader whose message of solidarity in the face of domestic terrorism is no longer cutting it.
Hollande is the most unpopular leader in modern French history, with record low approval ratings compared to other French presidents, according polling agency TNS-Sofres. Recent numbers showed that nearly 90 percent of French people disapproved of their president.
As recently as last year, Hollande seemed to have the support of the nation. In January 2015, after Paris was hit with the first of what would become a wave of deadly extremist attacks, a spontaneous outpouring saw a million people gathered in the city to defy those who attacked satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket.
Parisian demonstrators cheered police officers for risking their lives. Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls rallied their nation together, enjoying a boost in popularity as a rattled populace looked to their leaders for comfort.
Then more attacks hit.
In April 2015, an Algerian IT student was arrested on suspicion of killing a woman who had been found shot dead in her car. At his home, prosecutors said they found documents about ISIS and al Qaeda, and that the man had been in contact with suspected Jihadists in Syria. In July, four men, who pledged allegiance to ISIS, were charged with planning an attack on a military camp in order to behead a soldier in the name of jihad, then in August, a man who opened fire on a high speed train was tackled and disabled by passengers. The gunman was identified as having links to radical Islam.
And then came the November Paris attacks, where militants armed with guns and bombs struck Paris restaurants, the Bataclan concert hall, and outside the Stade de France, killing 130 people and wounding over 350. The French government declared a state of emergency, giving police broader powers of search and detention, among other things.
This year began with more violence, when in January, a man carrying an ISIS emblem and armed with a meat cleaver was shot dead as he attempted to storm a Paris police station. In June, a 25-year-old killed a police officer and his partner at their home in front of their young son, saying on social media that the violence was in the name of ISIS. Then the Nice beachfront erupted in indiscriminate violence on July 14, when a man drove a truck through crowds of revelers, killing 84, and proving that extremism can strike anyone, anywhere, anytime.
And national unity splintered. Demonstrators booed Valls as he paid homage to those killed in Nice.
Hollande, facing criticism for having failed to prevent more violence, announced that he would ask Parliament to extend the state of emergency that had been declared after the Paris attacks. He had, only short while before, said it would be coming to an end. The legislative body complied, and in addition to a 6-month extension, it further expanded state powers of search and seizure.
But the continuing violence in France and other European nations is stirring up a distrust of authority, as well as fear of immigrants, Muslims, and today's world order, echoing the anxieties that are driving many voters in the U.S. and Britain.
Far right voices stand to gain the most from the disarray, pollsters predict. National Front leader Marine Le Pen, who campaigns against perceived "Islamization," is increasingly certain to make it into a runoff of presidential elections, and conservative former president Nicolas Sarkozy, eyeing a new leadership bid, has also boosted his profile recently with a blistering attack on Hollande's security record.
"The wall of national unity is totally collapsed," said pollster Emmanuel Riviere. "French society is stripped naked, with no guide."