Cultural
Changes
in
France
Naomi*
OMS worker in Europe
I walked through the main train station,
passing several groups of police armed
with large automatic rifles. In France,
police travel in groups, but in the past
they were lightly armed, if at all. One lesson they learned through the November
2015 Bataclan attack was that they were
outmatched in weaponry and could not
respond appropriately to the crisis. The
government went on high alert following
28
the mass murders of civilians by Muslim
extremists.
As I walk through the Arab markets
of France, I ask my Muslim friends what
they think of the current state of things in
France. “We’ll never get permanent residency now,” they lament.
“Do you feel marginalized?” I ask.
“Not really here in our marketplace,”
they respond. “These are our people. We