Without a policy restricting immigration, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to fight against communalism and the rise of ways of life at odds with laïcité, France’s distinctive form of secularism, and other laws and values of the French Republic. An additional burden is mass unemployment, which is itself exacerbated by immigration.

Image Marine Le Pen Credit... Patrick Aventurier/Getty Images

Third, French foreign policy has wandered between Scylla and Charybdis in the last few years. Former President Nicolas Sarkozy’s intervention in Libya, President François Hollande’s support for some Syrian fundamentalists, alliances formed with rentier states that finance jihadist fighters, like Qatar and Saudi Arabia — all are mistakes that have plunged France into serious geopolitical incoherence from which it is struggling to extricate itself. Incidentally, Gerd Müller, Germany’s federal minister of economic cooperation and development, deserves praise for having the clear-sightedness, like the Front National, of accusing Qatar of supporting jihadists in Iraq.

These mistakes are not inevitable. But to rectify them, we must act quickly. The Union Pour Un Mouvement Populaire and the Parti Socialiste have called for a committee to investigate the recent terrorist attacks. That will hardly solve matters. “If you want to bury a problem, set up a committee,” the French statesman Georges Clémenceau once said.

For now, one emergency measure can readily be put into action: Stripping jihadists of their French citizenship is an absolute necessity. In the longer run, most important, national border checks must be reinstated, and there should be zero tolerance for any behavior that undermines laïcité and French law. Without such measures, no serious policy for combating fundamentalism is possible.

France has just gone through 12 days it will never forget. After pausing to grieve its dead, it then rose up to defend its rights. Now the French people, as if a single person, must put pressure on their leaders so that these days in January will not have been in vain. From France’s tragedy must spring hope for real change. The petty logic of political parties cannot be allowed to stifle the French people’s legitimate aspirations to safety and liberty.

We, the French, are viscerally attached to our laïcité, our sovereignty, our independence, our values. The world knows that when France is attacked it is liberty that is dealt a blow. I began by saying that we must call things by their names. I will end by saying that some names speak for themselves. The name of our country, France, still rings out like a call to freedom.