The old English phrase “a pot calling the kettle black” comes irresistibly to mind when French President Emmanuel Macron calls Bosnia and Herzegovina a “ticking time bomb” in terms of the danger of domestic and returning Islamists, as he did in a recent Economist interview.

If Bosnia is a “ticking” time bomb – a questionable assertion – France is a time bomb that has already gone off multiple times, with horrendous consequences, as the terrorist attacks in Paris, Nice and elsewhere have shown.

Macron’s real intention with this remark can only be guessed at, though it appeared to be a clumsy attempt to deflect the outcry over his decision to block a start to EU accession talks with North Macedonia and Albania by appealing to their “guilt by association”; in other words, the problem lies not with them but with their near neighbour.

But Bosnia’s official Islamic Community was justified in retorting that France has exported far more Islamist radicals to the Middle East than Bosnia has. As its spokesman, Muhamed Jusic, pointed out on Friday, Bosnia has produced some 240 fighters in the Syria/Iraq war zone – the 80 or so children can hardly be counted as volunteers. France, by comparison, has produced multiple times that figure.