Twelve dead in terrorist shooting at Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo - World Socialist Web Site
▻http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/01/08/fran-j08.html
The attack in Paris unfolded in the context of growing right-wing, xenophobic, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim agitation across the continent, from the mass rallies organized in Germany under the banner of “Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West” to the growth of right-wing nationalist parties like UKIP in Britain. As the media reaction makes clear, the carnage in Paris will be exploited to strengthen these reactionary tendencies.
Marine Le Pen, the leader of the neo-fascist National Front, exploited the attack as a means of legitimizing her party’s poisonous chauvinist politics. “It’s my responsibility to say that fear must be overcome and we must say that this attack should on the contrary free us in how we talk about Islamic fundamentalism,” she declared. In other words, the gloves were off in terms of whipping up anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim hysteria.
Whoever carried out this massacre, such terrorist actions can only play into the hands of the most reactionary forces in the state, and the growing constituency in the ruling elite for stepped-up military intervention abroad and police-state measures at home. As the aftermath of 9/11 conclusively demonstrated, these actions horrify and disorient the public, and provide an opportunity for the state to implement policies for which—except for the terrorist actions—there is no broad-based popular support.