Averted train attack leaves France facing tough dilemmas of security

The sound of a gun being readied was heard on the last coach of the train from Amsterdam to Paris on August 21. A young Moroccan-born man named Ayoub El-Khazzani got in the train in Brussels and attempted to fire on the passengers with an AK47, a cheap assault rifle that you can easily find in the black market.

Fortunately the attacker was not well trained in its use and it gave time for a vacationing US airman and two of his friends to jump on him. Although one sustained injuries from a bolt cutter used by the attacker, catastrophe was averted thanks to their courage. 

On Monday morning, the three Americans and one older British man who joined them were presented with the "Légion d'Honneur" to thank them, in the name of the French people, for their actions in the train and the lives they saved.

Five days after the attack, politics and the press are beginning to give some analysis of what happened, why it happened and how we can fix it. 

France has experienced several "lone wolf" attacks this year.

It is facing a dilemma. How can you watch 4,000 people described by the intelligence agencies as potentially dangerous because of Islamic radicalization?

Some first reactions were based on fear. Fear in Europe has led to the darkest ideas of our recent history. For example, on Tuesday, Transportation Minister Alain Vidalies said on national radio that checking of luggage would be reinforced even those controls could bring some discrimination. This kind of proposition treats every Muslim as a potential terrorist and further divides a society that is already fractured.

Other people said that the national railway company, the SNCF, should make some alterations in the train stations to create secure access to platforms, as already exists in the airports.

Secure access was introduced in Spain after the attacks of 2004 in the Atocha train station, but it is not suitable in the French case.

According to the SNCF, these modifications would be very expensive because the main train stations in France are more than 100 years old, are too narrow and are not designed to include these kinds of entrances and exits.

The other consequence of this measure would be that the SNCF could not run as many trains as it does now because of the loss of time and convenience for travelers due to the new security protocols.

For now, we will see greater controls and more power for intelligence agencies.

People in France don't live every day with the fear of an attack, but we all know that we have in our country some people able to act very dangerously. We must live with that information.

Our society has put poor people in a corner, who became very vulnerable to extremist speech. France must understand what went wrong and must correct the mistakes from the past.

This process will take time, has unfortunately not begun and will bring other stories in the future.

Posted by TES

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