FRESHLY painted in pale turquoise, “La Belle Equipe”, a bistro in eastern Paris, reopened this week after months of anguish. During last November’s terrorist attacks, 20 people were shot dead there. Four months on, the French are trying to turn the page after the worst-ever terrorist attack on their soil. But the latest attacks in Brussels are a bloody reminder that France, and all of Europe, will have to learn to live with terrorism.
After two deadly terrorist attacks in 2015, France, home to Europe’s biggest Muslim minority, has been more alert to the threat than any other European country. Manuel Valls, the prime minister, regularly takes to the airwaves to remind the French of their vulnerability. In Munich last month, he warned fellow Europeans: “We have entered a new era, marked by the long-term presence of hyper-terrorism.” It was the end, he said, of “insouciance”.
As in America after the September 11th attacks, the French response has been to shift the balance between civil liberties and security firmly towards the latter. In November France became the only European country to declare a state of emergency over terror; it remains in place until May 26th. This grants the police sweeping powers to put suspects under house arrest and search premises without judicial warrants. The Socialist president, François Hollande, says the country is “at war”. Under “operation Sentinelle”, 10,000 soldiers have been deployed on French streets. This week, Bernard Cazeneuve, the interior minister, added another 1,600.
The French seem to have accepted without much complaint the disruption to daily life that this has imposed. Bags are routinely checked at the entrance to shops on the Champs-Elysées or other busy streets. Queues for concerts can snake down the pavements due to security controls. Passengers for high-speed trains from Paris to Brussels and Amsterdam must now pass through scanners, as those between Paris and London have for years. With border checks reinstated, car journeys in and out of France can be delayed, too. Such nuisances are tolerated: a poll earlier this year showed 79% approved of extending the state of emergency.
Yet settling into a long-term state of emergency raises two difficulties. The first is getting the management of public anxiety right. After the November attacks, a spirit of solidarity prevailed in Paris, with photos defiantly shared on social media under the hashtag “#Jesuisenterrasse” (I’m at a pavement café”). Nonetheless, over a third of Parisians told a recent poll that they have changed their behaviour, going less often to theatres or football matches.
Visitors are also nervous. Last month Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist mayor of Paris, and Valérie Pécresse, the centre-right president of the Paris region, took an unusual joint trip to Tokyo to reassure Japanese tourists, whose number plunged 66% in December compared to the previous year.
Yet it is awkward for the government to reassure visitors while telling its own citizens to prepare for another attack. Public buildings are festooned with public-information posters entitled “How to react after a terrorist attack”, instructing people to turn off their mobile phones, keep away from windows and lie flat on the ground. Schools must carry out compulsory “confinement” exercises, in which pupils are quarantined in a classroom while windows and doors are sealed with wet towels or tape. “It’s terrifying for the children,” says one primary-school teacher.
Equally difficult is meaningfully to improve the security of soft targets, such as the public areas of airports, train stations and busy streets. Now that security around boarding areas is tight, the focus has shifted to the outer zones, where friends and family linger with passengers. Mr Cazeneuve this week announced that access to the entrance halls of French airports and main transport hubs will be allowed only for those with tickets—a first for Europe. Yet even this policy is unlikely to be applied consistently. Passengers taking trains to Brussels and Amsterdam are scanned before boarding in Paris; but not those leaving for Lyon or Marseilles. Access to the Paris Metro and buses will continue to be open.
Perhaps the trickiest thing about a state of emergency is judging when to exit. Already, there is talk of another extension in June to cover France’s hosting of the European Championship football tournament. Yet prolongation has its own problems. One Paris official confesses that Japanese tourists seem more worried than reassured by France’s state of emergency. The extraordinary measures it allows were intended as just that, not a permanent response to a persistent threat.