France knows these headlines.
Unfortunately.
Two brothers. Twenty and twenty-two years old.
An engineering student and an unemployed young man.
In the car: a loaded pistol, chemicals, symbols of the so-called Islamic State. Added to this were digital traces filled with jihadist propaganda. And the dream of martyrdom – that grotesque glorification of murder that terrorists like to sell as a religious heroic story.
The French National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office speaks of a “deadly and antisemitic” plot – murderous, antisemitic.
An attack intended to cause as many victims as possible.
You read these words and immediately feel the old familiar shudder: the memory of the Bataclan, Charlie Hebdo, Nice. Of all those places where terrorists tried to tear apart open society like an old tablecloth.
The security authorities apparently arrested the brothers in time.
Thank goodness.
But while the justice system does its work, another kind of political exploitation begins elsewhere.
Because as soon as such a case emerges, a familiar spectacle begins. In the marketplaces of politics, the megaphones come out. Some parties are already rubbing their hands together – not out of concern for security, but out of delight at having a new campaign issue.
After all, fear is an extremely profitable political resource.
And France is in the middle of the campaign for municipal elections.
It is one of the bitter ironies of contemporary Europe that terrorism and right-wing populism maintain an alarming interaction. Terror produces fear. Fear produces votes. And votes produce power.
A macabre political cycle.
Of course, the threat is real. No sensible person would downplay it. France has lived for years with a changed terrorist danger: fewer large networks, but more small groups, sometimes even isolated individuals, radicalized in front of their screens, in the dark corners of the internet.
The pattern is familiar.
Young people who lose themselves in virtual parallel worlds. Propaganda that instills in them the idea that murder is a religious duty. The fantasy of heroic sacrifice – a grotesque mixture of religious fanaticism and adolescent delusions of grandeur.
And suddenly, a chat room becomes an attack plan.
All of this is real.
All of this is dangerous.
But the political temptation to turn every story of this kind into a simple slogan is just as real.
“You see!” the mouthpieces of the far right then cry. “The Republic is weak. Immigration is guilty. The solution is firmness.”
As if politics were a club.
Yet these slogans ignore a decisive fact: the French security authorities prevented the attack. Investigators, judges, intelligence services – they work. They observe, analyze, intervene.
The state acts.
But in the political theatre of fear, this reality matters little. Success does not sell well. Fear sells remarkably well.
And so a political narrative emerges that is about as nuanced as graffiti in a train station toilet.
“Migration equals terrorism.”
Full stop.
Yet the case of the two brothers tells a far more complicated story. A story of online radicalisation, shattered life paths, ideological seduction in digital echo chambers.
And of antisemitic hatred, which has intensified again in Europe – originating from different political and religious milieus.
But nuanced analyses have a problem: they do not fit on election posters.
Reality is therefore simplified.
Until it fits into a slogan.
It works surprisingly well. Fear is a political turbocharger. Those who stoke it gain attention – and sometimes elections too.
The far right in France knows this. It has been playing this game for years with the precision of a watchmaker.
And every foiled terrorist plot is immediately incorporated into the same political narrative: the state is supposedly too lax, democracy too naive, and the solution lies in authoritarian strength.
As if Europe had not already seen where such political fantasies lead.
Of course, terrorism requires determined responses. The police, intelligence services, international cooperation – all of this remains necessary.
But anyone who believes that the response to terrorism consists of eroding democratic principles or placing entire population groups under general suspicion has not understood the heart of the problem.
Terrorism aims at fear.
And populism feeds on fear.
In this respect, they are unwilling allies.
One seeks to shake society through violence.
The other exploits this upheaval to gain political capital from it.
In the end, there is a democracy that must defend itself not only against bombs, but also against political simplification.
The true strength of an open society does not lie in its toughness. But in its ability to remain both vigilant and free.
That sounds complicated.
It is.
Democracy is not a mass.
It is more like a clockwork mechanism – delicate, sensitive, precise. And that is precisely why it is vulnerable to those who wish to break it with crude slogans.
The foiled attack plot in Pas-de-Calais is a reminder that terrorism still exists. But it also reminds us of something else: the responsibility of politics.
Fear explains many things.
It excuses nothing.
Anyone who wants to fight terrorism must not, at the same time, undermine the democratic culture they claim to defend.
Otherwise, two forces end up winning at the same time:
the fanatics with their bomb fantasies – and the populists with their simplistic answers.
And that, to put it once in a completely non-academic way, would be really damn bad news for Europe.
A commentary by Andreas M. Brucker