Attack in Nice: why is France targeted?
Horror strikes Nice, France, as a large truck plowed through families gathered for Bastille Day Thursday night, killing at least 84 people.
The driver, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, was killed by police and no one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack on France's national holiday.
The tragedy cuts deep for a nation still healing from two attacks in Paris last year that killed a total of 147 people, and the Charlie Hedbo mass shooting in January 2015.
On The Current, Nancy Heslin, the editor in chief of Nice's English language news magazine, The Riviera, offers astonishing first-hand experiences of the attack, including interactions with the driver of the lorry.
"There was a look in his eyes, but he was smiling."
Heslin, who is from Toronto but has lived in Nice for 15 years, goes on to cite problems of integration and unemployment in France as key contributors to the rise of radicalism in that country.
Then, political analyst and author of The Islamist, Loretta Napoleoni, expands the scope to discuss why France, in particular, has been targeted three times in the last 18 months. "It is an anti-imperial message to the west."
RELATED LINKS
Listen to the full conversation at the top of this webpost.
This segment was produced by The Current's Sarah Grant and Julian Uzielli