Inside the French ghettos, Muslims are fed up with being blamed for the violence of others because of a shared religion...

“I knew as soon as it happened that they would blame Muslims, say terrorists are behind it, we are used to that now; we expect nothing else from the authorities here,” declared Rachid, standing at a street corner with a group of young men. “They humiliate us and then they are surprised when there is violence.”

There were nods and murmurs of agreement among his friends gathered in a circle. Young Frenchmen, Muslims, who see the French state as an enemy, feel alienated from the rest of French society and see nothing but a bleak future of strife ahead.

The half-dozen in the group, aged between 18 and 23, were speaking in the Abbatoir district, not far from where Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel drove a 19-tonne truck into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day, killing 84 people, 10 of them children.

But surely nothing can justify mass murder? “We are not saying that, what he did was very bad. But the police, the media, everyone is saying he did it because he was a Muslim,” said Rachid throwing his arms up in the air. “No, he did not even go to a mosque, he did it because of whatever problem he had, it wasn’t because he was a Muslim.” Full story...

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