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With the death of the driver who plowed his truck through dozens of French civilians in Nice,it may take a while for authorities to get to the bottom of what motivated the attack. The broader picture, however, looks unpleasantly clear: mainland Europe, and France in particular, is facing a vicious, repeated string of attacks that are hard to stop and likely to produce evermore unpredictable political consequences.
In France alone, well over 200 civilians have now been killed since attackers targeted a kosher supermarket and the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in January 2015. And while the vast majority of deaths occurred in just three events – that killing, the assault in Paris on November 13 and now the Bastille Day truck attack in Nice – it appears that much smaller, more limited but still often deadly strikes are also on the rise.
It’s not just France, of course, but for now that country appears the most at risk. According to European security officials, the March 22 Brussels attack that left 35 dead, including three perpetrators, also had been intended for French soil. In response, the country has mobilized on an almost wartime scale, with troops on the streets and a national state of emergency.
Only hours before the attack in Nice, President François Hollande had ironically announced that the state of emergency imposed after November's attacks would be lifted at the end of the month.
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