A string of shootings by a lone gunman in the city of Toulouse, France, has left seven people dead — three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi, and three Muslim paratroopers — and is igniting a debate over whether the anti-immigrant rhetoric of France's presidential candidates is to blame. President Nicolas Sarkozy, facing a tough re-election battle, has been striking a strong nationalist tone in an attempt to match the inflammatory far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, suggesting that Muslim immigrants should work harder to integrate into French culture, and not expect any special treatment from the government. But the extreme tone and positions of the debate has led to a "growing climate of intolerance," says centrist presidential candidate Francois Bayrou, which may be encouraging violence. With the revelation Wednesday that the suspected gunman is not a far-right radical, but a Muslim who claims ties to al Qaeda, the debate is becoming even more heated. Is anti-immigrant rhetoric to blame for the killings in Toulouse?
France's anti-immigrant hysteria has grown dangerous: France isn't sliding headlong "into an abyss of ethnocentric, racially, or politically motivated violence," says William Bauer at Policy Mic. But the attacks do show that the "increasingly angry war of words in French politics" is more damaging than ever, and has life-and-death consequences. Increasingly, anti-immigration rhetoric is a successful tool to woo conservative voters who fear change — but the "reckless use of inflammatory language" is exceedingly dangerous. Some people will always exploit such discourse and differences "to justify their heinous acts."
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