France: Obama, Refugees and Internet Jihad

Three big subjects in the French media this week : Barack Obama's historic election, the expulsion of Afghan refugees and Internet Jihad.

I'll pass quickly on the first subject; most everything has been said and done about Obama's victory last Tuesday. Of course, from left to right, the French media are ecstatic. Questions have started to fuse: Would France be ready for a black president? Would France be ready for a female president? In a country where Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front National (far-right) was able to gather 17% of the vote in 2003, it is a legitimate question.

The other big story on the international front was the expulsion of Afghan refugees. The hard-heartedness of France's immigration ministry lived up to its reputation this week: 57 illegal Afghan refugees will be sent back to Kabul, among them a parentless child no older than 10 years old. The left is trying to mobilize its supporters around this issue, but for now, apathy is what seems to be prevailing in the Hexagon.

Le Figaro published Friday a new report titled "Jihadist Propaganda on the Internet: Diagnosis and Perspectives". Among other things, the report states that France is the country with the fifth-most clicks on jihadist web sites, ahead of even Egypt and Saudi Arabia! It also reports that in the last five years, jihadist servers have grown from 75 to almost 200 worldwide.

Also, the report suggests that jihadists have been keen on using the web 2.0, as Ayman Al-Zawahiri did when he chatted and blogged with supporters in 2007 and 2008. But these web sites aren't only used for propaganda; they are now used as much for recruiting and training purposes.

Scary, isn't it?