to feel my sympathy with the French government evaporate?

[Tiivola]

So the French government wants to suspend civil liberties for three months, effectively turning the country into a police state?

And if Francois "this is war" Hollande invokes article 5 of the Nato treaty, the UK could be forced to join in military action in Syria?!

AIBU to think that while I have the greatest possible sympathy with the French people, the French government can go fuck themselves...?

We need to see the respected leaders of the Islamic community on this, and other countries, speaking up against ISIS. We need to see that madrasas are explaining the true nature of the evil of ISIS to young people and explaining Sharia law is not compatible with life in the West. We need them to make clear to the young that they can have a peaceful life in this country if they are tolerant of others and accepting of the long standing customs in this country.

I agree Plymouth. Are they saying it and the western media just aren't reporting it?

YANBU. Groundhog day for the west.

It's a populist move by Hollande, who afterall is a politician.

Maybe that is the case SirChenjin - unfortunately we don't know.

The West' is not bombing ISIS in any meaningful way anyway because ISIS is their proxy army in Syria.

I don't think Islam has a clear figurehead or leader. There's imams but no equivalent of a pope or chief rabbi or archbishop. So, asking for Muslim leaders to speak out is a little problematic. There's not an overarching national or international leadership that decrees a co-ordinated response. That's how I understand it anyway, could well be wrong.

I'm not suggesting that we ask them - I'm hoping that they will, but I just don't see an overwhelming voice coming from all the various factions. I could be wrong though, and there could very well be a massive coming together of many different Muslim leaders to make it clear that this is not tolerated or condoned in any way.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/12000928/The-worlds-determination-to-defeat-Isil-is-a-myth.html

interesting clear article on why and what all different factions fighting isis want.

sir there are muslims speaking out agaisnt it, but as isis are a sort of pure form of islam directly following the prophets steps, denouncing them totally is also going against the prophet and that means death.

But, then again, most other Muslms fall into death catagory anyway...so..

isis are a sort of pure form of islam directly following the prophets steps

In what way?

Muslim leaders and ordinary Muslims coming together would do precisely nothing to stop Isis.

It would just appease the sort of meatheads who think all Muslims are terrorists.

I think the onus is on Isis not to kill people and for bigots to think a little and separate non violent Muslims from Isis, rather than anything else.

June we shouldnt fall victim to emotion led arguments here so no "imagine if it was your family" please. If it was my family yes of course I'd want loads of unreasonable civil liberty restricting laws passed but I'd also accept I was far too emotionally involved to be thinking rationally.

Mandatory curfews, the right to search houses at any time, confiscate legally held weapons - all that stuff terrifies the crap out of me, they basically have the power to break the law, punish law abiding citizens as if they were criminals. Terrorism should not be used as an excuse to cracking down on civil liberties, those rights are just as important as any lives that might be saved by preventing terror attacks. Tbh my feeling is that if you need to decimate your country's civil liberties to protect them from terrorism then it actually isn't worth doing. No point saving lives if you have to become a police state to do it.

I wonder how long it will be before the argument against end to end encryption that security services can't break will begin? There isn't any proof the attackers used it but there is overwhelming proof they did use cars. Ban all cars now!

SirChenjin - have a read of this article. It is very long, but explains the type of Islam ISIS believe in and why holding territory is key to their cause.
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

OP, I think YABVU. France has a significant problem with extremism and terrorism and it needs to be tackled. I don't see what is happening in France as it becoming a police state, and I live in a police state so I know what one looks like. This is for three months, not 26 years.

SirChenjin many Muslim leaders have condemned the attacks, including Sheikh alAzhar who is seen as one of the most important Sunni leaders. Iranian religious leaders were also quick to condemn the attacks. As PP noted, there is no one leader of all Muslims.

The reason why this doesn't make much difference to the terrorists is that they don't recognise any of these religious leaders and consider all Muslims who don't acknowledge their leader to be the Caliph or ruler of all Muslims worldwide to be apostates. In fact, much of their efforts prior to this have been focused on Shia mosques and Muslims who reject them.

"I live in a police state so I know what one looks like. This is for three months, not 26 years."

Describe some of the things that make your country a police state, and then look at some of the measures France are proposing. Uniting the people against an external enemy, allowing law abiding people to be arrested or punished for "the greater good", allowing legally held weapons to be confiscated (What are the government planning to do that they are so afraid will generate an armed backlash from the citizenry?)

Francois Hollande announced today that he's only proposing the state of emergency for certain areas of France that may be harbouring terrorists. I presume that those areas will be confirmed in due course. It seems clear to me, at least, that the French police and security services are desperately playing 'catch up' at the moment. The huge raid this morning in St Denis bears that out (plus the fact that one of the people in the flat they raided detonated a suicide vest and that the occupants were shooting back at the police, so clearly had an arsenal of weapons at that site). Right now, the security services need to chase down the terrorists and their accomplices. Being hampered by the need for search warrants, etc, is probably not in the public interest. I would expect this high-intensity period to be quite short-lived, however.

I know things have moved on with this thread but in answer to Gruntled I don't think that NATO can declare war on ISIS.

My understanding is that most international law is predicated on issues being between states. I wonder if there are any examples of war being declared on unrecognised states but I can't think of any offhand.

The UK did very similar when dealing with Northern Ireland. Suspension of Habeus Corpus, removal of trial without jury, extended holding without charge. In fact the Diplock courts are still being used as far as I know.

The UK did that stuff in NI and it was wrong - I was against it then. Internment was a disaster.

The reason why this doesn't make much difference to the terrorists is that they don't recognise any of these religious leaders and consider all Muslims who don't acknowledge their leader to be the Caliph or ruler of all Muslims worldwide to be apostates

YY this is one of the other huge problems.

France can talk about suspending civil liberties, and Nato can consider declaring war, but if you want to nail the bastards - follow the money.

So Daesh are in charge of Iraq's oil fields - who are they selling the oil to? And how are they being paid, because it sure as hell isn't going to be in cash when we're talking about millions of barrels of oil. There's a money trail - and there are dirty banks who are in on it. Follow the money - there are salaries for the oil workers, the mercenaries and fighters for Daesh, and of course, money to buy weapons and ammunition. And there's also the private funding from Saudi Arabia - surely this is traceable? Although I wonder who will raise this with the Saudis.........?

I hope Anonymous are on to this. Never mind bloody Twitter accounts - hack into the dirty banks who are passing this money around. Make that the priority and lets see how dedicated the murderers, rapists and paedophiles are then. Terrorist is too good a name for them.

hack into the dirty banks who are passing this money around

I agree, and I was pleased with Corbyn for pushing this, maybe he does have a use . Cameron seemed slightly to keen to push this to the side and not mention dirty banks....

But its a broad approach needed. This is certainly hugely important.

ChinUp - you are so right. I don't actually see why UK has to join in bombing at this stage. They're already being bombed by how many countries?

The way to defeat I.S is for 'The West' to stop going for regime change in Syria to further its resource grabbing/geopolitical aims. To stop funding the anti-Assad groups such as IS. And ally with the Russians, Iranians, Syrian gov't forces etc and wipe IS out.

I think it's paramount that we, the public, need to be putting pressure on the Gov't to alter its course. Cameron is already flip-flopping and waiting to see where public opinion leads him.