"France is attacked not for what she does, but for what it is"

Emotion, Dread, the Shock in France.

We are duplex with François Heisbourg, chairman of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Fabien Farge, euronews: François Heisbourg, the fatal attack on Charlie Hebdo, what significance do you give him ?? Why target this newspaper in particular and the press in general?

François Heisbourg: "Target selection shows that it is, that the organizers of the attack did not particularly seek to influence the strategy of France or the policy of France but wanted to attack democracy and freedom. Charlie Hebdo is a diary of a particular insolence killed cartoonists who were not particularly kind vis-à-vis the French military policy in particular. Cabu was a great anti-militarist before the eternal. No terrorists have really sought a symbolic target of what differentiates Islamic terrorism free civilizations, democratic. This in itself is interesting, as other terrorist groups at other times sought to influence the policy of the state, this is not the case regarding the attack. "

Fabien Farge, euronews: the attack, you know, a lot of emotion, a lot of fear, shock, can be done already in this climate credible assumptions about the possible identity of this act? Do you have any information related to the investigation?

François Heisbourg: "We need at this stage I think remain extremely cautious. What we know is that the operation was conducted in a professional, military with great economy of gesture terrorists, a large fire discipline. This is very similar to the operational plan commandos who had made it to Mumbai a few years ago in India. They are killers who have been trained to do this type of operation and situations as they arise, repeat. It was not suicide bombers. If we were to find out later that they were trained by Daech or similar group Daech, I will not be surprised but at this stage we can only advance hypotheses and most urgent at this stage, c ' is to catch them because they are always to my knowledge in nature with the ability to commit new attacks. "

Fabien Farge, euronews: So in fact, there was nevertheless a target that had been designated by Charlie Hebdo by Al Qaeda in fact one of the Prophet Muhammad publications, is that, for example, now we can already say that Al Qaeda is behind all this?

François Heisbourg: "we can not draw any conclusions regarding the identification of the sponsor by against your point is very important because you know a fight right now between Daech and Al Qaeda to who will embody the research of the Caliphate because Al Qaeda had the ambition of establishing the caliphate and this may explain both the choice of the target and the fact that terrorists do not want to start an influential message on the strategy of France and I will not be surprised that the sponsors of this attack have registered their action in the fight for a particular share of the market jihadism, if I may use that term to be able to motivate his own recruits and to be able to attract new at the expense of the competing organization. The logic of the choice of the target can not be explained very easily out of this type of scheme. "

Fabien Farge, euronews: Was France a particular target, it has been in the past, many times, even severely bruised. Why is again a special target in terrorism cases, according to you?

François Heisbourg: "France has never ceased to be a target of terrorism since the late 90s at the time, where the first white paper had been prepared on terrorism in 2005, an average was documented two major attacks foiled every year between 1998 and 2005. And to my knowledge, the pace has not slowed down since. What happened is that the security services have generally been able to thwart most attacks, and until the Merah affair and now this new and very alarmingly matter of great concern because of the professionalism of means and ability for the organization that organized the attack to commit the like. And why France, because France epitomizes what these forces, Al Qaeda or reject Daech: France, it's insolence, freedom is the expression. Charlie Hebdo who scored his action to that of the Danish newspaper which itself had been attacked by terrorists at the time of the first cartoons which included the Prophet Muhammad. The choice of target shows that France is not attacked for what it does, but for what it is. And there, for once, the battle is absolute, there is no compromise with such forces. "

Fabien Farge, euronews: how can we prevent new attacks in France, in Europe, in the West? Do you also that other acts of this nature can reproduce not only in France or elsewhere in Europe or in the West?

François Heisbourg, "the answers are commonplace, they are known, but they are not easy to implement. That's more money for security services, police services, justice and in the case of France, in particular, strengthening the capacity of the Directorate General for Internal Security, which was created recently and is a service whose growth is just beginning. And at European level, a strengthening of cooperation that is already not bad between service levels while engaged in the fight against terrorism between European states and their partners abroad. "

Fabien Farge, euronews: should bring the attack in Paris with the attacks of Ottawa and Sydney or is it unrelated attacks among them?

François Heisbourg: "I think there, you really expect the outcome of the three surveys. Because it is obviously three different cases and the case of Ottawa and Sydney were not marked by the same level of professionalism, efficiency in the execution in every sense of that terrible word and has unfortunately characterized the operation in Paris today that was the act of the deadliest terror that France has experienced since the end of the war in Algeria on its territory. "

Fabien Farge, euronews: François Heisbourg, thank you for answering my questions.