Now Will France Stop Paying Ransom for Hostages?
So now that France is "at war" with radical Islam, now that 1.6 million people and forty heads of state and prime ministers have turned out in the streets of Paris, now that the costs to a society of tolerating the most
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So now that France is "at war" with radical Islam, now that 1.6 million people and forty heads of state and prime ministers have turned out in the streets of Paris, now that the costs to a society of tolerating the most extreme, violent iterations of salafism have been so vividly displayed for the French people, is it too much to ask that France finally stop paying ransoms for its kidnapped nationals in the Middle East? Or will it, even now, continue to fund the activities at which it so vividly and eloquently this week expressed its horror?
Benjamin Wittes is editor in chief of Lawfare and a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of several books.
