Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Will Macron get tough on Algeria over the French knife attack?

French forensic police work on the site of the knife attack in Mulhouse (Credit: Getty images)

Emmanuel Macron will hold talks with Donald Trump on Monday at which the President of France will attempt to ‘make Europe’s voice heard’. Still seething about being excluded from America’s peace negotiations with Russia, Macron wants to reassert the continent’s authority Stateside. 

It will be a forlorn exercise. One of the reasons America – not just Trump’s administration but the one that preceded it – no longer attaches much importance to the EU is because they can see how weak it’s become.

The world understands that Macron talks the talk but never walks the walk

It’s timidity towards Algeria is a prime example. On Saturday, an Algerian man was arrested by police after allegedly running amok with a knife in the French city of Mulhouse. As he stabbed several people, fatally wounding a 69-year-old Portuguese man, the assailant reportedly screamed ‘Allahu Akbar’. Macron said later that there was ‘no doubt it was an Islamist terrorist attack’.

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