And since ‘62, they’ve had leadership which has striven to alienate them from every possible ally, both Soviet aligned and American.
The French population has been disarmed and brought up for a full generation on the belief that all hard things are someone else’s problem to deal with.
The French gov has made it policy, since at least the mid ‘70s to buy protection from muslim antagonism by giving away Western intel that had been gathered against muslim terrorist forces and their Soviet sponsors.
Many folk still want to color this new wave of jihadi, both casual and professional, as just your garden variety civil disruptor. Not the case. Not at all. There are the usual useful idiots among the crowd, but the central knot, the leaders, motivators, and soon, the primary fighters are pure psychopathic true believers and many are already battle tested and conditioned.
Thousands of jihadi are recruited and trained every year. We’ve worked at making the training harder by attacking what safe havens we can reach, but the French, among others, have done everything they can to prevent those interventions or minimalize the effect.
Iraq, Afghanistan and other hot zones were primary draws for these jihadi, once trained and ready. Now those places are getting to hot. Paris is nice and cool. Lots of pretty and undefended people to prey upon.
I suspect hell has set up shop in many of the urban no go zones and is just about ready to walk out hard and bloody.