How selective solidarity and sympathy aids a jingoistic foreign policy
On Sunday evening, the first news reports started to come
through that France had conducted its largest bombing campaign to date
against an ‘ISIS stronghold’ in Raqqa, Syria. The Guardian referred to
Raqqa as an ‘IS bastion’, and that the decision to launch
such ‘massive, retaliatory airstrikes’ was an act of “self-defence”,
according to french foreign minister, Laurent Fabius. These airstrikes
follow Friday’s terror attacks in Paris that left over 140 people dead.
Speaking on the first day of the G20 summit in Turkey, Laurent Fabius claimed that
“France has always said that because she
has been threatened and attacked by Daesh(ISIS), it would be