An Evaluation of the Shift in French Policies against the Islamic State after the November 13 Attacks

Four concomittant attacks of 13 November 2015 that targeted Paris created a shift in French policies towards the Islamic State (IS). The President of the Republic pledged a merciless fight against an attack that was organized and launched from outside with internal complicities. Paris did not only call on the international community for a grand coalition to destroy the IS, but also took a much more active part in the fight against the organization by intensifying the air strikes against the organizations’s strongholds. The rapid deployment of Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier to the Gulf means further involvement in the future. This study will aim to explore the reasons of the shift in French policies on two psychological grounds. The first one will focus on the popular expectation that the perpetrators must be punished. The second will take into consideration the psyche of French policymakers, who felt obliged to act due to the high level of atrocity with no choice but to deepen their country’s commitment to the war against the fundamentalists.