France spent four times more on anti-terrorism than on anti-racism.

Evidence

However, there is an enemy that the French government, with its partners, deems to be more perilous and significant than antisemitism: the Muslim enemy. In his speech on 13 January for the victims of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, Valls said: ‘France is at war with terrorism, jihadism and radical Islamism.’ Certainly, he added that ‘France is not at war with a religion, France is not at war with Islam and Muslims’. Yet the fact remains that Muslims are the enemy, even if not Muslims are the target. Antisemitism pales in significance in the face of this foe: on 21 January, Valls announced 425 million euros of additional spending for ‘la lutte contre le terrorisme’ over three years, more than four times the budget for ‘la lutte contre le racisme et l’antisémitisme’, and a total expenditure of 940 million. — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 61

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: the 940 million total expenditure figure against ongoing anti-racism budgets — how stable were these numbers across the 2015-2017 period?
• SHARE: The specific 4x budget comparison and the 940M figure would interest anyone tracking French domestic security spending.