Some countries in the ‘enlightened’, democratic West, champion of freedom of expression, allow the lampoonig of Islam’s prophet. So why is France singled out for protests across the Muslim world, and so often a target of violence from extremists? Its brutal colonial past, staunch secular policies and tough-talking president, seen as insensitive towards Islam, play a role, reports the Associated Press. As France mourns three people killed in a knife attack at a Nice church on October 29, there are several reasons why the country faces such unrest. France has the largest population of Muslims in Western Europe, over five million, a legacy of its colonies in Africa and West Asia. But the country’s efforts to integrate Muslim immigrants have faltered. The French doctrine of colourblindness is intended to ignore ethnic/religious backgrounds in the name of equalite, but in reality, the ideal often fuels discrimination against those who look, dress or pray differently from the historically Catholic majority. Thus, Muslims are over-represented in France’s poorest neighbourhoods and in its prisons, breeding angry outcasts who think their racist homeland disrespects Islam. French-born youth were behind much of the worst bloodshed in recent years, many of them linked to the Islamic State group. Again, French military intervention against Islamist radicals in its former colonies—in Mali and Syria, and in the Sahel region of Africa—fuels anger and online appeals from IS, Al-Qaida and other extremists for retaliation on French soil.