French Prime Minister Manuel Valls declared that the country is at war with radical Islam in a speech late Saturday.
"We're at war, but not at war against a religion, not against a civilization, but at war to defend our values, which are universal," he said in the wake of the terrorist attacks that rocked Paris this week, leaving 17 people dead. "It is a war against terrorism and radical Islam, against everything aimed at breaking solidarity, liberty and fraternity."
Valls called on everyone in France to come out to the demonstrations of unity on Sunday, and urged them not to be divided by the attacks. "Our compatriots and citizens who are Muslim by confession and culture are also the victims of terrorism," he said. "This is perhaps the most important message: the refusal of this confusion. Jihadism tries to create that confusion."
"We are not a collection of communities, we are one nation, a Republic with values: generosity, solidarity, fraternity, secularism," he emphasized. "We must also be lucid: antisemitism, racism, hatred of the other, these things are intolerable... Journalists were killed for drawing, police were killed for protecting us, and Jews were killed because they were Jewish. This is what is intolerable. The indignation must be total and permanent."
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