The recent attacks in Brussels and those in Paris in January and November 2015 underscore an unsettling truth. “Jihadists pose a greater threat to France and Belgium than to the rest of Europe," wrote William McCants and Christopher Meserole of the Brookings Institution in an article called “The French Connection" published on March 24 in bimonthly magazine Foreign Affairs.
According to the two researchers, “As strange as it may seem, four of the five countries with the highest rates of radicalisation in the world are Francophone, including the top two in Europe (France and Belgium)."
There are an estimated 1,700 French and 470 Belgian individuals who have travelled to join the Islamic State group and other violent extremist groups in Syria and Iraq, according to a report by the Soufan Group published in December 2015. The Soufan Group also reported that France and Belgium have the highest number of fighters per capita.
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