France ponders its response to shootings: Will xenophobia or multiculturalism win?

c. 2015 Religion News Service

PARIS (RNS) As France emerges from its worst terrorist attack in decades, a biting novel that imagines the country governed by Islamic law is part of a swirling debate about its basic values. Will the country respond to the shootings with fear and xenophobia, as suggested by the book Soumission, or Submission—or embrace its multicultural, multifaith identity?

On Sunday (January 11), heads of state and religious leaders joined millions on the streets of Paris in a massive march for free expression and to honor last week’s victims from the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.