Far-Left Presidential Candidate Blames ‘Discrimination’ and ‘State’ for Islamist Paris Attack

PARIS (AP) — Far-left presidential candidate Philippe Poutou is blaming French politics for the deadly attack on Paris’ Champs-Elysees, in which a police officer and the attacker were killed.

Poutou, a car-factory worker backed by anti-capitalist party NPA, says the roots of extremist attacks are neither in mosques nor migrant camps. He said: “They are in the situation of external and internal war maintained by the state, and in the injustice and discriminations maintained in the suburbs.”

Poutou says the French state has to share the blame for attacks because it discriminates against people living in impoverished suburbs because of “their skin color or origins,” takes military action in Africa and the Middle East and sells arms to dictatorships.