“How is it possible that young people who have been educated in our schools and our cities can experience such a distress that the phantom of the caliphate and its social and moral violence are seen as an ideal to die for?”. Card. André Vingt-Trois, Archbishop of Paris, asked this question in his homily during the Mass held yesterday afternoon to remember the victims of Friday night’s terrorist attacks. According to the Archbishop, “that is a frightening question because it instils suspicion in many families”. “Integration difficulties are not a sufficient answer to explain the fact that many people have joined the Jihad”. There is a need – the Archbishop said – to answer the question of “how can this barbaric path become an ideal”. Another question raised by the cardinal was about social life: “How can our lifestyle have caused such a barbaric aggression? We often answer this question by reaffirming our attachment to the values of the Republic, but these events challenge us to analyse what we truly put under the title of “values of the Republic”.