Why Islamic State may be targeting France

THE murderous attacks in Paris on Nov 13 and the aftermath of fear and insecurity across Europe have a variety of repercussions. Among these, it may prove to be the final nail in the coffin for the Schengen agreement on a border-free Europe - an accord to which the UK is not party.

Even before the Paris atrocities, the agreement was close to collapse anyway after the failure of recent European Union-wide efforts to find political answers to the migration challenge. Like the euro, Schengen may go down in history as a good and noble idea poorly (and incompletely) executed, with flaws which became near-fatal when the system came under stress.

To work properly, a common area with free movement inside the zone demands a common border against the outside. The Schengen zone should have had a Federal Border Agency with a common, jointly run border force. The present arrangements fall far short of this. France, for example, has surrendered control of who can enter its territory not to an agency in Brussels, where it would have a voice (though even this would be a step too far for the UK) but to the authorities in Athens, Rome or Budapest. And they, in turn, have devolved responsibility to their agents in Kos, and Lampedusa, and any tiny village on the Serbian-Hungarian border now being besieged and overwhelmed by desperate people.