Low-cost terrorism has once again struck Europe in the heart. In Barcelona, ​​Spain, Islamists have once again targeted a symbol of our free and festive societies. In the Catalan city, this will certainly take on particular importance in the deranged minds of the jihadists.

The Ramblas, the most vibrant avenue in the city, lined with restaurants and taken over by tourists, takes its name from the Arabic “raml”, the sand… Until the Reconquista, the Catalan capital made part of the territory of "al-Andalus", which occupies a unique place in jihadist propaganda.

In Nice, Berlin or London, the terrorists choose each time an emblematic place to better mark the spirits... On the promenade des Anglais during the festivities of July 14, on the Christmas market of the church of Remembrance, on the bridge from Westminster the bloody attacks sought to create the most powerful impact possible by cowardly carrying jihad into the flesh of our civilization. The trauma is all the stronger as these attacks are almost unstoppable, because they are unpredictable.

Defeated in Mosul in a firework of car bombs, our adversaries, the Islamist terrorists, are routed in Iraq, cornered in Raqqa and Syria. In the West, they do not fight with the same weapons. But always with the same perverse concern for “efficiency”.

As early as 2014, the Islamic State had called on the "soldiers of the caliphate" to kill the "infidels" by arming themselves with everyday objects: a stone, a knife, a car-ram or a truck. On Thursday, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Barcelona attack as a “response to calls to target coalition states” anti-Daesh in Iraq and Syria.

Its perverted ideology will not die in the sands of ancient Mesopotamia. A fear seizes our Old Continent. What if Europe was only experiencing the beginnings of a terrible ebb?