The Washington Post reports on the plight of Muslims in France who, according to the Post, "feel deeply torn by the now-viral slogan 'I am Charlie,' arguing that no, they are not Charlie at all."

In an effort to report on how the terror attacks of last week are impacting the French Muslim community, the article ends up shedding light on the culture clash at the root of many of the tensions in France today. Most notably, the comments made by several Muslim students who show sympathy not for the victims, but for the terrorists:  

Rather than fall quiet as requested during a national minute of silence last week, three boys in Hamid Abdelaali’s high school class in this heavily Muslim suburb of Paris staged an informal protest, speaking loudly through all 60 seconds.

Across France, they were not alone. In one school in Normandy, some Muslim students yelled “God is great!” in Arabic during that same moment. In a Paris middle school, another group of young Muslims politely asked not to respect the minute, arguing to their teacher, “You reap what you sow.”

The article goes on to highlight the Muslim community's concern over the viral "I am Charlie" campaign taken up by their fellow Frenchmen. The slogan is meant to show solidarity with the satirical newspaper targeted by the Islamic terrorists and, more importantly, to show allegiance to the principals of free expression and liberty. But, according to the Post's article, those ideals are not embraced by many of the French Muslims they spoke with. 

Within France’s Muslim community of some 5 million — the largest in Europe — many are viewing the tragedy in starkly different terms from their non-Muslim compatriots. They feel deeply torn by the now-viral slogan “I am Charlie,” arguing that no, they are not Charlie at all.

Many of France’s Muslims — like Abdelaali — abhor the violence that struck the country last week. But they are also revolted by the notion that they should defend the paper. By putting the publication on a pedestal, they insist, the French are once again sidelining the Muslim community, feeding into a general sense of discrimination that, they argue, helped create the conditions for radicalization in the first place.

Finally, the Post circles back to comfortable ground by amplifying the economic plight suffered by Muslims in France and the paper suggests that socioeconomic conditions are at the root of the tensions between the Muslim community and the secular mainstream: 

Unemployment and poverty remain far higher among France’s Muslims than in the nation overall. Joblessness and poverty are particularly high in heavily Muslim Paris suburbs such as Gennevilliers, an area of sprawling, dense apartment blocks where at least one of the gunmen — Chérif Kouachi, 32 — lived. On the streets here, Charlie Hebdo remains something different, a symbol of what some, such as Mohamed Binakdan, 32, describe as the everyday humiliation of Muslims in France.

“You go to a nightclub, and they don’t let you in,” said Binakdan, a transit worker in Paris. “You go to a party, they look at your beard, and say, ‘Oh, when are you going to Syria to join the jihad?’ Charlie Hebdo is a part of that, too. Those who are stronger than us are mocking us. We have high unemployment, high poverty. Religion is all we have left. This is sacred to us. And yes, we have a hard time laughing about it.”