Europe needs to take a different approach to combating terrorism, former French Prime Minster Dominique de Villepin said Tuesday.
Speaking immediately following the three terror attacks that rocked Brussels Tuesday morning on CNBC, de Villepin called the explosions “tragic events,” but added that Europe can only “reduce” the threat of terrorism.
“I do believe that our strategy should be very different than the one it is. Much less a military approach than a political approach, trying to find solutions in the Middle East and we are far from doing that,” he said.
The series of explosions on a metro station and airport in the capital of Belgium have left at least 26 dead and more than 130 injured. Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel called the attack cowardly, labeling it as a black day for Belgium.
Speaking near the Boao economic forum in China, de Villepin said Tuesday’s attacks would only create more fear. He also added that there should be no “triumphalism” when known terrorists are caught by authorities, as Tuesday’s attacks come just four days after the capture of Salah Abdeslam in Brussels, a suspect in last year’s Paris attacks. There has been no found connection yet between his capture and Tuesday’s blasts.
“I do believe we are not addressing right the issue of terrorism today,” de Villepin said.
“We are giving too much communication importance, too much politics, while we should be addressing the issue on a much more technical basis, showing that we are sticking to our rule of law, we are sticking to our values, and to make democracy a strength, not a vulnerability,” he added, saying the focus should be on “human intelligence” instead of “technical intelligence” because “we are overestimating the terrorists.”
“These people are playing with very little means and they need very little to do huge disasters on our communities,” de Villepin concluded. “We are not going to win the war on terror. We can divide terrorists, we can eliminate for a large part terrorism, but we can only reduce it.”
