Peter Coy, Columnist

The Paris Attacks Can’t Lead to a Closed Europe

After terrorists strike, the first instinct is to raise walls. But democracies thrive on openness.

November 19, 2015 at 9:00 AM UTC

Peter Coy is the economics editor for Bloomberg Businessweek and covers a wide range of economic issues. He also holds the position of senior writer. Coy joined the magazine in December 1989 as telecommunications editor, then became technology editor in October 1992 and held that position until joining the economics staff. He came to BusinessWeek from the Associated Press in New York, where he had served as a business news writer since 1985. Before that, Coy worked as a correspondent in the AP Rochester bureau. He began his career at the AP in 1980 as an editor in the Albany bureau. Prior to that, Coy was a reporter for the Waterbury (Conn.) Republican. Coy holds a BA in history from Cornell University.

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This article is part of the November 23, 2015 issue of businessweek.

The priority of every person and every society is to survive. President François Hollande declared the emergency closing of France’s borders after terrorists struck Paris on Nov. 13. The following Monday he announced to Parliament, meeting in Versailles, that Europe as a whole must keep out enemies, or France will take matters into its own hands. Lives, he said, were at stake. “If Europe doesn’t control its external borders, it is the return of national borders or walls and barbed wire,” Hollande said. After the speech he and the lawmakers sternly sang La Marseillaise.

It’s not just a shaken France that’s talking about walls and barbed wire. Hungary just built a wall along its border with Serbia. India has walled itself off from Bangladesh. Israel has fenced the West Bank and Gaza. Morocco built a sand berm to block attacks by separatists from Western Sahara. And in the U.S., Donald Trump leapt to the front of the race for the Republican presidential nomination by promising to build “the greatest wall that you’ve ever seen” on the long border with Mexico.