CEP Senior Research Analyst Sofia Koller writes: Neither France nor Germany remains spared from the threat of Islamist terrorism: In France, the threat level remains high. In February 2026 alone, two 16-year-old boys were charged with planning a terrorist attack, and a released extremist offender attacked a gendarme with a knife at the Place de l’Étoile in Paris. Germany, too, remains “unabatedly in the crosshairs of ISIS,” as the knife attack in Solingen in August 2024 demonstrated. In the fight against Islamist extremism and terrorism, however, rapid and effective responses to such security risks are in a constant tension with the rule of law and long-term violence prevention. Germany and France—close friends, neighbors, drivers of European integration, and competitors—weigh these factors differently on this issue. Therefore, it is worth briefly comparing the three most important differences in counterterrorism.