PARIS ATTACKS: Brussels borough Molenbeek is ‘a breeding ground for violence’, says local mayor

“A breeding ground for violence” is what the mayor of Molenbeek called her borough, speaking of unemployment and overcrowding among Arab immigrant families, of youthful despair finding refuge in radical Islam.

But as the Brussels district on the wrong side of the city’s post-industrial canal became a focus for police pursuing those behind Friday’s mass attacks in Paris, Belgian authorities are asking what makes the narrow, terraced streets of Molenbeek different from a thousand similar neighbourhoods across Europe.

Multiple themes emerge as Molenbeek is again in a spotlight of Islamist violence, home not just to militants among Belgium’s own 500,000 Muslims but, it seems, for French radicals seeking a convenient, discreet base to lie low, plan, and arm before striking their homeland across the border.