The impasse over Cyprus, and the brutality of the war in Turkey's south-east (hundreds of villages razed, great numbers of people made homeless), combine to provide a formidable argument to Europeans who say that Turkey should not be allowed to join the European Union.

ECONOMIST: The chill descending on Turkey | The

We have had many chances of strangling in their infancy the forces of aggression and brutality which have now engulfed the world in war.

ECONOMIST: From the archive

Although immigration from North Africa is a century-long phenomenon (170, 000 Algerians and 130, 000 Moroccans were recruited to fight for France in the first world war), what sticks in the memory is the bitterness of the Algerian war of 1954-62, when Frenchmen and Algerians killed and tortured each other with enthusiastic brutality.

ECONOMIST: France's Muslims