The issue of race, the issue of colonialism that you mentioned earlier to Constance, remember that large parts of the Arab world were under either Frenchcolonialism or British colonialism.
Moreover, for Mr Jospin, son of left-wing parents, the Trotskyites doubtless seemed an honourable alternative both to the Socialists, tainted by their support for Frenchcolonialism, and to the Communists, blind to Russia's brutality at home and abroad.
Time and again, support for terrorism appears to increase when legitimate political activism is suppressed - from the French anarchists who began bombing campaigns after the defeat of the Paris Commune, to the Algerian National Liberation Front struggling to end Frenchcolonialism, to the Weather Underground's "Declaration of a state of war" after state repression of student campaigns against the Vietnam War.