PARIS, Aug. 18 (Xinhua) -- The two terrorist attacks that killed 14 people and injured hundreds of others in Spain on Thursday were made possible because European countries were slow to make public space safe, French specialist on terrorism Mathieu Guidere said on Friday in an interview with Xinhua.
According to Guidere, who has written several books on terrorism and is a professor at the University of Paris VIII, the two attacks in Spain are characteristic of terrorism "copy-cat actions", in the wake of the Nice truck attack in 2016.
The objective of the perpetrators of this type of attack is maximum media coverage, he said.
These terrorist acts didn't intend to avenge a country's involvement in the fight against terrorism as it had been the case in the past, he said.
"Spain contributes less than one percent to the international coalition of fight against Islamist terrorism. It is a very marginal actor," Guidere said.
For the French specialist, the solution lies essentially in improving the "passive defense" of Europe's urban areas where pedestrians and vehicles congregate.
"The mayors of large European cities must rethink public spaces: every time there is a sidewalk on which a car can be mounted, a pedestrian square around which vehicles circulate, concrete blocks must be placed," Guidere said.
The people who commit these acts are "undetectable" according to him, "everyone can potentially take a car and run on pedestrians," he said.
