The improvements in the French capacity to fight terrorism are the result of hard-won lessons. France has a long history with terrorism that dates from the coining of the word during the French revolution. Since that time, France has always been on the ‘bleeding edge’ of terrorism, confronting terrorism in all its guises, from bomb-throwing anarchists to transnational networks. In the last twenty years, France suffered repeated waves of terrorism of both domestic and foreign origin, each of wich spawned a variety of reforms to an already complex system for combating terrorism., As a result, France has developed, largely by costly trial and error, a fairly effective, although controversial, system for fighting terrorism at home. That system, of course, is uniquely French, tailored to France’s particular threats and capabilities as well as to France’s distinct civic culture. Nonetheless, there may be lessons in the French experiance for other countries, including the United States, in its relatively new struggle to prevent acts in its homeland.