It’s a stroke of good fortune for France that Salah Abdeslam is a coward. Had he not been he would have died with the other nine members of the Islamist terror cell (one of whom was his brother) when they attacked Paris on the evening of 13 November 2015.

Instead of detonating his suicide vest, Abdeslam dumped it in a dustbin and then called a friend in Belgium and asked to be collected.