Michael Ejercito
2017-11-09 17:24:44 UTC
France: A Decomposing Civilization
by Giulio Meotti
November 9, 2017 at 6:00 am
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11336/france-decomposing
France's authorities and elites are tearing up, piece by piece, the
country's historical, religious and cultural legacy so that nothing remains.
A nation dispossessed of its identity will see its inner strength broken.
No French terrorist who went to cut off heads in Syria lost his citizenship.
The magazine Charlie Hebdo is now receiving new death threats, and no major
French publication expressed solidarity with their murdered colleagues by
drawing Islamic caricatures. Many of the French intelligentsia have been
dragged in courts for alleged "Islamophobia".
The martyrdom of Father Jacques Hamel at the hands of Islamists has already
been forgotten; the site of the massacre is still waiting for a visit from
Pope Francis as a sign of condolence and respect.
France "sacrificed the victims to avoid fighting the murderers". — Shmuel
Trigano, sociologist.
France is about to commemorate the victims of the terror attacks of November
13, 2015. What has been achieved in the two years since the attacks?
The French authorities are sending compensation to more than 2,500 victims
of the jihadist attacks in Paris and Saint-Denis, who will be compensated
with 64 million euros. Important victories were also attained by
anti-terrorism forces. According to an enquiry by the weekly L'Express, in
the last two years, 32 terrorist attacks were foiled, 625 firearms were
seized, 4,457 people suspected of having jihadist links were searched, and
752 individuals were placed under house arrest. But the general impression
is that of a country "frailing from within".
A medic tends to a victim of a terrorist attack in Paris, France, November
13, 2015. (Photo by Thierry Chesnot/Getty Images)
In 1939, a Spanish anti-Fascist journalist, Manuel Chaves Nogales, fled to
France, where he witnessed the collapse of the French Republic under German
assault. His book, The Agony of France, could have been written about today.
Nogales wrote that while the German soldiers were marching through Paris,
the French were swarming out of movie theaters, "just in time for the
apéritif at the bistro".
After two French girls were murdered by an Islamist in Marseille last month,
the social commentator Mathieu Bock-Côté wrote that France is experiencing
"a process of national and civilizational decomposition that the authorities
have decided to accompany and moderate, without claiming to fight and
overthrow it, as if it were unavoidable". He seem to have got it right.
The previous French president, François Hollande, did not even try to get
re-elected; his successor, Emmanuel Macron, refuses to talk about Islam and
appears to accept the permanent capitulation to the state of fear and
emergency. The French army failed to liberate Raqqa, Syria as it promised
after the attacks. "France will destroy ISIS", Hollande said after the
carnage in Paris; but it was US and Kurdish forces that liberated the
Islamic State's de facto capital. 15,000 French Islamists are now being
monitored by the French intelligence services. Meanwhile, in the last ten
years, 40,000 Jews have fled France.
The safety of ordinary French people is no longer guaranteed. Islamist
violence can arise anywhere to strike those who wear a uniform and those who
do not. All French citizens are now targets in a war where, for Islamist
terrorists, everything is allowed.
In France's parliament, "Islamo-Leftist" voices are becoming increasingly
bold. The political class distracts itself with "inclusive writing" at
school; in vitro fertilization for singles and gays and on-the-spot fines
for "sexist" harassers. No French terrorist who went to cut off heads in
Syria lost his citizenship. The magazine Charlie Hebdo is receiving new
death threats; no major French publication expressed solidarity with its
murdered colleagues by printing Islamic caricatures. The victims' relatives
published books entitled, You Will Not Have My Hate. Many of the French
intelligentsia have been dragged into court for alleged "Islamophobia".
Meanwhile, no Islamist enclave inside the secular Republic has been
reclaimed, and only 19 Salafist mosques have been closed.
The French parliament recently found it urgent to strip the politician
Marine Le Pen of immunity after she tweeted photographs of victims of ISIS,
including that of the US journalist James Foley. "Daesh is THIS!", she wrote
in a post accompanying the photographs and using the Arabic acronym for
ISIS. So, a country that that suffered 250 murders at the hands of ISIS
removed political protection to a leader, who is already under police
protection, for having spread the images of victims of ISIS, and thereby
opening the door for her prosecution.
The martyrdom of Father Jacques Hamel at the hands of Islamists has been
forgotten; the site of the massacre is still waiting for a visit from Pope
Francis as a sign of condolence and respect. French judges are now busy
removing Christian symbols from the landscape: last month in Ploërmel, the
cross above a statue of Pope John Paul II was ordered dispatched for
allegedly violating the separation of church and state.
Paris's Mayor Anne Hidalgo recently banned the city's main Christmas market
for being insufficiently elegant. France's authorities and elites are
tearing up, piece by piece, the country's historical, religious and cultural
legacy so that nothing will remain. But a nation dispossessed of its
identity will see its inner strength broken. Samuel Pruvot, a journalist for
Famille Chrétienne ("Christian Family"), recently claimed that Christianity
in France will be soon found in "museums".
French culture, for the past two years, has been marked by "the sentiment of
the end of the world". Intellectuals from both the left and right have been
publishing essays about the "suicide of France", its "decadence" and its
"unhappy identity". These are brilliant and important takes on the current
state of French society. France now needs to go beyond mourning. It needs to
show strength -- the will to prevail.
France now needs to start fighting the ideological war, the most important
one after arrests and the seizure of weapons. If France does not do that,
November 13, 2015 will be remembered as the day in which France, as the
sociologist Shmuel Trigano said, "sacrificed the victims to avoid fighting
the murderers".
Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and
author.
by Giulio Meotti
November 9, 2017 at 6:00 am
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11336/france-decomposing
France's authorities and elites are tearing up, piece by piece, the
country's historical, religious and cultural legacy so that nothing remains.
A nation dispossessed of its identity will see its inner strength broken.
No French terrorist who went to cut off heads in Syria lost his citizenship.
The magazine Charlie Hebdo is now receiving new death threats, and no major
French publication expressed solidarity with their murdered colleagues by
drawing Islamic caricatures. Many of the French intelligentsia have been
dragged in courts for alleged "Islamophobia".
The martyrdom of Father Jacques Hamel at the hands of Islamists has already
been forgotten; the site of the massacre is still waiting for a visit from
Pope Francis as a sign of condolence and respect.
France "sacrificed the victims to avoid fighting the murderers". — Shmuel
Trigano, sociologist.
France is about to commemorate the victims of the terror attacks of November
13, 2015. What has been achieved in the two years since the attacks?
The French authorities are sending compensation to more than 2,500 victims
of the jihadist attacks in Paris and Saint-Denis, who will be compensated
with 64 million euros. Important victories were also attained by
anti-terrorism forces. According to an enquiry by the weekly L'Express, in
the last two years, 32 terrorist attacks were foiled, 625 firearms were
seized, 4,457 people suspected of having jihadist links were searched, and
752 individuals were placed under house arrest. But the general impression
is that of a country "frailing from within".
A medic tends to a victim of a terrorist attack in Paris, France, November
13, 2015. (Photo by Thierry Chesnot/Getty Images)
In 1939, a Spanish anti-Fascist journalist, Manuel Chaves Nogales, fled to
France, where he witnessed the collapse of the French Republic under German
assault. His book, The Agony of France, could have been written about today.
Nogales wrote that while the German soldiers were marching through Paris,
the French were swarming out of movie theaters, "just in time for the
apéritif at the bistro".
After two French girls were murdered by an Islamist in Marseille last month,
the social commentator Mathieu Bock-Côté wrote that France is experiencing
"a process of national and civilizational decomposition that the authorities
have decided to accompany and moderate, without claiming to fight and
overthrow it, as if it were unavoidable". He seem to have got it right.
The previous French president, François Hollande, did not even try to get
re-elected; his successor, Emmanuel Macron, refuses to talk about Islam and
appears to accept the permanent capitulation to the state of fear and
emergency. The French army failed to liberate Raqqa, Syria as it promised
after the attacks. "France will destroy ISIS", Hollande said after the
carnage in Paris; but it was US and Kurdish forces that liberated the
Islamic State's de facto capital. 15,000 French Islamists are now being
monitored by the French intelligence services. Meanwhile, in the last ten
years, 40,000 Jews have fled France.
The safety of ordinary French people is no longer guaranteed. Islamist
violence can arise anywhere to strike those who wear a uniform and those who
do not. All French citizens are now targets in a war where, for Islamist
terrorists, everything is allowed.
In France's parliament, "Islamo-Leftist" voices are becoming increasingly
bold. The political class distracts itself with "inclusive writing" at
school; in vitro fertilization for singles and gays and on-the-spot fines
for "sexist" harassers. No French terrorist who went to cut off heads in
Syria lost his citizenship. The magazine Charlie Hebdo is receiving new
death threats; no major French publication expressed solidarity with its
murdered colleagues by printing Islamic caricatures. The victims' relatives
published books entitled, You Will Not Have My Hate. Many of the French
intelligentsia have been dragged into court for alleged "Islamophobia".
Meanwhile, no Islamist enclave inside the secular Republic has been
reclaimed, and only 19 Salafist mosques have been closed.
The French parliament recently found it urgent to strip the politician
Marine Le Pen of immunity after she tweeted photographs of victims of ISIS,
including that of the US journalist James Foley. "Daesh is THIS!", she wrote
in a post accompanying the photographs and using the Arabic acronym for
ISIS. So, a country that that suffered 250 murders at the hands of ISIS
removed political protection to a leader, who is already under police
protection, for having spread the images of victims of ISIS, and thereby
opening the door for her prosecution.
The martyrdom of Father Jacques Hamel at the hands of Islamists has been
forgotten; the site of the massacre is still waiting for a visit from Pope
Francis as a sign of condolence and respect. French judges are now busy
removing Christian symbols from the landscape: last month in Ploërmel, the
cross above a statue of Pope John Paul II was ordered dispatched for
allegedly violating the separation of church and state.
Paris's Mayor Anne Hidalgo recently banned the city's main Christmas market
for being insufficiently elegant. France's authorities and elites are
tearing up, piece by piece, the country's historical, religious and cultural
legacy so that nothing will remain. But a nation dispossessed of its
identity will see its inner strength broken. Samuel Pruvot, a journalist for
Famille Chrétienne ("Christian Family"), recently claimed that Christianity
in France will be soon found in "museums".
French culture, for the past two years, has been marked by "the sentiment of
the end of the world". Intellectuals from both the left and right have been
publishing essays about the "suicide of France", its "decadence" and its
"unhappy identity". These are brilliant and important takes on the current
state of French society. France now needs to go beyond mourning. It needs to
show strength -- the will to prevail.
France now needs to start fighting the ideological war, the most important
one after arrests and the seizure of weapons. If France does not do that,
November 13, 2015 will be remembered as the day in which France, as the
sociologist Shmuel Trigano said, "sacrificed the victims to avoid fighting
the murderers".
Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and
author.
