Ten years ago, in Paris for the first time, I left my hotel for a walk along the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe.
I wasn’t on the street ten minutes before a Moroccan or an Algerian gentleman walking in the opposite direction bent over to pick up something on the sidewalk. That something turned out to be a large gold coin that he immediately held up to my face. Speaking in broken English, the man proceeded to tell me a story about the “found” coin, and how it could be mine if only I paid him so many Euros.
Fortunately, I was able to make my exit after telling the gentleman that I had just arrived in Paris and had not yet exchanged my American money. Later that evening, after dinner out with friends and a car trip to visit the historic estate of novelist George Sand in the Nohant countryside, I returned to my hotel but before bed revisited the Champs-Elysees.
The fabled Avenue, to my surprise, had turned into a giant pissoir.
Men of Middle Eastern extraction were relieving themselves on the sidewalk in full view of passers- by. The men had obviously come from clubs where they overindulged in alcohol, a violation of Islamic canons. I also spotted affluent Muslim women in gem-studded chadors walking in the direction of the Hilton.
I’d never seen “evening dress” chadors before, but this was Paris after all.
Back at the hotel, I asked myself why there seemed to be so many Muslim immigrants (migrants?) in Paris.
Then I recalled the writings of and life of Albert Camus, the novelist and essayist born in French Algeria and a pioneer in the fight for Algerian independence. Ironically, Camus always believed that Algeria should remain a part of France. It is for this reason that his legacy in Algeria has all but been forgotten?
In Algeria, Camus is known as a “colonialist” and not a freedom fighter.
“,,,.Despite Camus’ monumental achievements and deep attachment to his native land, Algeria has never reciprocated that love. Camus is not part of the school curriculum; his books can’t be found in libraries or bookshops. Few plaques or memorials commemorate him,” as one article in The Smithsonian stated.
The cancel culture Muslim mindset in Algeria has erased Camus.
The French-Arab connection also got me thinking about the life and writings of Andre Gide (who wrote about his erotic encounters with underage Arab boys in his journals). Add to this list Jean Genet, the great criminal French writer whom Jean-Paul Sartre canonized as a genius in his book, ‘Saint Genet.’ Genet, even when he became a “respectable” man of letters, was known to steal valuable artifacts from the houses he visited, including the home of his publisher.
Genet is buried in Larache, Morocco, on a hilltop near the sea. His grave has become a place of pilgrimage for leftist artists like Patti Smith, but also for poor Moroccans, even children, who know nothing about his works.
During his life Genet supported the Palestinians and later the Black Panthers in America. Yet he somehow managed to not lose his head when he cavorted —homosexually speaking—freely among so many Arabs during the last ten years of his life in Morocco.
Given this small literary mosaic, it’s easy to see how France has always had a sort of love affair with Arab-Muslim culture.
The greatest number of Muslim immigrants to France occurred during the so-called con-temporary era around the time of the colonial wars of independence (1954-62).
The massive waves of Muslim immigration at that time had a “reparations” feel to it, as if France was imposing a penance on itself for the “crime” of colonialism.
The recent rioting, anarchy and destruction of property in much of France is rooted in the killing of Nael M, an Algerian teen shot by police as he drove away from them after being told to remain in his vehicle.
The thug-like behavior pattern of driving off despite being told to stay put by police is not an uncommon phenomenon in American cities. It puts police in an impossible situation: one wrong move to contain the suspect may result in the suspect achieving hero-martyrdom status.
Rioting was especially heavy in the city of Marseille, a city that Genet himself bemoaned as a city of thieves and despots, although in 2023 I hear that French real estate speculators are buying second homes there.
In 2020, “Death to France” was the rallying cry of tens of thousands of Muslims in France when President Macron spoke out against the dangers of “Islamist separation.” The leftist ‘Guardian’ wrote about the protest with a piece entitled, “Anger Towards Macron grows in Muslim World.”
But Macron has been on both sides of the fence regarding Muslim issues. Occasionally, he even goes out of his way to placate obvious thuggish types, such as when he posed for a photo with a semi nude gangsta Algerian or Moroccan, grimacing in the manner of the young men standing beside him because he wanted to be seen as “cool.”
One only has to watch the gangsta video that Nael M appears in to get a sense of what’s happening in France.
What purports to be just another rap video where the hands of the performers move to music (and stand as symbols for revolvers), turns out to be, if you watch closely, a call for revolution.
We see the songster-star of the video drawing “windows” or “squares” in the air, then winking while he points two revolver shaped fingers towards the viewer while the hordes of teens and even younger children behind him, all do the same thing. The incessant unchanging beat (think Ravel’s Bolero, street style) goes way beyond “entertainment.”
The video is hypnotic and seems to carry a violent, not so subliminal message.
The video makes it clear what must happen if France– and all of Europe—must do in order to be saved:
Muslim migration into western Europe, and especially France, must end.
“A teenager was killed. That is inexplicable and unforgivable, Macron said during a visit to Marseille. Macron also added that the shooting had “moved the entire nation.”
Yes, it “moved” the nation of Islam within the nation of France to riot and destroy the country.
Ex-presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen called Macron’s comments “irresponsible.”
As Santiago Abascal, the leader of Spain’s Vox party has stated,
“Europe is threatened by mobs of anti-Europeans who smash police stations, burn libraries and stab to steal a mobile phone, who are unwilling to adapt to our way of life and our laws. They think we are the ones who have to adapt.”
But this old cautionary message has fallen on deaf ears.
Oriana Fallaci reported on Muslim migration in books like ‘The Rage and The Pride’:
“…We cannot bear a migratory wave of people who have nothing to do with us. Who are not ready to become like us, to be absorbed by us like ….Who, on the contrary, aim to absorb us. To change our principles, our values, our identity, our way of life…. I am saying that in our culture there is no room for the muessins, for the minarets, for the phony abstemious, for the humiliating chador, for the degrading burkah…”
Abascal dismisses the idea that police brutality or poverty are the root causes of the violence, maintaining that marginalized Christians, who might also be subject to police brutality or poverty, never commit acts of violence like this.
All of which means, if France is to be saved, it must return to its traditional Catholic roots.
France, as John Paul II declared on May 30, 1980 before his departure to Paris from Rome,
“Was the first nation of the West to declare itself the daughter of the [Catholic] Church. For centuries, France made a special contribution to the Catholic Church through the enlightened and heroic testimony of her saints, the doctrinal power of her masters, and the apostolic courage of missionaries…”
Although Catholicism remains the largest declared religion in France at 29% of the population, the figure is constantly falling, as reported by the European Conservative.
“The Muslim religion, which is the second largest, has been on the rise for a decade and now accounts for 10% of the total population.”
Additionally, the report states that the transmission of faith in families shows the rise of Islam, “since 91% of people raised by Muslim parents consider themselves to be Muslims, while 67% of people raised by Catholic parents say they are Catholics.”
Pew Research states that with no migration, the Muslim population of Europe by 2050 will be 7.4%, while with migration that percentage will climb to 14.0%.
Some militant Muslim leaders in France, however, see a fully Islamist nation by 2050.
Contrast this to a New York Times piece in 2022, “The Quiet Flight of Muslims From France,” in which Muslim residents cited “a feeling of not belonging,” and “nagging questions about their security.”
The Times also quoted fears among Muslims about the rise of conservative political leaders like Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour.
‘The Times of Israel,’ reporting on the Paris riots, mentioned new found fears among Jews in France that “they will become targets of violence.”
The soul of France belongs to Christianity. It belongs to the countryside of Jeanne d’Arc, Avignon, the Palace of the Popes (sans Francis), St. Therese of Lisieux, the shrine of La Salette in the French Alps, the shrine of Lourdes, Mont St. Michel, and to the great cathedrals like Chartres and Notre Dame.
In May of this year, a record breaking 20,000 young traditionalist Catholic pilgrims under the sponsorship of The Remnant, made their way on foot from Paris to the cathedral of Chartres in homage to the Blessed Virgin.
Chartres, the cathedral that Henry Adams called “Our Lady’s Play House,” where pilgrims in the Middle Ages who couldn’t afford a trip to the Holy Land once visited in droves, where Jeanne d’Arc once prayed, holds the key to France’s spiritual future.
This is the France of the ages, the France that must replace the endless procession of gem-studded chadors on the Champs-Elysees.