“Is Paris Burning”? This was the title of a celebrated 1966 black and white war movie about the liberation of Paris in August 1944 by the French Resistance and the Free French Forces during World War II. The film with an iconic cast consisting of Jean Paul Belmondo, Charles Boyer, and Leslie Caron, was based on a book by Larry Collins and Dominique La Pierre, that recounts Adolf Hitler ordering that the City of Lights be blown up and burned to the ground. General Dietrich Von Choltitz who refused to obey this directive, was predictably looked down upon by the Germans and unfortunately not honored by the Allies.
In June-July 2023, Paris and many French cities are again burning, but by a different kind of fire. Migrants, legal and illegal who were afforded shelter, food, clothing and handsome doles, have orchestrated a spate of violence having deep religious overtones. Social media reckons that an estimated 41 police stations have been attacked, 79 policemen injured, 2560 fires in streets, 1360 cars burnt, and 234 buildings including several churches have been burnt. Boys as young as 8 years were among the rioters. A seventeen-year-old Muslim boy who had violated a traffic signal, and his being shot to death by a police officer, was the trigger that caused five nights of arson, looting and rioting, across France.
The European Union (EU) countries have been following a very thoughtless and liberal policy on refugees, for many decades, unmindful of the demographic and religious consequences. All refugees entering the EU may apply for asylum. They must do this in the country where they enter the EU. Asylum seekers who do not require protection must return to their country of origin or to a safe third country. With a formidable immigrant population numbering 7 million, France is in the European average where countries with high immigration rates, such as Luxembourg, Malta and Cyprus, outrank countries like Bulgaria and Romania at the opposite end of the spectrum. Poland wisely adopted a no refugee-immigrant policy. French Police estimate that there are over five million Muslims in France. Immigration issues have often been conflated with religion, as Muslim immigrants arriving from former colonies in North Africa, bring in fundamentalist beliefs, ideologies and demands. It is also widely suspected that many with terror ideologies have also slipped in posing as refugees. According to the Migration Policy Institute report of May 5, 2022 “There are no accurate estimates of the size of the unauthorized immigrant population in France, but evidence from state medical assistance data suggests a low-end estimate of approximately 315,000”. The largest origin countries of migrants are those with deep ties to France—Algeria is the main country of origin, followed by Morocco, Portugal, Tunisia, and Italy. Tensions have been simmering between the Muslim migrants and the local French people on issues like wearing Hijab, Burqa, openly going on strong demands by the Muslim clergy to ravish French women and behead the males. As early as March 2019 a Muslim cleric Sheikh Abu Taqi Al-Din Al-Dari, in an Al Aqsa Mosque address has been exhorting Islamic fundamentalists to convert the local French population by force and has been advocating a strategy of raping French girls and decapitating the males. American Think Tank, PEW Research Centre estimates that France is likely to be saddled with a Muslim population of 12.6 million in 2050 or 17.4 percent of the population, compared to 8.5 million in Germany and 13 million Muslims in the UK (17.4 percent). In such a scenario, demands for implementation of antediluvian societal values of the migrants is going to increase in frequency and get bloodier. Women are going to bear the brunt of targeted violence and forcible religious conversions, much like the Love Jihad happening in many parts of India.
A notable drawback noticed is in the handling of the June-July 2023 migrant riots by the French authorities and Police. The inexperience of the forces and lack of preparedness for handling such communal riots was clearly visible in the TV footage being aired on different TV channels. The general feeling in India was that our CRPF or any State Police force would have quelled the violence within 48 hours. France should seriously consider taking lessons in controlling riots from Indian Police or the Israeli Police, as they will be seeing more incidents of rioting and violence in the coming days. It is not a sporadic violence, but something that was getting readied over a long period of time. The accidental death of the teenage violator was just a spark that ignited many French cities for more than 5 days consecutively.
What is the remedy? A peep into European History, can be effectively used by French politicians. The Battle of Tours, also called the Battle of Poitiers and the Battle of the Highway of the Martyrs (Arabic: معركة بلاط الشهداء, Romanised: Maʿrakat Balāṭ ash-Shuhadā’), which was fought on 10 October 732, was an important battle during the Umayyad invasion of Gaul. It resulted in the victory for the Frankish and Aquitanian forces, led by the famous French General Charles Martel, over the invading Muslim forces of the Umayyad Caliphate, led by an equally formidable Abd al-Rahman al-Ghafiqi, governor of Al-Andalus. This epic battle halted the Islamization of Western Europe for several centuries. This is now getting renewed by way of Muslim migrants being pushed into Europe to create irreversible demographic changes and thereafter total Islamization. The French really need to brush up their history, especially French politicians. Another bitter lesson that the French and Europeans would have understood by now is that secularism and fundamentalism cannot co-exist peacefully.
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