The Social World

Author: Gavin Mortimer

  • Yes, Europe’s civilization is being erased

    Yes, Europe’s civilization is being erased

    Last week the Trump administration expressed its fear that Europe faces “civilizational erasure.” Its concern was articulated in a 33-page National Security Strategy that outlined Donald Trump’s world view and how America will respond economically and militarily.

    The sentence that caused the most reaction on the other side of the pond was the assertion that, if current trends continue, Europe will be “unrecognizable in 20 years or less.” Those trends are mass immigration and what conservative French commentators call the “Islamification” of Europe. If Europe doesn’t address these trends, the Trump administration predicts the continent’s “civilizational erasure.”

    Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul issued a tetchy response to the Security Strategy report, claiming his country does not need “outside advice.” Is he sure about that? Last year the chief of police in Berlin, Barbara Slowik, warned Jews and gays to hide their identity in the city’s “Arab neighborhoods.” In France, Jews have been leaving the country in large numbers: 60,000 between 2000 and 2020, which is more than ten percent of the French Jewish community. Since 2023, acts of anti-Semitism have soared by 300 percent, including the burning of synagogues and the beatings of rabbis.

    The “civilizational erasure” is also to a large extent self-inflicted, and it is particularly noticeable at this time of year. One of the most famous Christmas markets in Paris is in La Défense, which this year is offering Halal meat in its festive delicacies. For the left, this is celebrating diversity. They take a different view, however, about those right-run towns which have the cheek to display a nativity scene in their town hall. In these cases such overt signs of Christianity are a breach of France’s laïcité or secularism.

    Similarly, the left in France support the wearing of Islamic garments, such as the hijab or the full-length abaya, as liberating. Those who object on the grounds of laïcité are labeled “Islamophobic.”

    Arguably, nothing symbolizes the “Islamification” of Europe more than the hijab. In Iran young women risk their lives for the right not to wear one. In western Europe it is almost de rigueur. The hijab is becoming more and more popular among young French Muslims: in 2003, just 16 percent of under-25s wore the Islamic headscarf, a figure that today is 45 percent. Last week one police force in England proudly displayed its new “quick-release” hijab for female officers.

    For the moment, British people can still question the wisdom of allowing its police officers to wear hijabs, but the Labour government is expected to soon introduce new “Islamophobia” laws that will criminalize criticism of Islam.

    In Brussels, a Muslim city councilor recently declared that Belgians who object to women wearing the hijab should go and live somewhere else. The same city last week unveiled its traditional nativity scene in its historic market square. There is a difference this year: the Holy family have no faces and it’s been suggested this is not to offend followers of Islam where it is not permitted to show the faces of the prophets. Fifty-two percent of Brussels’ schoolchildren are Muslim, 15 percent more than in London.

    The two main drivers of Europe’s Islamification are mass immigration and the Muslim Brotherhood, the nebulous Islamist organization that President Trump intends to ban. One of Europe’s leading experts on the Muslim Brotherhood is the French academic Florence Bergeaud-Blackler, who requires police protection as a result of her research. She explained in a 2023 book that “their goal isn’t to adapt Islam to Europe but to adapt Europe to Islam.” To adapt to Islam, Europe must first erase its own civilization. Which it is doing.

  • Are America’s women heading for the exit?

    Life is apparently so disagreeable in Donald Trump’s America that 40 percent of women aged between 15 and 44 want to leave. That is four times higher than the 10 percent who wanted to quit the US in 2014. According to Gallup, which conducted the poll, nearly half the nation’s younger women have “lost faith in America’s institutions.” This disenchantment accelerated after the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which enshrined the constitutional right to abortion.

    Younger American men are bearing up better. Only 19 percent share women’s distaste for the Donald, a 21 percent differential which is the largest recorded by Gallup since it began asking the question in 2007.

    As they point out, the question is about the “desire” to relocate, so probably only a minority of the 40 percent will leave. Nonetheless, concludes Gallup, “the data indicate that millions of younger American women are increasingly imagining their futures elsewhere.”

    And where might that be? Canada is the first choice (11 percent) while 5 percent dream of a new life in New Zealand, Italy or Japan. Canada has that nice Mark Carney as its Prime Minister but be warned, women of America: our northern neighbor isn’t the same country that it was a decade ago.

    A report last year in the National Post was headlined “Sexual assaults, robberies surging in Canada’s cities.” The Trudeau administration had tried to blame soaring crime on the aftermath of the harsh Covid restrictions, but the Macdonald Laurier Institute’s “urban violent crime report” rubbished that theory.

    Crime of all types had been on the rise since 2016, particularly sexual assault, which had increased by 77 percent between 2013 and 2023. The Canadian media is curiously reticent to examine what is behind this surge, which has coincided with record levels of immigration. A clue perhaps might be found in the response to a parliamentary question asked earlier this year by Canadian Conservative MP Blaine Calkins. Troubled by the 31 percent increase in foreigners incarcerated in Canadian prisons, he wanted to know where they came from and what crimes they’d committed. The majority had been convicted of violent and sexual crimes, and the two countries most represented among felons were Jamaica and India.

    Something else that has increased in Canada in recent years is the growth of the Muslim Brotherhood. A report in June by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy warned that Canada was facing a “rising national security risk” from the shadowy Islamist organization. Its goal is to establish a global caliphate, and the institute expressed its concern that Canada has allowed the Brotherhood to “grow and spread radical Islamist ideology, often benefiting from federal funding.”

    With this in mind, if some American women find themselves going cold on Canada, what about Japan? In 2023, Japan was ranked 125th out of 146 countries in terms of gender equality (the US was 43rd and Italy 79th). The World Economic Forum report noted the low female representation in Japanese politics and industry.

    Furthermore, cases of sexual harassment on public transport have risen sharply in recent years — what the Japanese call “chikan,” or groping. Most incidents are committed by Japanese men against foreigners.

    So if not Japan, what about the dolce vita of Italy? Unfortunately, Italy is also experiencing a wave of sexual violence. Incidences have increased by 50 percent in the past five years, with crimes peaking in 2024.

    Some 43 percent of men convicted of sexual crimes were foreigners, prompting Italy’s Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, to state that, “I will be called a racist, but there is a greater incidence, unfortunately, in cases of sexual violence, by immigrants.” She added that this was particularly true of those “who arrived illegally.”

    There are other options in Europe for American women. What about Paris, the City of Love? The smell of fresh croissants, the sight of Gallic heartthrobs. Oh la la! Alas, the real Paris bears no resemblance to Emily in Paris.

    Earlier this year, a French government report revealed that seven in ten women in the greater Paris region have suffered some form of abuse while traveling on public transport. Recently, an Egyptian man allegedly tried to rape a young woman on a train just outside the French capital and, as a result, a petition has been launched demanding women-only train cars.

    One could always try London, but women there are also demanding greater security on the city’s Tube network. Another phenomenon on the rise in both Britain and France is the segregation of the sexes as the Muslim population grows. In October, a Mosque in London organized a fundraising run that was open to everyone except women and girls over the age of 12. In November, a poll was published in France that revealed that 45 percent of French Muslim men and 57 percent of women under 35 practice some form of segregation, such as the refusal to shake hands or receive medical treatment from a person of the opposite sex, or to visit a mixed-gender swimming pool.

    In December 2015, Trump lamented what had become of Paris, making his remarks a few weeks after Islamist terrorists had slaughtered 130 people during the Bataclan attack. “Look at what happened in Paris, the horrible carnage, and frankly… Paris is no longer the same city it was.”

    He was right. Paris is no longer the city it was, and nor is London or some Italian cities, such as Milan, where, according to city councillor Daniele Nahum, “the antisemitic situation is becoming unmanageable.”

    The 40 percent of American women who dream of starting a new life elsewhere should take note. The grass in Trumpland might actually be greener.

  • Did the Louvre robbers want to get caught?

    Did the Louvre robbers want to get caught?

    It is more than a month since thieves stole the crown jewels from the Louvre and the chances of recovering the loot, worth an estimated €88 million, diminish with every passing day.

    The robbery was initially dubbed the “heist of the century,” a brazen theft in broad daylight as visitors strolled through the world’s most famous museum. There were up and down the ladder and in out of the museum in seven minutes, giving the impression that this was the work of villains well-versed in daring robberies.

    But soon details emerged that suggested the gang of four weren’t quite of the caliber of the thieves immortalized in the Hollywood movie Ocean’s Eleven. They left behind a trail of clues: the two disc cutters used to open the display cabinets, a blowtorch, gloves, a walkie-talkie, a yellow vest, a blanket and the truck with extendable ladder. In their haste to escape, the thieves dropped Empress Eugénie’s crown, festooned with 1,354 diamonds and 56 emeralds. In total, explained Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau, the police found “more than 150 DNA, fingerprint and other traces” at the scene.

    Within a week two men were in custody, who swiftly admitted “partial” responsibility; for their role in the heist. A third was arrested a few days later. All were petty criminals from the Paris suburbs. “It is a type of delinquency that we do not generally associate with the upper echelons of organized crime,” said Beccuau.

    One of the suspects is allegedly a former YouTube star famous for his motorbike stunts that he showed off on social media. According to media reports, his real name is Abdoulaye N, a 39-year-old with a rap sheet for petty crime stretching back two decades. Friends and associates claim that since he became a father he had settled down, and one told the New York Times: “He’s really the last guy I would have thought of for something like that.”

    One of the three men in custody – not identified – was described at the weekend as a “good Samaritan.” Apparently he once came to the aid of a stranded motorist on the Paris ring road in September, offering a “calm and reassuring” presence to the distressed driver.

    The fourth member of the gang has not been caught. Is he the one with the brains, as well as the booty? The thieves certainly knew what they were after. Rayan Ferrarotto, the commercial director of the French diamond merchant Celinni, says the jewels were stolen to order. “When you look at major art thefts, it is almost always the case that private collectors or enthusiasts commission the thefts to own a unique piece… it’s all about prestige and exclusivity.”

    Beccuau says she is keeping an open mind about the theft. “We are examining all the possibilities on the parallel market for selling this jewellery… it could be used for money laundering, it could be used for trade; all leads are being explored.”

    Is one possibility that getting caught quickly was part of the thieves’ plan? It subsequently emerged that the truck used in the robbery was stolen nine days earlier by two men who threatened the driver. Furthermore, that incident took place in Louvres, a town north-east of Paris. Perhaps the thieves had a good sense of humor. Or did they want to draw attention to themselves?

    Knowing they had left behind so much incriminating evidence, why didn’t they flee France immediately instead of returning to their stamping ground in the suburbs of Paris?

    Unless their bungling was all part of the plan. The maximum sentence in France for theft without violence is three years in prison and a €45,000 fine. In the case of aggravating circumstances, such as a gang robbery, the maximum sentence is five years in prison and a €75,000 fine. This increases to seven years when the theft involves “cultural property that is part of the public domain.”

    With good behavior, and a willingness to “demonstrate efforts towards reintegration,” a prisoner can have six months per full year of incarceration reduced. In other words, even with a seven-year sentence, a well-behaved prisoner would be released after half that time.

    In 2009, an armored cash van and its driver disappeared as it made a drop at a bank in Lyon. Initially it was feared the vehicle and its €11.6 million in deposit boxes had been hijacked. Eleven days later the driver, Tony Musulin, gave himself up and police retrieved €9 million of the money. Unfortunately, he said, €2.5 million had been stolen from him. He was sentenced to three years in prison. The missing money has never been found. In 2019, Musulin was briefly arrested in London when he tried to convert £75,000 into Euros at a bureau de change. He was released without charge after explaining that the money came from the sale of his Ferrari.

    Musulin became something of a cult hero in France. Mugs and T-shirts were sold online emblazoned with “Tony Musulin, Best Driver 2009.” The Louvre thieves have also been feted in some quarters; a German company has used the robbery to promote its trucks with extendable ladders, telling customers they’re perfect for “when you need to move fast.”

    Are the alleged perpetrators of the Louvre heist happy to go to prison for a few years knowing that when they get out they’ll get some of the proceeds? Or perhaps they are just opportunistic thieves who got lucky because the Louvre security was even more amateur than they were.

  • A decade after Bataclan, France is more divided than ever

    A decade after Bataclan, France is more divided than ever

    Ten years ago on Thursday, Islamist terrorists massacred 130 people in a coordinated attack across Paris. It was the heaviest loss of life on French soil since World War Two, and those who perished – as well as the 350 who were wounded – were remembered yesterday in a series of commemorations. Emmanuel Macron visited the six sites where the terrorists struck, among them the Stade de France and the Bataclan concert hall, and the President inaugurated a memorial garden at Place Saint-Gervais, opposite Paris City Hall.

    According to the Élysée Palace ahead of proceedings, the day would be an opportunity for the nation “to honor the memory of those who lost their lives… and reaffirm its ongoing commitment to the fight against terrorism.” Since 2015 the DGSI have thwarted 80 Islamist terror plots but 50 attacks have been launched, 19 of which were fatal, nearly one every six months.

    The organizer of the day of remembrance is Thierry Reboul, who oversaw the opening ceremony of last year’s Paris Olympics. He said the commemorations would honor “the dead and the living, but also our culture, which was attacked that evening, with a moment of collective unity.”

    To bring France together is an admirable aim, but is it achievable? It has been tried before without success. A week after Islamists murdered the staff of Charlie Hebdo in January 2015, schools in France held a minute’s silence in their memory. In over 200 establishments students refused to respect the silence. A similar request for silence was made in 2023, in memory of the teacher Dominique Bernard, who was fatally stabbed in the schoolyard by an Islamist. Some pupils in 350 schools chose not to comply.

    These acts of rebellion should surprise no-one. A comprehensive study published in 2021 reported that 65 percent of Muslim students in French schools consider Islamic law superior to Republican law.

    The figure wouldn’t have surprised François Hollande, who was president of the Republic in 2015. He described the assault on Paris as “an act of war.” The following year a book was published, A President should not say that, in which Hollande confided in two journalists. “It’s true that there is a problem with Islam,” he told them. “No one doubts that…we can’t continue to have migrants arriving unchecked, especially in the context of the attacks.”

    If vast numbers of migrants from Africa continue to arrive unchecked, Hollande warned, “how can we avoid partition? Because that’s what’s happening: partition.”

    Since Hollande made those observations, unchecked immigration into France has reached record levels, prompting other significant politicians to warn of partition. “Today we live side by side,” said interior minister Gerard Collomb in his resignation speech of November 2018, “but tomorrow I fear we will live face to face.”

    In the two years since Hamas attacked Israel, anti-Semitism in France has reached “alarming” levels and a recent poll disclosed that 31 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds believed it acceptable to assault Jews because of the Gaza conflict.

    Synagogues have been burnt, Jews beaten up in the street and last week four pro-Palestinian protesters stormed a Paris concert hall, letting off flares and shouting threats as the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra performed. 

    On Monday, a package bomb exploded in the Montlucon agency of the German financial services company, Allianz, injuring one employee. Days earlier, the Toulouse branch of the company had its windows smashed. An extreme-left group claimed responsibility for the Toulouse attack, justifying it on the grounds that Allianz insures an Israeli drone manufacturer.

    The intimidation of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra drew scant comment from far-left MPs. A minority, such as Thomas Portes of La France insoumise (LFI), celebrated the intrusion, declaring: “We must multiply these actions! We are on the right side.”

    “Islamo-Gauchisme” is now de rigueur among the far-left. Another LFI MP, Nathalie Oziol, stated earlier this year that it was wrong to blame the beheading of schoolteacher Samuel Paty in 2020 on “a Muslim fanatic.” Rather, it was an issue of “resources, hierarchy, and how the government views national education.”

    In an op-ed in Tuesday’s Le Figaro, the academic and expert on Islamism, Gilles Kepel, expressed his fear that the Islamists were exploiting the left’s useful idiocy to win the “cultural battle.” Certainly they are winning the hearts and minds of a growing number of young French Muslims.

    The Islamist attack last week on the holiday island of Oleron overshadowed the revelation that three women aged 18, 19 and 21 were charged with plotting to bomb a concert venue “in homage to bin Laden.” This is not an isolated case. Nearly 70 percent of people arrested on suspicion of terrorism are under 21 and over half are motivated by a desire to avenge Gaza.

    There was grief, poignancy and dignity across France as millions paused to remember that horrific evening in Paris ten years ago. But there will also be delusion. Not among the people, three-quarters of whom told a recent poll that they expect more Islamist attacks in the future, but among the political elite.

    France is not united; it is divided. To deny this reality dishonors the dead and endangers the living.

  • Why is it only left-wing leaders who are allowed to be young?

    Why is it only left-wing leaders who are allowed to be young?

    There was a time when the French left turned its nose up at all things American. Too low-brow for them. Not now. The victory of Zohran Mamdani in the New York mayoral race has caused much joie de vivre in left-circles.

    Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the Gallic Bernie Saunders and the leader of the far-left La France Insoumise, described Mamdani’s win as “very good news.”

    The general secretary of the center-left Socialist party, Olivier Faure, posted a smiley face on X above a headline in Le Monde, hailing Mamdani as “the youngest mayor in New York history.”

    Mamdani referenced his age during his victory speech in Brooklyn. “The conventional wisdom would tell you that I am far from the perfect candidate,” he proclaimed. “I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older. I am Muslim. I am a Democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this.”

    There has been no need to apologize to much of the world’s mainstream media. His age and his religion have been a help not a hindrance to Mamdani’s rapid ascension.

    A puff-piece in Wednesday’s Guardian was typical. It praised his youthful vigor, particularly his “savvy social-media presence” and the way in which it was “energizing younger voters… who are hungry for generational and ideological change.”

    France’s left-wing Liberation newspaper took a similar line, characterizing Mamdani as “the idol of Generation Z” and the hope for a better future in the United States.

    Curiously, these newspapers have a different take on another political idol of Generation Z, France’s Jordan Bardella.

    The 30-year-old president of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is routinely attacked for his age and his reliance on social media. When Mamdani promotes himself and his policies to his 3 million followers on TikTok he is being “savvy.” When Bardella addresses his 2.2 million followers he’s using it as a “propaganda tool.”

    For Mamdani, his youth is a virtue but with Bardella it’s a weakness. CNN has pointed to his “short career and lack of concrete experience,” while the Guardian depicted him as “too young and inexperienced.”

    This week Bardella was forced to defend his age during a television interview, saying his youth does not “discredit” him. Yet the same broadcaster made no reference to Mamdani’s age when discussing the possibility that he was the future of the Democratic party. The fact he was a little “too left” was perceived to be his only blemish.

    France’s international broadcaster, France24, believes that the victory of Mamdani will “galvanize” the French left. No doubt. But it will also be a boost for Bardella.

    He has become the face this year of the National Rally, eclipsing the de facto leader of the party, Marine Le Pen. In March she was disqualified from political life for five years after a Paris court ruled she had misused EU funds. Le Pen has appealed her conviction and the outcome will be known next February.

    Even if she overturns the sentence, there is a growing belief in France that Le Pen won’t be her party’s candidate in the 2027 presidential election. She has two disadvantages: her economic socialism, which remains a turn off for middle-class voters, and her last name.

    There are still a sizable number of voters, particularly among the over 60s, who, while they agree with her about the dangers of mass immigration and Islamism, still can’t bring themselves to cast a ballot for a Le Pen. The anti-Semitism of her father, Jean-Marie, is etched in their memory.

    Bardella is different. He does not suffer the sins of his father and he is also more economically liberal. Over the last year he has been courting big business and deftly drawing the distinction between himself and his mentor, Madame Le Pen.

    Bardella’s only disadvantage is his age. Or at least it was until this week. But Mamdani has done the Frenchman a favor. Next time Bardella is interrogated by a hostile journalist about his callowness he can simply namecheck the inspiring mayor of New York.

    Or is it only left-wing leaders who are allowed to be young?

  • Brigitte Macron has run out of sympathy

    Ten people have been on trial this week in Paris, accused of transphobic cyberbullying against Brigitte Macron. France’s first lady, the wife of Emmanuel Macron, pressed charges after a claim that she was in fact a man went global. Some of those in the dock have apologized for spreading the allegations online but others have said that it’s just a bit of harmless fun and that in a free country one should be able to say what one likes.

    This argument was dismissed by Brigitte Macron’s lawyer, Jean Ennochi, who said: “They all talk to you about freedom of expression, defamation, they completely deny cyberbullying [and] mob harassment.” Prosecutors have demanded suspended prison sentences ranging from three to twelve months for the accused. The judges will give their verdict in January.

    Perhaps Madame Macron should have followed the late Queen of England’s maxim of “never complain, never explain.” Had she done so, the claims that she was a man would probably have not been covered across the world, from the BBC to the New York Times.

    But Macron felt compelled to take action after what began as a one-woman smear campaign turned into a global conspiracy theory. The American influencer, Candace Owens, began pushing the theory in 2024 and eventually released an eight-part podcast. She is being sued by the Macrons.

    The originator of the claim that Brigitte is a man who transitioned is a Frenchwoman in her fifties called Natacha Rey. She took a dislike to Brigitte from the moment her husband was elected president in 2017 and began a three-year “investigation” into her background. No one took any notice of Rey’s social media rants at first. That may have been because of the goodwill most people in France felt towards Brigitte Macron. She seemed like a grounded woman who was more in touch with the average citizen than her husband. They were prepared to overlook the “weird” circumstances of how they met; she was a 39-year-old teacher, a married woman with three children, and he was a 15-year-old pupil in her theatre class.

    In an Anglophone country more searching questions might have been asked by journalists but in France the fawning mainstream media depicted the union as an inspiring love story. As one paper wrote: “Two thwarted lovers ready to overcome all obstacles: the story begins like a Molière comedy.”

    In the early days of Macron’s presidency, Brigitte earned the respect of the French by fronting a campaign against bullying in schools and supporting victims of violence. But then stories began emerging that eroded much of the goodwill: the €600,000 ($694,000) that the Élysée Palace spent on flowers in 2020, the year when Macron locked the French in their homes because of Covid.

    In the summer of 2023 it was disclosed that Brigitte had forked out €315,808 ($365,000) on clothes in the past 12 months. “Brigitte Macron has a particular fondness for luxury items,” explained a fashion magazine, listing her favorite designers as Louis Vuitton, Dior and Chanel.

    The following year Brigitte made a guest appearance in Emily in Paris, the spectacularly vacuous Netflix sitcom that depicts the lives of the rich and frivolous in the French capital. It was not well received. France was in political turmoil, the country was ravaged by violence, the cost of living was soaring and here was Brigitte simpering on screen.

    Barely anyone in France takes seriously the claim that Brigitte Macron is a man. But whereas a few years ago many would have sprung to her defence now they just shrug. They have scant sympathy even if, as one of Brigitte’s daughters told the court this week, her mother suffers from the “horrible” things said about her. The view of the majority is “so what?” They have suffered eight years of her husband’s chaotic presidency.

    Brigitte was asked in an interview last December about the fraught relationship between her husband and his people. She replied that they “don’t deserve him.” It was a provocative remark and, judging from the slap Brigitte gave her husband a few weeks later, he can also drive her to distraction. “We are not an ideal couple,” Brigitte said of her marriage in 2019. The French would agree.

  • Is DEI to blame for the Louvre heist?

    Is DEI to blame for the Louvre heist?

    Police in Paris have arrested two men after the “heist of the century” at the Louvre museum. According to the French press, the pair were arrested separately as they prepared to leave the country on Saturday evening; both are in their 30s and from Seine-Saint-Denis, the sprawling suburb north of Paris. As yet there is no indication that police have recovered any of the crown jewels that were stolen from the museum in seven sensational minutes last Sunday. The search for them and the two other gang members goes on.

    The 88 million euros ($102m) heist has been deeply embarrassing for France, and the fact that those responsible appear to be local villains as opposed to the international criminal masterminds that some had suggested will only further redden the Republic’s face.

    Jordan Bardella, the right-hand man of Marine Le Pen, called the robbery a “national humiliation”, as did Marion Marechal, the niece of Le Pen and a former MP in her National Rally party

    Marechal demanded that the Louvre’s director, Laurence des Cars, and the head of security, Dominique Buffin, be relieved of their duties. Marechal claimed they had been appointed to their positions as “part of a policy to promote women… at the cost of sacrificing competence and jeopardizing our nation’s cultural heritage.”

    There was much fanfare when Buffin was named last year as the first woman to head up the Louvre’s security. Profiling Buffin, the left-wing Le Monde claimed that she was sometimes mistaken by visitors for a gallery attendant as she went about her work in the museum. Tourists apparently couldn’t conceive that a woman was in charge of security with a staff of 1,100 under her command.

    Laurence des Cars was appointed to her post in 2021, the first woman in the 230-year history of the Louvre. Her competency has come under scrutiny this week. It was reported in the press that des Cars has invested five times less money in security than was the case between 2006 and 2008. On the other hand she has splashed out nearly half a million euros on a new dining room.

    Des Cars offered to resign in the wake of the heist but this was refused by the government. This is no surprise. Emmanuel Macron handpicked des Cars for the post of director and he has to stick by her or else his judgement might be called into question.

    Macron has been a fervent supporter of DEI, or what is known in France as the “feminization” of society. Upon his election as president of the Republic in 2017 he appointed Florence Parly the minister of the armed forces. A socialist and career civil servant, Parly had no military background.

    In March 2022, a month after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, France’s top brass warned that they had enough ammunition for four days of high intensity combat. Parly left her post a few weeks later without much to show for her five years in office other than the “feminization” of the military.

    In 2019 Parly launched an initiative to increase the number of women in the armed forces and she boasted that she would “double the proportion of women among generals by 2025”.
    Her zeal encountered resistance among several senior military figures, who criticized her “political impatience”. In 2020 Parly blocked the publication of a promotion list because she was unhappy at the number of women on it.

    France’s civil service has also been subjected to similar social engineering. In 2023 a law was passed that increased the quota for female appointments to senior and executive positions from 40 percent to 50 percent. As of 2027 there will be financial penalties for non-compliance.

    This quota also applies, from January 2026, for appointments to ministerial cabinets and the cabinet of the President of the Republic.

    Earlier this week a collective called Women of the Interior bemoaned the fact in their view there aren’t enough women employed in France’s Ministry of the Interior. They also regretted that female police numbers have slightly decreased.

    Policing is not much fun in France, what with violence from Islamists, Antifa, anarchists, rioters and radical environmentalists. In 2023, there were 5,492 police officers injured in the line of duty, an average of 15 a day. Perhaps that is why numbers are down.

    France’s “feminization” has been inspired by America’s DEI, but while the Trump administration has started dismantling the dogma, France is doubling down. There was a furious response earlier this year when the US Embassy in Paris sent letters to companies requesting they drop DEI programs.

    The Ministry of Foreign Trade denounced the letters as “US interference” and proclaimed that France “will defend their companies, their consumers, but also their values”.

    One wonders if France can defend its companies better than it can its crown jewels.

  • France has failed its daughters

    France has failed its daughters

    It is just over three years since a 12-year-old Parisian girl called Lola was raped and murdered in a crime that shocked France. The woman accused of the murder, 27-year-old Dahbia Benkired, is now on trial and on Monday the court heard chilling evidence from a man who encountered the defendant shortly after the death of Lola.

    Karim Bellazoug told the court that Benkired was carrying a large trunk and told him she had items to sell. When he glanced inside he saw what looked like a body. “I thought she was crazy, that she was a psychopath,” Bellazoug declared.

    The motivation as well as the mental state of Benkired will be examined as the trial continues, but the overarching question is beyond the court’s remit. It is a political question: why was Dahbia Benkired in France?

    She arrived in the country in 2016 on a student visa and took a course in catering. She was a poor student with a reputation for lateness and lying. By 2022, Benkired was a regular cannabis user with no regular employment and no fixed abode. She had also been served with a deportation order, what the French call an OQTF – obligation de quitter le territoire français.

    An OQTF was introduced in 2006; the order is issued by a prefect and requires the recipient to leave France by their own means within 30 days. The initiative took time to get off the ground; in 2007 only 3.9 percent of OQTFs were enforced, a figure that rose to 22.4 percent by 2012, the year that Nicolas Sarkozy left office. He had cultivated an image of being a president tough on crime, which can’t be said of his successors, Francois Hollande and Emmanuel Macron.

    In an interview in 2019, Macron admitted that the current execution rate for OQTF of under 10 percent was not good enough, and he promised that it would soon be 100 per cent.

    His boast was greeted with skepticism by Christian Jacobs, at the time the president of the center-right Republican party. He accused Macron of being “all talk and no action,” reminding the French that when he had come to power in 2017 the president promised to reduce public spending. “But the reality is that spending is increasing much faster than it did under Hollande. We have accumulated an additional €170 billion in debt in two years, and on immigration, it’s the same problem”.

    Jacobs’s cynicism was well placed. France’s debt and immigration have soared in the last six years. In 2024, a record 430,000 legal migrants arrived in France, the same number as the three previous years combined. As for the number of illegal immigrants in France, when asked for a figure on Tuesday the new interior minister Laurent Nunez refused to divulge the number. Jordan Bardella, the president of the National Rally, has since written to Nunez demanding “transparency” on how many illegal immigrants are in France.

    As for the number of OQTF orders that have been enforced, they have fallen to 7 percent. In a report published last year by the independent authority for monitoring the conditions of detention, this low rate is attributable to “the structural obstacles (both material and administrative) that have long hindered the implementation of forced removals.” The report added that the situation “does not appear likely to change in the coming years.”

    A few weeks after that report was issued, a student called Philippine was raped and murdered in Paris by a Moroccan, who had recently been released from prison after serving a short sentence for rape. “Philippine’s life was stolen from her by a Moroccan migrant under an OQTF,” posted Bardella on social media. “This migrant therefore had no place on our soil… Our justice system is lax, our state is dysfunctional, our leaders let the French live with human bombs.”

    A similar message was heard in a Paris court last month during the trial of an African man accused of raping two women at knifepoint on a Saturday afternoon in 2023. The man, who was found guilty, had ignored OQTFs in 2020, 2021 and 2023 and during that time committed several other crimes.

    One of the women, Claire Geronimi, waived her right to anonymity, to declare: “We’re talking about a brutal rape, something that shouldn’t happen in the middle of the afternoon, in the heart of Paris… It’s something that’s very difficult, especially since my attacker was subject to three OQTF orders.”

    Claire has raised a support group for victims of sexual crimes. “I am lucky to be able to testify, I am lucky to be alive,” she said. “I think we could have been Lola, we could have been Philippine.”

    A poll last month found that 86 per cent of French people are in favor of imprisoning foreign criminals issued with a OQTF while they await deportation. It seems logical, but there is little logical about the French political class in this era of chaos. The new coalition government leans to the left and there is little chance that anything will be done to rein in the rampant lawlessness before the 2027 presidential election.

    On Monday, Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin admitted that the Louvre heist was a “terrible” reflection on France, adding that the country had “failed” to protect its national treasures. The same can be said of how the country fails to protect its girls and its women.

  • Why the French are dreaming of a Donald Trump à la française


    A year ago Donald J Trump was still roundly disliked by the French commentariat. Even the conservative Le Figaro newspaper held its Gallic nose in disdain, running a haughty article headlined “Trump, vulgarity runs rampant.”

    The left still loathe the president of the United States but for the right in France he has become a role model.

    The same Le Figaro now writes approvingly of Trump and admits it got him wrong. “We expected an isolationist Trump, focused solely on American interests,” it declared on Friday. “But in nine months, the president has established himself as a peacemaker in multiple international crises.”

    The French perhaps more than any European nation have never got The Donald. The political class in France are bland, humorless and conventional, as is most of the mainstream media.

    The British populist politician Nigel Farage once said of the American president: “There’s a lot of humor with Trump. It’s quick-witted repartee, which he is a master of. He’s very funny. He’s enormous fun to be with.”

    It’s hard to think of any French politician who could be described as “enormous fun,” certainly not Emmanuel Macron. The only thing enormous about the president of the Republic is his ego. And his list of failures.

    Macron has run France into the ground and reduced the country – and himself – to a laughing stock. The French did not appreciate the sight of Trump mocking Macron in Egypt at the start of this week. But their anger wasn’t directed at the American president, as he wondered with a smirk why Macron was being so “low-key.” For the French, the ridicule of their president is richly deserved.

    The contempt for Macron is arguably most profound within France’s business community. They believed his promise in 2017 to relaunch the country’s economy after five years of shambolic socialism under president Francois Hollande. Macron was hailed as the “Mozart of Finance.”

    Eight years later France finances are out of control and last month two rating agencies downgraded the country’s debt.

    If French conservatives are to break this socialist stranglehold they will need to do more than simply win an election. They must launch a counter-revolution.

    A few weeks ago a book was published in France titled Bosses: the Trump Temptation. Its author, Denis Lafay, interviewed numerous business leaders in France and discovered that they dreamed of a Donald à la française. It was more than his business approach; they also approved of his “strong rejection” of the mainstream media, public spending, international institutions and wokeism. Above all, wrote Lafay, they admired Trump’s personality. “His virility, his taste for combat, his culture of deal-making, his resilience and finally his very authoritarian side, which reassures them.”

    One suspects that France’s business leaders are more desperate than ever for a Donald of their own after the events of this week in parliament. Centrist Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu announced on Tuesday that his coalition government was suspending the pension reform bill of 2023 until after the 2027 presidential election. The main plank of this bill raised the age of retirement from 62 to 64.

    The Socialist Party celebrated. Their 66 MPs had threatened to join a motion of no confidence in the government if the bill wasn’t suspended. Lecornu capitulated to the blackmail. Patrick Martin, the president of Medef, the largest employer federation, said it was “a sad day for France,” and lamented the fact that a minority socialist party was dictating government policy.

    The Socialist Party’s representation in parliament has dwindled from 295 MPs in 2012 to 66 today, but they have been marching through France’s institutions for decades. They control the Supreme Court, the State Council, the National Audit Office, the state-owned broadcaster and much of the judiciary.

    If French conservatives are to break this socialist stranglehold they will need to do more than simply win an election with an absolute majority. They must launch a counter-revolution, as Trump and J.D. Vance have in America, purging the institutions of the left-wing dogma that has taken root since Francois Mitterrand’s presidency of the 1980s.

    Earlier this week a conservative magazine called Frontières ran an editorial headlined “A plea for a French Trump.” It listed his achievements this year, including the deportation of illegal immigrants and the classification of Antifa as terrorists, and contrasted Trump’s administration of seasoned experts with their own “incompetent elites.”

    France, declared the editorial, “deserves a Trump and the government that goes with him to restore its greatness.”

    Making France great again won’t be easy given how low the country has fallen this century. So if there is a French Trump out there, bonne chance.

  • Macron’s story has become a Shakespearean tragedy

    Macron’s story has become a Shakespearean tragedy

    This week has been a tale of two presidents. On the one hand there is Donald Trump, who has masterminded a peace deal between Israel and Hamas which, the world hopes, will end the conflict in Gaza.

    Even Trump’s long-standing detractors acknowledge his role in bringing the warring parties to the negotiating table. “Trump’s unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world appear to have contributed to this breakthrough,” explained the BBC.

    It hasn’t been such a good week for Emmanuel Macron. On the contrary it’s been the most humiliating few days of his eight and a half years in office. On Monday his Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, tendered his resignation after 27 days in office. It was the shortest premiership in the 67 years of the Fifth Republic. Lecornu resigned 12 hours after unveiling a new coalition government that was so unpopular he felt compelled to throw in the towel.

    Then late on Friday evening Lecornu was reappointed prime minister. He explained that he had accepted “the mission entrusted to me by the President of the Republic to do everything possible to give France a budget by the end of the year.” It smacks of desperation. Macron has run out of options and run out of candidates.

    As Macron’s presidency falls apart so his friends and allies are turning on him. On Tuesday one of his former prime ministers, Édouard Philippe, urged Macron to leave office “in an orderly manner.” Another, Gabriel Attal, said that he “no longer understands” Macron’s thought process.

    Rumors about Macron’s state of mind first surfaced in 2022 when he was re-elected president but a few weeks later lost his absolute majority in parliamentary elections. On a trip to the US in December that year he confided that he had for a while been in a “very serious depression.”

    His behavior in recent days has left the French bemused; not just the public but also members of his dwindling inner circle. Speaking anonymously to Le Figaro, one Élysée insider said: “No one has any news. He is more than ever in a parallel universe.”

    Macron appears to be in a state of denial about the gravity of the crisis facing France. The country is mired in debt, violent crime is soaring and on Thursday official figures showed that immigration reached record levels in 2024. There are now 7.7 million immigrants in France, more than 11 percent of the population.

    It is chaos, but you wouldn’t know it to see the President. “Macron’s problem is that, with him, everything is always going very well,” said one of advisors.

    The rise and fall of Emmanuel Macron is one of the more remarkable political stories this century. The liberal global elite breathed a sigh of relief when he was elected in 2017. An adult was back in the room, they cheered, ready to clear up the mess made the previous year by Britain’s vote to leave the EU and America’s vote for Donald Trump.

    Macron was pictured walking on water on the cover of the Economist, and TIME magazine simpered its way through a lengthy interview with the President. It compared Macron and Trump: one “the scholarly French globalist” and the other “the brash, anti­-globalist septuagenarian.”

    TIME stated that the “battle of ideas between the two has only just begun.” In essence this was Macron’s progressivism against Trump’s anti-progressivism, which is tiresomely characterized by his enemies as populism.

    There was little doubt which side TIME was on. “If Macron is proved right,” it gushed, “France could emerge as a far more important global power than it has been in decades.”

    Sorry, TIME, your man lost. Macron has ruined France. Not just its economy and its social cohesion, but also its reputation. It has no global power and Macron has no authority. His approval rating has fallen to 14 percent (Trump’s is 40 percent) and 70 percent of the French want their president to resign.

    Macron cuts an increasingly tragic figure, alone in his palace, like Macbeth in his castle, tormented not by Banquo but by Trump.

    “Whether purposely or not,” said Trump earlier this year, “Emmanuel always gets it wrong.”

    Out, out, brief candle!