Liberté, Égalité, tout cassé

Here is a riddle: what is the difference between the thugs who yesterday looted boutiques, set police stations and town halls ablaze, vandalized churches and synagogues, threatened people, and the scum doing exactly the same today? There are two differences: the usual Palestinian flag is now accompanied by the Algerian flag, and the date 17 October 1961 has appeared sprayed across the walls.

While Paris burned and everything was being destroyed, Emmanuel Macron attended a Céline Dion concert.

But what exactly happened on that day?

During the Algerian War of Independence, the Algerian FLN, the National Liberation Front, carried out terrorist attacks in France. Dozens of French civilians were murdered. In an effort to curb the escalating violence, the Paris police prefect imposed a curfew on 5 October 1961 for French Muslims of Algerian origin. For a brief moment, things calmed down.

On 17 October, a protest against that measure was violently dispersed by the police, an event that has for years been commemorated peacefully by French presidents and politicians. The murdered French civilians, on the other hand, are not commemorated. And voilà: a brand-new excuse to wreck everything in sight.

Now let us compare today's primitive waves of looting to the commemorations of another date: 7 October. People gather with flowers, candles, and speeches to honour the victims of the Hamas atrocities in Israel. No shops need to be burned for that. No cars need to be vandalized. These gatherings are guided by grief and quiet remembrance, not by unrestrained rage. Not barbarism and vandalism, but civility and respect.

But who, exactly, is tearing la douce France apart? "French youths" is far too vague a term, ladies and gentlemen of the press. Your wording should be more precise: this is the centuries-old alliance between red and green, between the radical left and Islam.

That alliance is not a matter of opinion or imagination. It is an objective fact. Ask the Iranians.

The people who build businesses, create jobs, pay taxes, and take responsibility every day, those are the people who make France, and the rest of Europe, not only livable, but beautiful, cultured, civilized, and ethical. They are the ones who will now foot the bill for the damage. Not the racaille, and not the elite in the Élysée Palace. Ordinary citizens like you and me.

France belongs to those who cherish French thought, the French savoir-vivre, and French values. It belongs to those who uphold Equality, Liberty, and Fraternity, true fraternity, not the Muslim Brotherhood. France does not belong to those who mock it and destroy it.

I wish courage to all entrepreneurs who must now bear the consequences of the behaviour of these vandals. As for the French president, I wish him an honourable conclusion to his political career. For where was the good man while Paris was burning? At a Céline Dion concert, cheerfully singing along to serenades in the company of his beloved wife.

Yet Emmanuel Macron still has no intention of stepping down. In his address to the French people, he nevertheless declared that "everyone must take responsibility for what has happened." Excellent advice. Perhaps he should try following it himself, instead of lecturing everyone else. Image credits: AI-generated composite illustration.