Pessimistic observers of Western nation-states express doubt that in the post-COVID world, a reversal of fortune—a return to historic national strength and greatness in the United States and Europeis possible. The Chinese are certainly convinced that the combination of damaging economic shutdowns and fearmongering from America’s governing elites about an elusive virus that is no more harmful than the flu has only accelerated the decay.
Long before COVID-19 struck, Western societies were already besieged by masses of impoverished immigrants hostile to the West and assimilation into Western culture. Having also watched decades of falling wages and declining living standards in the West, skeptics or “declinists” were adamant that Western downfall was imminent. Yet, the doomsayers may be in for a surprise. Events in France reveal something new is in the offing.
In an open letter signed in April by more than 1,000 service members, including 20 general officers, French military leaders warned that the government’s failure to act against the “suburban hordes”—a reference to the predominantly Muslim immigrants in public housing that surround French cities—will lead to deaths in the thousands. If past civil conflicts are any guide, the assertion may well be a gross underestimation. The French generals’ not-so-subtle hint is that President Emmanuel Macron must go before it is too late.
Is a military coup really feasible in democratic France? As breathtakingly inconceivable as Macron’s forced removal might seem, it appears that French military leaders are openly advocating the idea. French officers assert that the interests of the French nation, indeed, its very survival, may depend on Macron’s removal.
Growing numbers of Frenchmen agree. In the most recent national poll, roughly half the French population agrees with the military leaders’ argument for decisive action. What the larger French officer corps thinks is unknown, but the numbers of soldiers signing on for action is growing day by day.
Globalists in France, as everywhere, are enamored of building a Marxist dystopia. Many Europeans think they have largely succeeded. To Macron and his ilk, Frenchmen and indeed all human beings are replaceable and interchangeable. They insist that religion, race, culture, and language are meaningless artificial constructs and they seek to abolish national identities. It was this flight from reality that led Macron’s predecessor to open the borders of France in 2015, admitting tens of thousands of Muslims ostensibly seeking asylum.
In short order, Frenchmen soon discovered that the tsunami of Muslim migrants had no desire whatsoever to assimilate and, baffling enough, zero interest in ever returning to their home countries. Although Muslim migrants clearly sought to benefit from France’s generous welfare state and economic prosperity, they also demanded their own laws, their own schools, their own language, and their own customs and religion. These demands were accompanied by rising criminality in the form of terrorist attacks, violent riots, racially motivated rape gangs, and burning Christian Churches.
As the crisis spirals out of control, the French army—the last, true repository of national identity and French values—appears to be drawing a red line. The French, and the Western nations watching from the sidelines, face a truly gut-wrenching choice: Either act with force to restore French sovereignty or watch their nation perish.
At this stage, Americans are left to ponder the hypotheticals of wholesale regime change in continental Europe’s oldest democracy. The crisis also raises important questions for Americans.
What happens when a government treats its national boundaries with disinterest, even neglect? What does it mean when governments fail to enforce the rule of law? What happens when democratic governments release hardened criminals into society, imprison citizens who criticize it, and ignore the destabilizing human and economic impact of a hostile foreign invasion under the guise of immigration?
A nation is always the sum of its human capital; the energy, skills, ambition, discipline, inventiveness, and beliefs of its people. Such a seminal truth stands diametrically opposed to and is incompatible with globalism and multiculturalism. Put another way, in the words of Samual Huntington, “Unless we hate what we are not, we cannot love what we are.”
Ideology notwithstanding, the destiny of a great nation frequently rests on the shoulders of the few who lead it. In France, it seems that destiny now lies in the hands of its national military leadership.
What Americans should be asking themselves as we watch the unfolding disaster from across the Atlantic is when (in all likelihood), not if, we will face the same predicament.
It’s painfully obvious that many, if not most, of the senior military leaders like Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley are committed to globalism and multiculturalism, but one wonders what the majority of patriotic American soldiers, sailors, airman, and Marines, along with the courageous police officers and firefighters across the country, really think. What will these guardians of national order and security do when they confront more chaos and disorder on the scale of last summer’s criminal violence against American symbols, citizens and property in the months and years ahead?