December 10, 2020 - 3:15pm
Years in the making, yesterday the French Government finally presented its new, ambitious and controversial law against “Islamist Separatism”. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t quite read as a slide into the fascist dystopia of some fevered Twitter timeline imaginations.
It is fair to say the new law has had something of a makeover — perhaps owing to the unexpected international backlash from the international press and certain heads of state. No longer the ‘law against separatism’, the bill has rebranded as the law to ‘Strengthen Republican Principles.’ Perhaps it’s also telling the law was presented by Prime Minister Jean Castex — who recently endeared himself online for losing the specs he was already wearing — rather than the harder-line Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin.
The proposed law is a complex and comprehensive piece of legislation containing 54 articles and a wide range of provisions from measures applying to online hate speech and to the ending forced marriage and increased transparency for overseas religious funding.
Although the bill names no faith, Castex made it clear that the law is not against Islam or Muslims, but rather a “law of emancipation” from the grip of religious fundamentalism.
The chilling rumour that the French Government was planning to create a register of Muslim schoolchildren is substantiated nowhere in the bill. However, there is a move to curb homeschooling, in response to concerns over the withdrawal of Muslim children, particularly girls, from state schools.
The government has been accused of neglecting the socio-economic ‘drivers’ of radicalism, in favour of a war against Islamism. This though, overlooks the considerable funding injection and cohesion plans contained within the new measures and the billions of euros invested in the banlieues in recent years.
Furthermore, Macron has acknowledged that failures of integration and the retreat of public services have helped to open the door to the “separatism” he’s trying to combat. Of course, socio-economic factors alone are insufficient to explain the growth of Islamist separatism and jihadist radicalisation in France — but that’s a discussion for another time.
Even Macron’s alleged “ultimatum” for Muslim organisations to sign a ‘republican values’ charter looks tame compared to the social media moral panic. This is hardly uncharted territory: for instance, influenced by the attempted takeover of Birmingham schools by hardliners, the UK now mandates that all schools promote ‘Fundamental British Values’; and, in 2017, Italy asked Muslim groups to sign a pact for an “Italian Islam” — supported by the Italian Islamic Confederation.
France has certainly taken a tough approach in some cases, such as the decision to dissolve organisations Minister Darmanin unapologetically describes as “Islamist dispensaries”, but the new law against separatism reads less as Macron’s maniacal descent into fascism and more as a relatively mild (but welcome) reinforcement of liberal, secular values. After all, at times they do actually need defending.
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SubscribeMacron always appears slightly puzzled as to why there’s an integration problem. He seems not to recognize that people have to want to integrate, it cannot be forced. And no law will make anyone do that for sure.
The word ‘Buyers Remorse’ is apt for this across the West. Odd how Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and so on have not felt this need for social engineering.
They don’t have an Angela Merkel demanding they abide by her rulings on immigration.
Liam Duffy says:
“…Of course, socio-economic factors alone are insufficient to explain the growth of Islamist separatism and jihadist radicalisation in France ” but that’s a discussion for another time.”
Could not agree less! That discussion is long overdue ““ and you can substitute “France” for “the West” to give the discussion its full context.
As the Germans armed by every kind of obvious trickery in the 1930s (civilian glider schools everywhere to train pilots against rules, gun clubs training young men to shoot, manufacturing the submarine fleet in Holland for ‘Export’ and on and on, bombers developed as ‘passenger planes’…)France let it all slide. France had the international treaty laws, and the Military strength, to stop it early, but were too cowardly and stupid to do so, and so were crushed by the Blitzkrieg which was inevitable.
They never learn.
A related topic which is too little discussed is the fact that China never signed up to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Ever since China developed its own nuclear weapons (mid-1960s) nuclear technology has been steadily finding its way into the third world. Pakistan and North Korea are examples of nations which have weaponised “peaceful” nuclear technology. Iran may soon follow.
As Thomas C Reed and Danny B Stillman have suggested in their fascinating study “The Nuclear Express”, just one nuclear terrorist attack on a major Western city would have devastating effects on all Western economies. With nuclear technology suitably “laundered” China could enjoy the benefits that the crippling of its main economic/military competitors would confer ““ and her fingerprints would be all but impossible to detect.
Some lessons here for the UK perhaps ….
This guy thinks ‘Liberal, Secular, Values’ are the welcome answer. They in fact are the cause of this!
Relative Morality, Situational Ethics and a flexible code of honor, those are secular liberalism. Secular Liberalism is a pathology of self loathing as it grants every kind of degeneracy in others tolerance, and refuses to insist on decency because decency is relative to its philosophy. It tries to be non-judgemental on other societies and sub group’s ways, but looks for fault in its own society with a magnifying glass. It is the creed of self loathing by accepting all in all others, but blaming its self for every flaw.
It is the liberal parent who excuses everything in its children and asks for nothing in return. All rights and no responsibilities.
How long before the inoffensive Strengthening of Republican Principles law is cited as being a contributory factor in the next domestic violence incident?
Let’s hope the slow retreat from multi-cult is not too little too late.
“However, there is a move to curb homeschooling, in response to concerns over the withdrawal of Muslim children, particularly girls, from state schools.”
Is this not rather ironic given that Macron himself attended a private Catholic school. Macron aged 17 got into a relationship with one of his teachers at the school who was 24 years old than him?
I wonder how it would go down if a 17 year old Muslim girl attending a private Muslim school in France were to get into a relationship with her 41 year old teacher who was already married with children?
Liam Duffy is someone who has an undergraduate degree and a masters from that leading university, the University of Hull. He’s never worked in the private sector. Hardly surprising given lack of any real qualifications. He now tries to make money skimming off taxpayers money by delivering “training” to public sector bodies. He’s someone who talks about “Fundamental British Values” even though none of the values are peculiarly British at all and many of them are much more lacking in Britain than other countries.
All the Abrahamic texts are equally insulting to those who don’t share them, however only the Moslems are serious to a very great measure in applying them, so that one can’t really compare Catholic and Islam, Islam has not evolved but gone backwards.
Once Islam centuries ago lead the world in science but their mentality has gone back in time.
Lapidation is still widely practiced in Islam, honour killigs etc. Jews and Christians have nothing like that.
Moslems propose to be the only ones with a right to free speech and to be able to publish terrible things about us, if we reply to that politician who said those terrible things with a cartoon they bring about their punishment for breaking their law! Effectively France doesn’t have sovereignty or France has two laws, it is intollerable.
Publish a picture of the Queen fellating a non-white British man and I promise you there will be people calling for censorship. Muslims have shibboleths. But so do others. What many Muslims object to is hypocrisy on the part of those who would censor some speech and not other speech, based on which interest groups can wield political power.
Shameful piffle. How many scenarios did you imagine before you settled upon that particular image ?
Whataboutery using an imagined outrage combined with staggering moral relativism regarding ” calling for censorship ” versus hacking peoples heads off and spraying offices with gunfire . Despicable .
I agree with some here, this is a matter for ALL the West and for the UK as well. France should not stand alone. Japan has the solution but we are not prepared to implement it yet.
You can’t have TWO laws in one country, immigrants who pretend to enter with their own law in to our free countries are aking to invaders, even more so if we consider that they expect the rest of us to respect their law and their behaviour according to that law. That in itself would be intolerable, but it gets worse, it goes much further than that, they touch tyranny itself!
They come with texts saying the worst possible things about us who don’t participate of their political religion, but unlike our biblical texts, these invaders implement / want to implement their outlandish texts literally.
The politician who said all those bad things about us can’t be criticized not even with standard political cartoons, really these “invaders” are in the wrong countries.
The behaviour of these immigrant / invaders is similar to an illness transmitted by a virus which when it enters the body of our society it wants to take it over and start making more virus by means of indoctrination creating cognitive dissonance.
As a consequence of this, using an abuse by their tyranny of our free mind and of the freedoms in our society they seek to implement their tyranny using that very freedom of ours.
They propose to be the only ones in our free society with a right to say bad things about the rest of us, they seek to be the only ones in our society with freedom of speech to criticize us barring us from a reply because “it makes them feel uncomfortable”!
If we don’t stop these invaders of the West we deserve to get all what we have been getting from them starting with an eventual death of our society, of our freedom and of our selves. There will be a takeover not separatism.
Part of our freedom must be sacrificed to save most of it, fear must change sides, we must look at societies which have been successful in avoiding this problem such as Japan..
For some years I have taken the view that separate Muslim states or enclaves within European countries would be preferable to the inevitable and inexorable Islamisation of Europe.
Oh you mean like the West Bank of the Jordan. Sounds a great idea we can just coexist with mutual respect and absolutely no rockets.
The Scots would maybe be willing to surrender their soil to become the Palestine of the North.
Aren’t the Muslim refugees in France escaping Muslim states? Why would they want to move to France to escape another one?
Well it’s a mix. Some of them might be escaping the poverty and persecution of Muslim states but many of them are in France – and at the West in general – to slowly turn the Western states into Islamic states. Islam plays a very long game, and over the last 1,400 years it has generally succeeded in its objectives.
Generally though, they’re just economic migrants
I think you’re probably right. If all the migrants got jobs in France or even wanted to, you could credit them with economic migration motives.
But those enclaves would seek to expand, what you proposing is islamisation of Europe
Japan has the solution for Islam and we need to implemnt it or we will lose our countries and our heritage.
Another futile move on France’s part.
Home schooling numbers have rocketed in the UK IN last few years along with private islamic schools and madrasses. We are sitting on TIME BOMB