Banned: Anti-Islam Rallies in France and Germany

The banning of today’s Pegida rally and other ‘open-air gatherings’ in Dresden has been well publicised following a ‘concrete threat’ against the group, specifically its most prominent member, Lutz Bachmann. Pegida, on the other hand, has claimed that it took the decision to scrap the rally following an order from Islamic State to assassinate Bachmann. The ban, imposed by Dresden police, will last for 24 hours, but thereafter it is unclear what will happen regarding further protests. Clearly, the safety of leading Pegida members and their supporters is paramount, but it is chilling that these death threats have led to the cancellation of a peaceful and perfectly legitimate demonstration. Nothing could more clearly validate Pegida’s case that Islamisation is a real and growing danger for Germany and other European societies, than this death threat.

Additional evidence that the violent Islamist fifth column is successfully manipulating European politicians to further embed and privilege Islam within our societies comes from France, where another banning order was implemented in Paris yesterday. The ban related to an anti-Islamisation rally – 'Islamists out of France’ – which had been planned well in advance of the Islamist terror attacks in Paris earlier this month. The two organising groups - Riposte Laïque and Résistance Républicaine – have for a number of years been campaigning and warning against the Islamisation of France, but have hitherto not managed to mobilise mass support for their cause in their demonstrations. The latest rally has been banned upon the grounds that it would incited ‘hatred’ and ‘division’. The organisers correctly advised their supporters not to turn up, understanding that the authorities would use this as a pretext for manufacturing potentially violent confrontation and arrests.

 

 

Melanie Dittmer of Pegida, along with anti-Islamisation activists from Belgium (Pierre Flip), Italy (Armando Manocchia) and Switzerland (Jean-Luc Addor), had also been invited to the cancelled Paris rally. In its place, they, together with the organisers, held a press conference which provided an overview of resistance to Islamisation in their various countries. Elsewhere in France, sister rallies took place in Montpellier, Bordeaux and Lyon. It was noted that Pegida had now also established itself in Belgium, Spain, Italy and Switzerland.

 

Anti-Islamisation Protesters in Montpellier 



 

The official reaction to the Islamist attacks in France has possessed a clear agenda: to exonerate Islam, and to reinforce Islam’s place in France in the name of a non-existent ‘unity’. Correspondingly, Minister of Justice Christianne Taubira has announced a strengthening of so-called ‘anti-racist laws’ in connection with the right to criticise immigration and Islam, seeking to criminalise the non-existent phenomenon of ‘Islamophobia’. Riposte Laïque and Résistance Républicaine are correct in drawing the conclusion that the French state is likely to make them illegal, along with other kindred groups in the identitarian movement such as Bloc Identitaire, on the grounds that they incite ‘hatred’ and ‘division’ amongst the French people. If indeed, this does happen, Islam would effectively have been provided with immunity from criticism in France; an Islamic blasphemy law would have been enforced.

Whilst the ‘Islamists out of France’ rally against a growing fifth column was banned, a ‘Muslim-leftist protest’ was permitted to take place in Paris yesterday at the time scheduled for the former. It was accompanied by cries of “Allahu-akbar” (see video below).

We therefore see that despite the recent apparent mass demonstration in favour of freedom of speech and expression in Paris and across France, the Hollande administration does not genuinely believe in the concept of free speech should it involve criticism of Islamisation and other negative impacts of mass immigration on French society. It is also worth noting that although Marine Le Pen has recently been criticised by another leading Front National figure for going soft on Islam, she was excluded from the recent officially-sanctioned ‘Je suis Charlie’ march in Paris. What we are witnessing therefore, is an uncanny parallel to the political scenario outlined in Michel Houellebecq’s most recent novel ‘Soumission’ which was published on the very day of the Charlie Hebdo murders. In this, French political parties of Left and Right make common ground in 2017 to prevent the Front National from winning the presidential election, and thereafter an Islamist becomes leader of the Socialist Party and wins the presidential election of 2022, implementing Shariah in France. Houellebecq himself has admitted that the timescale employed in the novel has been somewhat accelerated, although he has emphasised that its scenario could well play out over the longer term. That said, the anti-Front National coalition in the 2017 elections appears to be a certainty, and the actions of a handful of violent Islamist fanatics has seemingly helped to cement Islam’s official place in France, rather than generating a wave of revulsion against the source of Islamism – Islamic doctrine – amongst the French political class.

 

 

 

How large is the Islamist Fifth Column?

Nigel Farage may have been chastised for employing the term ‘fifth column’ in a recent Channel 4 News interview when referring to what he termed a ‘tiny minority’ of Muslims in the UK, but his usage of this term was correct: there is a fanatical and violent Islamist fifth column in this country. Moreover, it self-evidently exists in many other European countries, wherever in fact, there are significant Muslim populations, i.e. in every western European state (although for the sake of exactitude I ought to make clear for pedantry’s sake that we should probably exclude Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco and San Marino from consideration. As for the Vatican, well . . .).  

Before proceeding further, this piece rests upon the premise that Islamists actively identify against their European host societies, as the latter are not, and do not wish to become, Islamic states under the rule of Shariah. Islamists wish to establish the rule of Shariah and can be divided into two types: violent and non-violent. The former are willing to employ terror and revolutionary methods, whereas the latter may be content to use democratic mechanisms, relying upon gradual demographic change to gradually take control of the jurisdictions in which they reside. Both are a threat, with the first group demanding the immediate attention of our security services so as to contain and neutralise any imminent and nascent plots, whereas the second group can be dealt with via a combination of long-term surveillance, the choking off of financial support, and political measures that remove the ideological ‘respect’ accorded to Islam as a religion in this country and the other states of Europe.  

Not all Muslims are Islamists of course, but all Islamists believe in Islam. Hence, the higher the resident Muslim population, the greater the potential internal threat. So, how large is the Muslim population? What is the trajectory that it is set upon? 

The 2011 census recorded a total Muslim population of 2,706,066 in England and Wales, although this of course would not have included either those people who live here illegally, or those whose command of English is so limited as to have rendered them incapable of completing the census return. It is probably safe to assume that the actual number is above 3 million.  

The official statistics show that the Muslim population experienced phenomenal growth between the censuses of 2001 and 2011, for in the first of these years only 1.5 million people in England and Wales self-reported as Muslim. When we turn to the demographic composition of the resident Muslim population compared to people identifying themselves as Christian or as possessing no religion, the differences are pronounced, and suggest that the problems with Islamism that we encounter today are likely to grow and intensify in the future. Even if all immigration from Muslim countries were to cease now, the resident Muslim population would continue its rapid growth both in terms of absolute numbers and as a proportion of the overall population.  

Whereas 26% of Christians and 39% of non-believers were aged between 0 and 24 in 2011, 48% of Muslims fell into this age bracket. In the next age bracket of 25-49, the corresponding figures were a little more evenly balanced at 31%, 42% and 40% respectively, but turning to the retired segment of the population aged 65 and above, the respective figures are radically different, being 22%, 6% and 4%. In age terms alone, the potential for Muslim fertility is thus considerably greater than for either of the other two groups. Moreover, Muslims traditionally have larger families than members of the other groups. It is also worth considering that 53% of Muslims in the 2011 census had been born abroad, although that said, many second and third generation Muslims resident in the UK have turned to Jihadism. Islam therefore remains a physically, as well as a culturally, alien presence in England and Wales, and the sense of ‘grievance’ that is so frequently voiced by its adherents, from whichever of its many different varieties, is intrinsically linked to the desire for power, both cultural and political, in a country in which their culture and values, which they believe to be innately ‘superior’, have to take a subordinate position – for now – to those of the host society.

How might a ‘fifth column’ be defined? What should we consider to be its composite elements, and which pose the greatest danger? At the heart of this fifth column lie violent Islamists. Their numbers are difficult to estimate, but as a starting point, one can take the number who have been involved in the conflict in Iraq and Syria on behalf of ISIS or other Islamist organisations such as Al-Nusra. Intelligence estimates place this at somewhere in the region of 600. A certain proportion of these are unlikely to return from the Middle East, but it is reckoned that several hundred have come back to the UK. These individuals, together with other violent Islamists working on their own domestic plots who have not travelled to Iraq or Syria, could therefore number in the high hundreds or low thousands.

The next element of the fifth column are the sympathisers of the violent Islamists who, although not willing to endanger their own lives, may be willing to aid and abet them in their deeds. This group is likely to be considerably larger, numbering at least in the low thousands. This brings us to the third element, the political Islamists, who could be divided into those who are active members of organisations and supporters of campaigns pursuing an Islamist agenda, and their passive supporters. The first group will contain many more individuals than those currently willing to pursue violent means, with the pool of potential passive supporters being massive, numbering at the very least in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions.

In October 2014, the Times reported that a Populus poll of 2,000 ‘British’ adults revealed that one in seven had “warm feelings” towards ISIS, with support being at its highest level amongst the under 25s. If one were to extrapolate from these figures to the general population, this would imply that circa 9.2 million adults in our country look upon the Islamist regime in question favourably. Quite clearly, one would correctly think that the majority of those who do so are Muslim. The pool of support for Islamism in the UK is therefore several million strong, including, in all likelihood, the majority of the practising doctrinaire Muslim population. This is the size of the potential fifth column.

In France, it would seem that things are even worse, with their fifth column being larger still. A poll carried out in France in August 2014 reported that 16% of the French population were favourably disposed towards ISIS. How can this be? Do French non-Muslims really have a favourable view of ISIS? If this poll is to believe, over 10 million French citizens possess such views, far higher than the generally accepted figure of 4.7 million for the number of Muslims in France.

I can appreciate that many readers will think that I and others who share my concerns regarding this issue will believe me to be unduly ‘alarmist’, even ‘paranoid’, but committed minorities can, and do, bend the societies in which they live to fit their agendas. Depressingly, the tipping point seems to set in once the committed minority reaches 10% of a given population as one piece of recent research would appear to demonstrate:

‘Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society.’

In France, the UK and Germany, we are not that far away from such a tipping point with our Muslim populations. This is why the warnings of Pegida need to be heeded, and the Front National must make headway in France before it is too late (although of late Marine Le Pen has been criticised for being too accommodating to Islam. One prominent FN MEP – Aymeric Chauprade – has released a video in which he declares that France is now at war with some Muslims, but “not Muslims in general.” The video and an accompanying article can be found at the Galliwatch blog). What will we do in the UK? Who wants to return to the Middle Ages? Not me.

Ils ne sont pas Charlie?

The picture below has been reproduced by a number of media organisations including, notably, The Guardian. Look at the couple in the centre of the picture who are obviously not holding aloft 'Je suis Charlie' posters. Why might this be?

Sadly, as regular readers of this lately dormant blog know, this act of Islamist mass murder against the staff of Charlie Hebdo was perhaps not that unexpected, given the previous attacks upon their office, and the many death threats received. What the political fallout from this atrocity will be is hard to gauge, but one can be certain that there will be much hand-wringing about some putative 'backlash' against 'Muslim communities' in France and Europe more broadly. The advocates of mass immigration and multiculturalism will use, and have already been using, this as an opportunity to attempt to emphasise a non-existent commonality of values between Islam and the European societies that have in recent decades come to act as its accommodating, incubating host. There is no such commonality of values.

Islam, in its dogmatic literalist form, is not compatible with freedom of speech and expression, and contrary to the assertions of its many adherents and apologists, does not stand for 'peace', but for 'submission'. This is the correct translation. Those who submit are, in a very real sense, in a state of mental slavery to an entity name 'Allah', that exists only inside believers' heads. In essence, practising Muslims believe that their 'faith' is the 'truth', and if most may not be willing to use violence to bring about its dominance in our societies, they would welcome the consequences of its violent imposition.

History, alas, contains enough examples of violent, ideologically-motivated vanguard groups willing to sacrifice all for their ideals to realise their vision of the 'perfect' society, for us to posit the following question: could a violent Islamist vanguard, revelling in its use of terror, impose its vision upon its host societies? The Bolsheviks were a tiny minority in Tsarist Russia, but they successfully imposed their ideology and terror upon a population of hundreds of millions, repressing people for the best part of a century. Nazism too, although enjoying a significant degree of electoral support, cemented its grip through violence and terror, and was only defeated through a titanic military struggle.

Michel Houellebecq this week published his novel Soumission, featuring a scenario in which an alliance between French political parties results in the election of an Islamist President in 2022 following their united attempts to defeat Marine Le Pen and her Front National in the presidential elections of 2017. The timescale, as the author himself accepts, is somewhat accelerated, but such a depressing denouement is not beyond the realms of possibility at some future date. However, politics contains choices, and it will be interesting to see what choice the French people make in 2017.

What impact will recent events in Paris have upon Pegida? Deutsche Welle reports that the 'Alternative for Germany' (AfD) has recently been holding talks with Pegida, and reached agreement over Germany's need for 'new immigration laws'. Nigel Farage was correct to speak of  the existence of a 'fifth column' in this country in his interview with Channel 4 News earlier this week. This 'fifth column', alas, is well established not only here, but in many other European countries.
 

Front National encouraged by Ipsos poll on French attitudes

According to an article appearing in today’s Le Monde, Marine Le Pen is in buoyant mood following the publication of an Ispsos poll of French public opinion in yesterday’s edition of the paper. Why? Well, in Le Pen’s own words, it shows that “the French think like us”. Specifically, it would appear that Front National attitudes and policies with respect to immigration, Islam, globalisation and economic protectionism strike a strong chord with the French electorate.

Overall, the French public is not in an ebullient mood, with the poll suggesting the prevalence of a distinctly pessimistic worldview. That this should be so ought to come as no surprise, for France, like the UK, does not currently find itself in a happy situation either economically or socially. The pie charts reproduced below provide a striking summary of the twin mood of economic and cultural decline that appears to have taken root: 55% of respondents thought that French economic power “has declined a great deal” and a further 35% believe that it “has declined a little”, with only 7% thinking that the economy “has progressed a little”. In the cultural sphere, the mood remains negative, but not in quite so pronounced a fashion as with respect to the economy: 23% thought that French cultural influence “had declined a lot” with a further 40% stating “that it had declined a little”. 

In factually rather than politically correct fashion, 74% of respondents in the poll subscribed to the notion that Islam was an “intolerant” religion; 77% stated that “religious fundamentalism” (code for Islam) was a matter of concern to them; 57% were of the opinion that “anti-white racism is quite common in France”, and 62% “no longer feel at home in France”. Data are not provided with respect to ethnic and faith differences amongst respondents, but the results clearly indicate that France is a cleft society, with a significant proportion of indigenous French citizens feeling a distinct sense of cultural alienation from their own homeland because of the momentous changes wrought by mass immigration in recent decades. My sympathies on this score lie with the French. Whether or not the French have lost Paris as the English (or indeed, the British) have lost London, I do not know, but similar processes driven by the twin ideologies of globalism and permeable borders are leading to a crisis of national self-identity in both countries. However, to express this sense of alienation from one’s own homeland and the political class who implement and advocate the policies that lead to this dispossession is to run the risk in both the UK and France of being branded a ‘far-right extremist’, which is of course a deeply malicious and wounding slur upon the part of those who level it.   

One commentator – Michel Winock – described by Le Monde as a “specialist in the history of politics and ideology in modern France” has used the findings of this poll to make tired and lazy comparisons with France in the 1930s, raising the hoary old spectre of recrudescent ‘fascism’ that is so often wheeled out by defenders of mass immigration and state-sponsored multiculturalism on either side of La Manche when confronted by popular distaste for these two elite-sponsored projects. To equate a desire for national self-preservation and cultural distinctiveness with ‘fascism’ is repugnant, but that does not prevent the likes of Winock from seeking to firmly implant this false association in the public mind with the assistance of a largely eager and compliant mass media.

In conclusion, the policies forwarded by the Front National chime strongly with the concerns of native French voters, but thus far the party has not been able to make a significant electoral breakthrough. What then, will it take for French voters to give voice to their dissatisfaction by voting for a party that offers policies that they favour, and for them to overcome their aversion to voting for Le Pen inculcated by many years of deeply hostile coverage of the FN?

Madonna backs ‘Muslim’ Obama

As a rule of thumb, celebrities are not renowned for their intellectual abilities, and fewer celebrities are better known than Madonna. Many enjoy her music, but as for her intellectual faculties, it is best left to the reader to judge how acute they may be. Like it or not, such public figures wield a surprising degree of influence over the impressionable minds of their fans, and she possesses a considerable number of the latter. What she says therefore, irrespective of the merits of the words that she speaks, can be adjudged to be, to some extent, of note.

Earlier this year, Madonna courted controversy by performing in Israel against a back-projection showing Marine Le Pen with a swastika superimposed upon her forehead. This, not unnaturally, caused a degree of justifiable irritation on the part of Madame Le Pen, given its baseless and defamatory nature. Now Madonna has chosen to make another political statement, but this time pertaining to electoral politics in the USA where she last night publicly declared in favour of Obama’s presidential candidature. Before an audience of whooping and adoring fans she described Obama as “a black Muslim in the White House”, and stated that they had “better vote for fucking Obama, OK?” More whoops ensued, and nobody raised any objection to her description of the President as “a black Muslim”, although he himself has averred that he is a Christian. She later tried to wriggle out of this apparent gaffe by stating: 

I was being ironic on stage. Yes, I know Obama is not a Muslim – though I know that plenty of people in this country think he is. And what if he were?

If you would to hear her ‘eloquence’ in action before her fans, then watch the video below. Alternatively, if you are not inclined to waste the best part of three minutes, do not bother.

Breaking News: Marine Le Pen - Recount in Progress?

According to a report in Le Monde, there is some dispute as to the result in the constituency of Hénin-Beaumont being contested today by Marine Le Pen. It appears that the contest has seen the candidates polling neck and neck. Whereas the Socialist Philippe Kemel thinks that he has won, the Le Monde correspondent Abel Mestre claims that Marine Le Pen has requested a recount, owing to there being a margin of only 118 votes between the two candidates.The shares of the vote stand at 50.11% and 49.89%. 

Elsewhere, the Front National did win seats, as can be seen here. 

Front National to take 7 Seats?

The Galliawatch blog reports that the Front National could stand a chance of taking seven seats in the National Assembly in the second round of elections in France today. Below are the seven seats in question, together with the names of the FN candidates and their shares of the vote garnered in round one of the elections last Sunday:

• 11^th district of Pas-de-Calais - Marine Le Pen , 42.36%
• 3^rd district of le Vauclause - Marion Maréchal Le Pen, 34.6%
• 2^nd district of le Gard - Gilbert Collard, 34.57%
• 3^rd district of Bouches-du-Rhône - Stéphane Ravier, 29.87%
• 16^th district of les Bouches-du-Rhône - Valérie Laupies, 28.98%
• 6^th district of Moselle - Florian Philippot, 26.34%
• 4^th district of le Vauclause - Jacques Bompard, 23.51%

This list, originally compiled by Le Figaro, indicates those seats where the FN could have a chance of winning, rather than those in which it is thought that they will win. Of these, the one contested by Marion Maréchal Le Pen looks set to provide the party with its best prospect, simply because unlike in Marine Le Pen’s constituency, her opponents have not decided to field a single candidate in opposition to her candidature. It thus seems most likely that the FN could take one seat today, but it would be no surprise if it were to take none at all. It has a tough fight on its hands, but the modernisation of the party carried out by Marine Le Pen appears to have paid dividends in giving it the semblance of a chance of winning under the first-past-the-post system. However, given that the UMP has toughened up its rhetoric (although not its policy) on immigration in response to the rise in the popularity of the FN, it is an unfortunate likelihood that this will have served to stymie the prospects of the FN in this election. 

Marine Le Pen wins in Hénin-Beaumont

Reuters have confirmed that Marine Le Pen has won the first round of voting in the town of Hénin-Beaumont by taking 42% of the vote. As she has not won more than 50% there will be a second ballot next Sunday, so victory is not yet in her grasp. Her arch-opponent Jean-Luc Melanchon came third, and has thus announced that he will not be standing next week, recommending instead that his supporters vote for the Socialist candidate Phillipe Kemel. When the Front National looked as if they would win the mayoralty of the town in 2009 by securing 39% in the first round, all other candidates bar one stood down and recommended that their supporters vote in favour of the one remaining opponent. Melanchon's decision to stand aside indicates that this tactic is about to be repeated, but can Le Pen win anyway, for she is after all starting at a higher baseline of support than in the mayoral election? The contest in the town looks set to have a nailbiting finish. Background on the race, including information on a rather controversial flyer campaign, can be accessed by clicking here.

UPDATE
Across France as a whole, the Front National took the third largest share of the vote. Marine Le Pen's niece - Marion Le Pen - managed to top the poll with 34% in Vauclause, and thus will also enter next Sunday's runoff. The GalliaWatch blog reports that the Front National has made it into the second round in 61 of the 577 constituencies, rather less than its high watermark of 133 in 1997.

Marion Le Pen - First in Vauclause

Hénin-Beaumont: Le Pen versus Melanchon

Today the first round of the French elections to the 577-member National Assembly will take place, with the second round being held in a week’s time. Given the economic and political turmoil besetting the Eurozone, this election will have particular significance for the future tenor of policy within its constituent states and for the EU more widely.

Hitherto, the Front National has not won a seat in the National Assembly under the current first-past-the post system (under proportional representation it managed to take 35 seats in 1986), but it is estimated that the party could possibly, rather than probably, take up to 8 seats on this occasion. It is in the town of Hénin-Beaumont that the most interesting constituency contest looks set to take place, with Marine Le Pen standing against Left Front leader Jean-Luc Melenchon. Across France the Front National has been scoring between 12 and 18% in opinion polls over the past month, with those from the past week suggesting a level of support between 14 and 15%. However, in Hénin-Beaumont the popularity of the Front National is considerably higher, which coupled with Marine Le Pen’s profile, could result in a win for the party.

Hénin-Beaumont is twinned, rather appropriately given its closed pits and post-industrial malaise, with Wakefield. Even the light industry that replaced mining, notes the BBC, is closing down and moving out, such as in the case of a Samsonite factory which shut five years ago, its jobs being outsourced to Eastern Europe with half of its workforce remaining unemployed today. The ‘enormous factory floor is now home to squatters.’ Clearly, this is not a town imbued with a sense of optimism, its economic plight serving as an indictment of globalist free-market policies. Le Pen’s approach therefore, ought to possess a strong appeal in the constituency.

Traditionally, Hénin-Beaumont has been a Socialist stronghold, but in 2009 the Front National secured first place in its mayoral election with 39% of the vote in the first round, but alas, it was defeated in the second ballot owing to all other candidates standing down and uniting around a left-wing independent Daniel Duquenne. If Le Pen does not take more than 50% of the vote today, it is therefore likely that opposing candidates will once again stand aside and recommend that their supporters unite against the Front National. However, this in itself should not be a cause of despair for Le Pen, for Duquenne’s victory in 2009 was secured by a very narrow margin: 52% to 48%. The most recent test of popularity for the FN in the constituency was the presidential election, and Le Pen came out on top with 35%. Will she therefore be able to break the mould of French politics and win a seat? Such a victory appears to be plausible.

Jean-Luc Melanchon is a visceral opponent of the FN, the Galliawatch blog noting his recent comment that "Our objective remains to defeat the FN, to eradicate it politically, we will do whatever is necessary until we have the last word." (from an interview published in Direct Matin June 5, 2012). His bad tempered totalitarian tenor is accompanied by a vigorous anti-French position as expressed in his recent statement that “There is no future for France without Arabs and Berbers from the Maghreb.” Quite the contrary Monsieur Melanchon, I think that you will find that France will possess no future other than as a mere geographical and historical expression if the demographic inroads made by these North African peoples continues.

Flyers displaying these two statements have been circulating in Hénin-Beaumont, but who has produced them is a matter of uncertainty. It has undoubtedly made the irascible Melanchon furious, but why, given that he has said these things and presumably believes what he has said, should he be angry? The flyers after all, are only informing voters of what Melanchon stands for. One of them, admittedly, is in poor and rather inappropriate taste, featuring a doctored image of Melanchon set against the backdrop of a concentration camp, presumably as a retort to the constant unjust accusations of ‘Nazism’ thrown at the FN (Madonna, the superannuated enfant terrible, apparently made a cheap and inaccurate 'political' point whilst performing in Tel Aviv last week, appearing onstage brandishing an AK47 with a projection of Marine Le Pen with a swastika on her forehead as a backdrop). The other however, is reproduced below and features his quote on Arabs, Berbers and his de facto support for the end of France. It is only fair that the voters know what this man believes, and as such, these flyers fulfil a useful function. 

What, if any role, will this negative publicity play in the campaign? Whatever happens, the contest in this French town in desperate need of economic regeneration is going to prove to be a very interesting one.

Nicolas Sarkozy isn’t listening

“I have heard you”, Nicolas Sarkozy is said to have told Front National voters today as he made a desperate attempt to win them over in the second round of the French presidential election. Now, like me you may find such a phrase uncannily familiar, for have you ever heard your boss say “I hear what you’re saying” or “I hear you”? If so you know what it means: nothing. It is simply a polite way of disarming your gripe, even though your boss is utterly dismissive of it and disagrees completely with the substance of what you are saying. Hearing after all, is not listening, although this distinction seems to be lost on many people. Don’t believe me? Well, try comparing Sarkozy’s words here as quoted in The Daily Telegraph: “I've heard you...The French don't want to be dispossessed of their way of life. That's the message I heard, and I will take to the second round of the election," with what he says in the video below where he makes it clear that the French people should effectively cease to be. 

There is only one good thing about Nicolas Sarkozy: his wife, for it has to be said that Carla Bruni is very easy on the eye. Other than that, there is nothing really to be said in his favour. However, the attractiveness of someone’s wife or otherwise really doesn’t constitute grounds for lending them support or not. Then again, thinking of Tony Blair and . . . brrr! He and his wife were a ‘good’ match come to think of it.

Anyway, returning to more serious matters en France: Marine Le Pen did manage to secure a creditable 17.9% of the vote, although unfortunately this was insufficient to allow her entry to the second round of the contest. That Sarkozy as the incumbent, failed to win the largest share – coming second to François Hollande with 27.18% to 28.63% - was noteworthy, for apparently this is the first time in the past fifty years that this has happened to a presidential incumbent running for re-election. Sarkozy therefore needs the votes cast for Le Pen in the first round, and is making patriotic sounds (debunked by the video linked to above) to try and woo Front National voters. Why though, should they support him?

It is wise that Le Pen has refrained from recommending who her voters should support. Tactically, it would be wiser for her circa 6.4 million voters to abstain, registering their condemnation of both Sarkozy and Hollande. It is almost inevitable that Hollande will harvest the votes cast for other candidates of the Left such as Melenchon, but there is no inevitability about Sarkozy taking votes from the Front National. Hollande looks set to win.

It is not so much the next round of the presidential race that interests me, as June’s elections to France’s National Assembly in which all 577 seats will be contested. Given Le Pen’s strong showing yesterday, it is to be hoped that the Front National will win a number of seats, now that she has succeeded in extending the appeal of her party beyond its old social constituency and has emerged as a champion of the interests of the French working class. Such a political approach is required here in the UK, in England in particular, and news will be forthcoming on this in due course. 

"Less people voted for you than bought my last album Nicolas."

Le Pen set for more than 20%?

An exit poll published by Harris earlier this evening suggests that Marine Le Pen has come third in the first round of the French presidential election, securing 20.7% of the vote, with Sarkozy taking 27% and François Hollande 28.5%. Although Le Pen appears to have won a significantly higher share than predicted, it may be the case that it could have been higher still if indeed allegations connected to the withholding of Le Pen ballot papers from 16 departments and many voters resident overseas prove to be true. The GalliaWatch blog is sure to post more up-to-date material on this shortly, and the real results will be available soon enough.

The French Presidential Elections: a Muslim Bloc Vote?

In what would appear to be an interesting parallel to the recent behaviour displayed by Muslim voters in Bradford West and their election of George Galloway, Al Jazeera notes that in today’s first round of the presidential election French Muslims are ‘likely to vote for the far left’. It notes:

Throughout the duration of the campaign for France's presidency, one issue has come up over and over again.

Islam, and whether it has a place in French society, has been a favourite issue of the two right wing candidates, the National Front's Marine Le Pen and Nicolas Sarkozyof the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP). 

France’s Muslim population is even larger than that of Britain’s both in terms of its overall size and share of the national total, and as has occasionally been documented on the pages of this blog, concern over cultural and demographic Islamisation has been growing in France, wedded as it is to its central national idea of laïcité, an approximate translation of which is secularism. Given the tenets of doctrinaire Islam, the two were bound for inevitable collision, resulting in agonised national debates over the veil, the burqa, minarets, praying in the streets and most recently the unwitting consumption of halal meat, particularly in the Paris area, by ordinary Frenchmen and women. One opponent of Islamisation - Christine Tasin - even received a fatwa demanding her death for her robust secularist stance, so the debate about secularism in France does possess a real implications for the lives of the country's citizens; it is not some petty theoretical debate.

Marine Le Pen has not been backward in articulating popular concerns over the various facets of Islamisation, and although doing reasonably well in the opinion polls, having often scored in the high teens or low twenties, unfortunately does not appear to be on course to participate in the second round of the presidential context. If allegations published on the GalliaWatch blog relating to Le Pen ballots being withheld from 16 departments in France as well as from many voters resident overseas prove to be true, her vote could be considerably lower than anticipated. Instead, it would appear that Sarkozy will go head-to-head with the Socialist Party candidate François Hollande, with the two being almost neck and neck in recent polls. Who wins will very much depend upon where Le Pen’s and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s (the Left Party candidate) supporters cast their votes in the run-off. The majority of Muslims however, have made it quite that Sarkozy will not secure their support because of his perceived ‘Islamophobic’ attitude and pronouncements (in reality Sarkozy talks tough but does little so as to undermine support for Le Pen). This is very much in line with the presidential elections of 2007, for as The Washington Times observes:

In April 2007, polls found that French Muslims voted mainly for the Socialist presidential candidate: Segolene Royal won 64 percent of their vote, while Mr. Sarkozy got just 1 percent in the first round and 5 percent in the second.

“People who would have originally voted for the center or the right-wing are now determined to vote against Nicolas Sarkozy,” Ms. Lorcerie said.

So it therefore seems likely that Muslim voters in France will throw their support behind Moroccan-born Jean-Luc Mélenchon today, and then François Hollande in the second round. George Galloway and Ken Livingstone are but the most notable politicians to have participated in the creation and the exploitation of the Muslim bloc vote in Britain, and it would appear that a parallel process could be underway in France. Could it be that across Europe a pattern is emerging in which Muslims are casting their votes en bloc for particular candidates and parties that specifically pander to their demands? Will this register with the rest of the electorate? The Washington Times notes that it has certainly registered with sociologists:

France’s Muslim community is mobilizing voters to reject President Nicolas Sarkozy in Sunday’s election to punish the conservative leader for his anti-immigrant and anti-Islam rhetoric.

“[French] Muslims can’t stand it anymore. They are fed up with these debates about national identity, halal meat, the veil or fundamentalism all over the place,” said Francoise Lorcerie, a sociologist with the Institute of Studies on the Arab and Muslim World near Marseille.

“The terms [Islam, immigration and fundamentalism] are being used interchangeably, without care, with people being targeted, denigrated and used for [votes].”

Nicolas Sarkozy: erase the French; respect the Arabs

Nicolas Sarkozy has talked tough on the question of immigration and on dealing with rioters (coincidentally mainly of Maghrebian origin) on a number of occasions, whilst serving either as French Prime Minister or President, whilst repeatedly not matching his words with action. As the presidential race is now effectively underway, the BBC reports that he is now stating that there are too many foreigners in France, and that the country’s system for integrating them is increasingly failing. Thus, offering the French people a message somewhat familiar to British voters from the ‘promise’ of David Cameron to reduce our mass immigration to the “tens of thousands” per annum, Sarkozy has stated that he wishes to reduce immigration from circa 180,000 to 100,000 a year.

Clearly, Sarkozy is making a cynical ploy to undercut support for rival candidate Marine Le Pen of the Front National, who is enjoying a degree of popularity with French electors, but is unlikely to win the presidential race. The issue of mass immigration is becoming increasingly acute for the French because of the serious Islamisation that it is now being inflicted upon French society, for last month it was revealed that all Parisian abattoirs used only halal slaughter. This fact has rightly shocked the native French.

Sarkozy however, is no friend of the French. His ethnic roots of course are not French, so it should come as no surprise that he is a keen advocate of an attenuated and insipid civic version of French national identity. Indeed, if you have not seen it, the video below should give an insight into the true thoughts of Nicolas Sarkozy. Here he can be seen calling for obligatory “métissage”, that is, the interbreeding of the French with non-Europeans, whilst at the same time calling for obeisance to be displayed towards the Saudis and other Arabs. Clearly, Sarkozy is not fit to lead the French people, whom in reality he wishes to see wiped from the pages of history. Hopefully, French electors will realise this, and will not cast their ballots for him in the forthcoming presidential election.

Bardot for Le Pen

Brigitte Bardot, scourge of Islamisation and halal slaughter, has penned a note in endorsement of French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, published today in the French regional paper Nice-Matin. In it, she appeals for more local officials to lend their signatures to Le Pen’s nomination papers, for the latter is still short of the 500 required to stand. With only a few weeks to go until the 16^th March deadline, there are some 60 signatures to be gathered. 

Bardot in her Prime

 

Bardot herself is of course no stranger to controversy, having been fined on a number of occasions for ‘inciting racial and religious hatred’, but she has stood by her beliefs. Who after all can disagree with her statement in her 1999 “Open Letter to My Lost France” that  "my country, France, my homeland, my land is again invaded by an overpopulation of foreigners, especially Muslims" or her condemnation of the Islamisation of France in her 2003 book Un cri dans le silence:

Over the last twenty years, we have given in to a subterranean, dangerous, and uncontrolled infiltration, which not only resists adjusting to our laws and customs but which will, as the years pass, attempt to impose its own.

Bravo for Brigitte! Let’s hope that her letter helps Marine to enter the electoral fray not only for the first round of presidential elections on 22nd April, but the second on 6th May. For more on Marine Le Pen and her presidential campaign, as well as opposition to the Front National in France, click here.

Bardot's Letter

 

Marine Le Pen on Muslim Street Prayers

Marine Le Pen is of course the Front National’s candidate in the 2012 French presidential elections and is riding high the country’s opinion polls, which suggest that she is likely to be one of the three most popular candidates. Unfortunately, if she does manage to make it through to the second round of voting, it is probable that as in the 2002 presidential election when her father went head-to-head with incumbent President Jacques Chirac that the other parties will unite to call for their supporters to vote for whoever is left standing against her. The likelihood of a Front National victory is thus slim, but nonetheless should not be discounted altogether.

Back in 1998, Guillaume Faye made a number of observations re political opposition to the Front National, noting that it arose from a fear of the party’s genuinely radical alternative. As in the UK, where nationalists of all stripes are routinely and unjustly tarred with the ‘Nazi’ brush, Faye notes that this tactic has been repeatedly used in an effort to baselessly stigmatise the Front. In his opinion, its opponents have sought to:

‘gag and undermine the Front because it seeks to re-establish the moral contract between the people and its leaders. Hence, it is accused of being immoral. But facts will speak for themselves – the politicians and the media will not be able to twist them. So the only path open to the system is not to ban the Front National but abolish the people. It is already trying to do so. Immigration is one of its weapons, but it is a double-edged sword, for the system – and I will stress this once more – is forgetting about an essential player: Islam.’ (Faye, Guillaume (2010/1998), Archeofuturism, Arktos, United Kingdom, p. 142).

Faye’s concern with Islamisation – which he sees as being Europe’s primary existential threat, rooted in the de facto colonisation of the continent – is something that separates him from a number of figures in the Nouvelle Droite - such as Alain de Benoist - from which he sprang. More generally however, Islamisation has emerged as a contentious political problem in France, for doctrinaire Islam’s inability to allow a separation between the secular and the ‘spiritual’ strikes at the very heart of French republican identity with its strict tradition of secularism – laïcité.

As elsewhere across the world and in other European countries in particular, Muslims are becoming emboldened with respect to public displays of religiosity, a symptom of this being their willingness to break the law by holding Friday prayers and blocking streets in cities such as Paris, Nice and Marseilles. This sense of boldness and willingness to disregard the law has been bolstered by the fact that Muslims are now estimated to comprise somewhere in the region of 5-10% of the population; a proportion that has grown rapidly through mass immigration and a birth rate which greatly exceeds that of the native French population. Moreover, the authorities have generally turned a blind eye to this phenomenon, thereby allowing it to become entrenched and grow.

Given the reluctance of the French political establishment to acknowledge let alone deal with the Islamisation problem, Marine Le Pen has decided to take a symbolic stand on Muslim street prayers which she roundly condemns in her video address below. This is sure to strike a chord with a significant section of the native French electorate, but you can be sure that there will be a media storm in which Madame Le Pen is accused of the non-existent phenomenon of ‘Islamophobia’ as well as ‘racism’, and that her opponents will attempt to avoid rational debate because there is no rational debate to be had: Muslims who block the streets with their prayers are breaking the law. Can you imagine a contender for high office voicing such sentiments in the UK? Me neither, which is a pity.

The text below preceding the video is translated from the Bivouac-ID blog as it provides an interesting insight into a French secularist perspective on Le Pen’s speech:

Marine Le Pen’s Speech on Street Prayers

A speech which should certainly be viewed against the backdrop of the forthcoming electoral contest, but where real questions are clearly and courageously posed without evasive political language. Why aren’t the nominees of the other parties able or willing to do as much?

The problem posed by Islam is posed to the whole French nation, and must naturally transcend political rivalries.

French Lessons for British Nationalists

If only we had a nationalist politician as articulate as France’s Front National Leader Marine Le Pen! Why don’t we? Why don’t we have an organised nationalist political party as popular as the Front National? Le Pen is currently predicted to beat Sarkozy in the first round of the French presidential elections next year, and as can be seen in her confident handling of an interview with Russia Today in the video at the end of this article, the messages and policies that she proposes would apply equally well to the UK.

Why indeed, are we lagging behind virtually all other countries in Europe in spawning a popular nationalist party? Witness the recent electoral successes of the True Finns, the Sweden Democrats and the PVV. All have made groundbreaking advances in their respective countries, showing that they possess the potential of becoming the leading political forces in their nations.

Here in the UK, much of the problem lies with the widespread illusion that the Conservative Party is a nationalist party. It is not. It is instead a globalist multiculturalist party, concerned primarily with protecting the narrow material interests of the most privileged stratum within our fractured society. There is nothing else that this party wishes to conserve. The illusion of the Conservative Party as a nationalist party is fed by its ideological globalist multiculturalist bedfellows in the Labour and Liberal Democratic parties, and most importantly of all, by the Tory press such as the Daily Mail, Daily Express and the Telegraph.

The Conservative Party under Thatcher and Major waged a class war that destroyed the material security of vast sections of the British working class, decimating entire industries and communities in the process: coalmining, shipbuilding, steel and manufacturing in general. Once they had laid waste to the economic underpinnings of our nation and transformed us into a speculative debt-fuelled property-obsessed service economy, along came Labour and Brown to propel us further in this direction. Moreover, Blair and Brown opened two further fronts - ideological and demographic - in the war against our people, denying in fact that we even exist as a people, as a nation. Enter the ‘diversity’ dogma, millions of immigrants and special privileges for Islam in the form of legislation protecting religious minorities.

Labour’s kulturkampf continues under the Cameroons, and yet people are still gulled by Cameron’s empty rhetoric about ditching multiculturalism, controlling immigration and giving the UK a greater say over our relationship with the EU, whilst in fact the Condem Coalition continues to promote the first two, and Cameron reneged over his promise to allow the electorate a referendum over the Lisbon Treaty. Most parliamentary Conservatives today are either enthusiastic advocates of EU membership, or do nothing to promote our withdrawal.

The other reason for the failure of a nationalist party to take off in the UK is the fact that we have not hitherto possessed a credible vehicle for the nationalistically-inclined voter. For all the talk of smears directed against the BNP, it is an unfortunate truth that the party under Nick Griffin has been run into the ground by its leader with a startling dictatorial incompetence. According to Eddie Butler, who challenged Griffin for leadership of the BNP last year, the party’s membership has slumped from a high of 15,000 in May 2010 to around 8,500 by the end of last month. Regular purges and the promotion of sycophantic incompetents, unnecessary court cases, dubious accounting practices, chronic indebtedness, general amateurishness expressing itself in outlandish policy declarations including a manifesto commitment to the general ownership of automatic weaponry and the opening of a penal colony on South Georgia, as well as the intemperate behaviour of some of its members, have allowed the party to squander the groundswell of support that was building in its favour until 2009.

The efforts and hopes of dedicated nationalists who risked much professionally by joining the party have been very poorly rewarded. With a set-up such as this, the BNP hardly needed the combined opposition of the mass media, Searchlight, Hope Not Hate and UAF to end up in its current debacle. Granted, the negative impact of the propaganda constantly pumped out by these opposition groups was certainly a significant hindrance, but even if none of this had existed, the internal flaws that I have mentioned would still have crippled the prospects of the party and deprived it of credibility in the eyes of the electorate.

Many of the more talented senior members of the party left, some to set up the British Freedom Party, which unfortunately itself suffered an internal spat which left it in brief legal limbo until the splinter faction finally broke away to form the Freedom Democrats. From what I have seen, the British Freedom Party has struck the right note (although I have reservations about its commitment to the death penalty) through its realistic formulation of a policy of cultural nationalism that places it very much in line with the PVV in the Netherlands and Die Freiheit in Germany. If one takes its policy declarations to be its yardstick, the British Freedom Party deserves to succeed. On the other hand, if one considers the behaviour of some of its leading founding members, this assertion is cast into doubt. From what I have seen of the policy proposals put forward by the Freedom Democrats, they would be best off joining the disaffected Atlanticist Tories who comprise UKIP.

A new challenge is being made to Nick Griffin’s leadership of the BNP by Richard Edmonds backed by Eddie Butler. They hope to salvage the party, but Butler himself has encouraged many members to leave and join the English Democrats. Indeed, a number of former BNP members, such as Chris Beverley in Morley, will be standing for the English Democrats in the local elections this week. Even if the Edmonds challenge is successful, the BNP looks pretty much dead in the water, with a dreadful public image, not to mention massive debts and serious questions hanging over its accounting procedures. Shockingly, patriotically minded printers who produced the party’s election literature last year have yet to be paid.

The political landscape in the UK is of course highly fragmented owing to the devolutionary settlement imposed by the Labour Party, thus there are different political dynamics at play in the four constituent parts of the country, so in reality any British nationalist party will draw almost all of its support from within England, from the English. With the BNP (certainly for now) out of the frame, we are thus confronted with a shoal of contenders seeking to gobble up the nationalist (here loosely defined to encompass its ethnic, cultural, civic and racial variants) vote: British Freedom Party; English Democrats; Freedom Democrats; National Front; UKIP. All of these have benefited from the turmoil within the BNP, but their prospects are limited.

The Freedom Democrats are in my opinion stillborn and will be gone within a couple of months. Their handful of members will probably join what appears to be their natural home: UKIP. Alternatively, some of them may wish to throw in their lot with the English Democrats. The National Front will gain a few disaffected members from the BNP and will field a few more candidates than it has in recent years, but to no avail, as its ‘brand’ is more tarnished than that of the BNP. The interesting part of the nationalist dynamic lies with the relative fortunes of the British Freedom Party and the English Democrats. The former, as a completely new party, stands at a disadvantage in that it will possess almost zero public recognition, whereas the English Democrats enjoy the advantage of having been established for longer, as well as possessing regional party structures and a certain amount of low-level public visibility. The election of Peter Davies as English Democrat Mayor of Doncaster has certainly raised the party’s profile in Yorkshire. The English Democrats are rather like UKIP for the English, but a centrist civic nationalist rather than an Atlanticist Tory party, and thus possess the potential to appeal to a wider social constituency.

However, it is the British Freedom Party that for me possesses the most fully developed policy platform, as well as a more cohesive ideology than either the English Democrats or UKIP. That said, this fact is rather marred by the maladroit handling of 'dissent' within the party, which basically boiled down to a clash of personalities that precipitated the creation of the Freedom Democrats. Civility costs nothing, and yet two leading members of the BFP lacked the grace to display this towards Gary Marshall, Michael Simpkins and a number of their colleagues who were summarily expelled, thus also betraying what appears to be a negative dictatorial manner of acting à la Nick Griffin carried across from their former party - the BNP. This is a great shame, as I, and I am sure many others, had hoped that the BFP would take from the BNP that which was good by way of policy, and add a genuine democratic and participative element to the party. Clearly, this has not transpired. If disagreements had been handled with tact, this unnecessary split could have been avoided.

Still, I hope that where possible these small parties choose to coordinate their efforts and avoid standing against each other (although I do not think that UKIP will oblige) so as to maximise their electoral impact and thereby allow them to utilise their scarce resources to the best affect. Which do I support? Pragmatically speaking, that very much depends upon the choice presented to me at the ballot box, which may well be no choice at all. Prior to the split, my support would have been lent to the BFP with reasonable confidence, but now, I am veering in the direction of the English Democrats. Many nationalists may decry such a stance, claiming that the English Democrats are cod nationalists as they are not ethno-nationalists, but they possess many good policies which would help move the general frame of public political debate away from the anti-nationalist paradigm. Politics is the art of the possible, thus if the opportunity should afford itself this Thursday morning, I shall be voting for the English Democrats. Failing that, I shall cast my vote for any of the other broadly-defined nationalist parties listed above.

Lampedusa’s Libyan Burden

Whilst the media’s attention has been transfixed by David Cameron’s successful efforts to entangle the UK in yet another conflict, this time in a civil war in which we have neither stake nor interest, the human traffickers of North Africa have seen this as a golden opportunity to make a killing. Cynically exploiting the EU oligarchy’s penchant for favouring exotic alien incomers over their own people, our deliberately lax immigration system and perverse human rights legislation, they have been ferrying North Africans of various nationalities across the sea to Lampedusa. The initial wave was Tunisian, but now Libyans make up the bulk of the most recent arrivals.

As with the earlier influx of economic migrants masquerading as refugees, this current batch, as can be seen from the video footage below, appears to be exclusively male. Why would European countries wish to accommodate thousands of men who possess a psychology shaped by a religion – Islam, naturally – that states that all women who are not covered up are basically whores who are ‘asking for it’ and get all that they ‘deserve’? The admission of such people into our societies will lead to an increase in violence against women, specifically our women. If this were the only reason not to admit them, it would be a compelling one, but there are many other reasons for keeping them out too.

This week’s Libyan invasion of Lampedusa has swamped the island’s holding facility for such incomers. With room to accommodate 850 economic migrants, it has had to contain 2,000. So far this year, 9,000 North African economic migrants have used political unrest in the Arab world as a pretext to enter Lampedusa with a view to gaining entry to the EU labour market. So blasé have the human traffickers become with respect to the EU’s unwillingness to protect its own nations from hostile alien settlement, that a Moroccan ferry appeared off the Lampedusan coast this week carrying 1,500 Libyans. We are told that it was turned back, but where will it turn up next? What would happen in future if a flotilla of such vessels appeared just off some European shore? This is invasion. If David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy have an itch to employ our armed forces to protect our nations’ interests – as is their only proper use – then why do they not deploy them to prevent this human flood out of Africa? All of those who have arrived on Lampedusa this year should be repatriated to their countries of origin immediately. This is the only way in which we can send out an essential message: do not come, for you are not welcome and you shall not enter.

Unsurprisingly, the Independent earlier this week ran a leading article entitled ‘Europe has an obligation to these desperate African refugees’. It too makes reference to the ferry, but claims that it carried 1,800 people whom it baselessly denied were economic migrants.

Fortress Europe has closed its gates. This week a ferry left Tripoli carrying 1,800 people. The vessel was first turned away from Malta. Then it was refused permission to put ashore at Lampedusa, the small island south of the Sicilian mainland. The passengers on this vessel are not economic migrants, but refugees from a war zone. Most are believed to be North Africans who were working in Tripoli when the revolt against Muammar Gaddafi's regime began. Their mistake is to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Yes, their mistake is ‘to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time’, for if ‘most’ on board were supposed to be North African migrant workers, why wasn’t the ferry ferrying them to their home countries? The idea that they were seeking entry to the EU as refugees is thus risible. These people are quite clearly economic migrants who should be returned post-haste to their countries of origin. The ferry ought to be escorted by military vessels to the nearest safe North African port where it can begin to unload its human cargo.

Still, at least the comments section attached to this Independent article reveals that at least a proportion of its readers vigorously disagree with the sentiments of the leader article. These readers appear to possess more sympathy with the attitude of Marine Le Pen, who rightly visited Lampedusa to highlight the plight of the long-suffering islanders who have had to cope with this unbidden human incursion from North Africa. The islanders' patience is wearing thin, and PI News reports that 100 of them have recently held a protest against North African migration to their island. Will the leaders of the EU listen? Sadly, I fear that they and the mass media will stigmatise the Lampedusan islanders as 'bigots'. More on the beginnings of this year's North African influx to Lampedusa can be found here.

Not so Nice in Nice: Muslims take to the Streets

Last year the public was alerted to the fact that a number of Parisian streets were being taken over by Muslims in contravention of the law and converted into an open air mosque on Fridays. Traffic was stopped so that prayers could proceed without hindrance, and the local authorities did nothing. Now, the same phenomenon has shown itself in Nice as the footage below clearly demonstrates. Following a brief Le Figaro interview with Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi, the clandestine footage (which runs from just over a minute into the video) shows scenes on the streets of Nice taken on Friday 4 February 2011.




The Niçois Identitarian movement, Nissa Rebela, responded to complaints from locals about the prayers because of media silence on the issue, and thus despatched someone to film the prayers. As in Paris, the authorities have failed to act, despite the Mayor Christian Estrosi declaring that prayers in the street are illegal. However, the President of Nissa Rebela Philippe Vardon notes that Estrosi coupled this declaration with a statement that new mosques had to be constructed. The members of Nissa Rebela do not approve of this creeping Islamisation of Nice, and have vowed to find a means of ending Muslim prayers on the streets.

Last year’s revelation about the Muslim Friday occupation of streets in the Goutte d’Or district of Paris led to the organisation of an imaginative and good-natured demonstration entitled Apero geant saucisson et pinard which brought together a diverse range of political groups and bloggers, including Sylvie François, Bloc Identitaire and Riposte Laïque, to give speeches, drink wine and partake of sausages in a celebration of the French love of the good life and freedom. Unfortunately, it is not only Paris and Nice which find their streets blocked by the Muslim faithful on Fridays; it's a phenomenon that's been catching on in other cities too, as can be seen from the footage below taken in Marseilles.



Front National President Marine Le Pen has voiced her objection to Muslims holding open-air prayers on French city streets, so it will be interesting to see what happens with respect to standing up against such activities on the streets of Nice. Will we see another broad-ranging coalition of French secular and patriotic groups come together in Nice as in Paris last June? Only time will tell.

For those of you not familiar with Bloc Identitaire it is worth noting that it sent representatives to the recent EDL demonstration in Luton, one of whom addressed the crowd expressing French solidarity in the Europe-wide campaign against Islamisation. His speech can be viewed below.