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.

 

 

 

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.

French anti-Islamists plan Demonstration: Grand Apéritif Républicain 4 September

Following the success of the apero in Paris on 18 June, the website Riposte Laique and a coalition of twenty other groups and bloggers is planning another apero that they have dubbed the Grand Apéritif Républicain which will take place on 4 September to mark the 140th anniversary of the founding of the proclamation of the Third Republic. This time, protests against Islamisation will be held in a number of cities across France: Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon, Strasbourg and Toulouse. If Riposte Laique were operating in the UK, mainstream pundits and organisations/campaigns such as UAF, Searchlight and the SWP would be attempting to stigmatise it as ‘far right’, whereas in fact it represents a voice that is alas all but absent in the UK: that of the traditional rationalist patriotic Left.

In its article 'Number 159' the Riposte Laique website makes its political stance clear, outlining all that is positive that has been won by the French Left and needs defending (any errors in translation are entirely my fault):

For us, the spirit of the Left is embodied in its social achievements. We know that it was through the struggles of our forebears that we won the possibility of organising in the labour market, to form trade unions, obtained the right to strike, wrested the 40-hour week and paid holidays in 1936, not forgetting Social Security after the war, 5-week holidays and retirement at the age of 60 after the victory of Mitterand.

We know that these achievements have never issued from the Right, and still more so from the extreme Right, often complicit with the employers against the working class.

For us, the spirit of the Left inheres in the values of solidarity, humanism, egalitarianism, feminism and the social sphere, and we absolutely do not renounce these ideas.

But for us, the Left is also the Republic, and the defence of the Nation. Our conception of the Nation is absolutely not ethnic; it is founded upon the basis of acceptance of a contract. The rules are clear: one accepts the rules of the receiving country, then one becomes a citizen, has equal rights and duties. This is called assimilation.

Whether you agree or disagree with everything in the above statement, it is clear that the position of Riposte Laique (RL) is one of a very robust defence of distinctly French and secular positions; it is the voice of the unapologetically patriotic Left. Its sentiments are noble, and whilst I admire its organisational efforts to confront and check Islamisation, I do think that its implicit position on (mass) immigration is somewhat naive. Whilst I do believe that it is perfectly possible for relatively small numbers of immigrants to be successfully assimmilated into a receiving society, I am not of the opinion that this is possible or indeed desirable on a mass scale or with people from a radically different cultural background. Having said this, the RL article makes it clear that it is not in favour of ‘unrestrained immigration’, so I may be doing its writers a disservice and would welcome a clarification.

RL has been attacked by the conventional French multiculturalist Left and political Establishment which have tried to brand it ‘racist’ and ‘xenophobic’. RL’s retort to such smears seethes with a justifiable indignation, referring to this ‘Left’ as “gôche” rather than “gauche” which one can only guess is an understandably pejorative description. RL states:

This ‘Left’ dares to put the Republic at the centre of its projects: it defends street thugs (racailles) against honest people, delinquents against the police, unrestrained immigration against integration, Europe against the Nation, communalism against the Republic one and indivisible, Islam against secularism, the veil against the rights of women, globalism against popular and national sovereignty! It has not been the Left for a long time.

It is this sense of disgust with the multiculturalist Left that provides the impetus for RL to work with a variety of groups, campaigns and bloggers from right across the political spectrum, all united by their opposition to Islamisation. It will be interesting to see whether the recent unrest in Grenoble prompts a larger turnout for these demonstrations than was the case in Paris in June. RL deserves to be congratulated, and I shall eagerly await news of what I hope to be successful demonstrations across France on 4 September. Vive la France !

Video Footage of Paris Counter-Islamisation Demonstration

Initial reports suggested that only 300-400 people turned out for last night’s anti-Islamisation demonstration in Paris. However, as can be seen from the footage below, numbers seem to have been in excess of this estimate. Although falling somewhat short of its 7,000 Facebook supporters, Le Parisien (which typically branded the protest “far-right”) estimates that there were perhaps 800 people present. This seems more realistic. Given that the banning of the event had been widely publicised and that it had had to relocate from its original location of the Goutte d’Or, this number is perhaps not as disappointing as it initially appears.

As can be seen, the crowd were in good spirits. Sylvie François, Bloc Identitaire, Riposte Laïque and the many other supporters of this protest must be congratulated upon an imaginative riposte to Islamisation. I hope to see many more such protests and not only in France. Perhaps such an approach could be adopted here in Britain with a mass dogwalk with “seeing-eye dogs” leading the way in parks which have become effective no-go zones for native Britons because of Islamisation.

The third video below shows the Friday phenomenon which prompted this protest.

No Party for Sylvie François, Bloc Identitaire and Riposte Laïque?

Shamefully, the French police have spoilt the party by banning Sylvie François’ planned Parisian celebration of French pork sausage and wine in the Goutte d’Or arrondissement this Friday. Resident Muslims had reacted in somewhat prickly fashion to this gastronomic rebuttal to Islamisation, but are reported to have planned a halal counter-party of their own. This too has been banned. So, it remains to be seen how many French gastronomes will flaunt the ban on Friday. If these bons vivants do turn up in any number, what will happen to them? Whatever the case, I shall prepare a suitable pork dish this Friday evening in solidarity with our Gallic cousins and sink an ale rather than a glass of wine. How about holding a Friday hog roast and beer festival here in England? There are plenty of places (unfortunately) which would be suitable for such an event: Bradford, Burnley, Dewsbury, Birmingham and Tower Hamlets to name but a few. Take your pick.

Below are a couple of cartoons taken from the Riposte Laïque blog which along with Bloc Identitaire supports the protest. The first depicts one of the Mohammedan critics of this imaginative and humorous protest who predictably made the false claim that it was "racist".