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Conservatives
Rally on the Streets of Paris
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NRO title: "Protesting in Paris"
On a recent Sunday in Paris, I had the opportunity to witness an
anti-immigration street
protest. The approximately 600 participants followed started next to the
catacombs in Place Denfert-Rochereau, walked a 1.9 km route in about 1½ hours along two
broad boulevards, and ended at the Place d'Italie, where they spent an equal
length of time listening to speeches.
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The protestors
gather at a square in southern Paris.
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Organized by Résistance Républicaine (led by Christine Tasin) and Riposte
Laïque (led by Pierre Cassen), the demo on March 9 also included such
important figures on the right as Fabrice Robert (head of Bloc Identitaire)
and Renaud Camus (a theorist). Agence France Press covered the event with a
reasonably objective account that major media (l'Express, Libération,
Métro, Le Parisien, Le Point) then published.
Note the boar on the
logo of a group that specifically hands out pork
soup.
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Inspired by the surprise success of the recent Swiss
referendum limiting immigration, the demonstrators demanded a similar
opportunity to vote on this heated issue in France. Flyers announced "Peuple de
France n'aie pas peur. Dis que tu en a assez!" ("People of
France don't fear. Say that you have enough!"). Tasin passed out copies
of her booklet, Qu'est-ce
qu'elle vous a fait la République? ("What has the [French]
Republic Done to You?").
Marchers sang the national anthem, La Marseillaise, and repeated
slogans shouted by Cassen from the back of a very slow-moving truck,
including:
- Assez, assez,
d'immigration. Non, non au remplacement ("Enough, enough of
immigration. No, no to being replaced [by Muslims]")
- Immigration referendum
- Nous sommes tous des
Suisses allemands ("We are all Swiss Germans," an obscure take
on the 1968 slogan "Nous
sommes tous des Juifs allemands" and a reference to the recent
referendum which German-speaking Swiss supported, unlike their French-
and Italian-speaking co-nationals)
- La sharia ne passera
pas ("The Shari'a will not succeed")
- Ils n'aiment pas les
français, ils préfèrent les immigrés. Dehors, dehors ce gouvernement!
("They don't like the French, they prefer immigrants. Go, go, this
[French] government")
- Hollande – on en a
marre ("We have enough of [President François] Hollande")
- On est chez nous
("We are at home," implying that immigrants are not at home in
France)
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Cover of a booklet
by Christine Tasin.
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Hand-held signs and streamers read:
- Immigration referendum
- Immigration –
Islamisation, Demain la Remigration! ("Immigration, Islamization,
tomorrow emigration back from where you came")
- Non au Changement de
Peuple et de Civilisation, Non ("No to changing of people and
civilization, no")
- Agir pour la France
("Act for France")
- Islam ras-le-bol
("Enough of Islam")
There were no incidents, perhaps because about 150 heavily armed gendarmes
walked ahead, alongside, and behind the march, as well as lurked in busses. I
came away from the event, as well as from discussions afterwards, with
several impressions:
First, so intense is the pro-immigration and pro-Islamic pressure in
France that it takes monumental courage just to stand up to these forces. And
those who do so fear violence, fears confirmed by an outsized police
protection. The restaurant where the leadership later met was kept under
wraps.
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Gendarmes surrounded
the demonstrators.
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Second, the Catholic Church showed its organizational muscle a year
earlier when it brought out a huge
crowd against same-sex marriage; but it subsequently lost that fight and
in response formed an alliance
with Muslims, hoping more effectively to forward their joint social agenda.
Accordingly, it declined any role in this demonstration. The Front National,
a political party based on anti-immigration policies, likewise kept its
distance as it de-emphasized immigration to win over more voters in the
subsequent local elections.
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"Eating halal
seriously damages your health."
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Third, on the positive side, the movement publicly and forcefully condemns
antisemitism; on the negative side, it tolerates bigoted anti-Islamic
sentiments, such as stickers proclaiming that "Manger halal nuit
gravement à votre santé" ("Eating halal seriously damages your
health"). Islamists may make such statements, their opponents should
not. Marchers came up with unofficial, xenophobic chants ("Retour aux
pays" or "Return to your countries").
Finally, as Cassen noted at the event's conclusion, this demonstration
could not have taken place five years earlier and its small size matters less
than patriotic and traditional forces beginning to organize. Indeed, the
anger displayed on that sunny and cool Sunday fits into a much larger pattern
of French social conservatives finding their voice in an unprecedented and
boisterous way, a development some compare
to the Tea Party in the United States.
In this spirit, future marches will likely mobilize larger crowds and have
greater impact; let's hope they ignore halal food and instead focus on the
real dangers.
Mr. Pipes (DanielPipes.org) is
president of the Middle East Forum. © 2014 by Daniel Pipes. All rights
reserved.
Related
Topics: Immigration, Muslims in
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