Islamization of the West

Robert McLiam Wilson on the Islamist atrocities that are still haunting France.

Last week, the seventh anniversary of the 2016 Nice attack passed with very little notice outside of France. When Tunisian-born Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel deliberately drove a 19-tonne truck into a crowd of Bastille Day revellers, he murdered 86 people, including 15 children. This was one of the deadliest terror attacks on European soil in the 21st century. And yet, like many similar Islamist atrocities, it seems to have been largely forgotten about.

Over 2,300 people have been arrested in connection with the multiple-day riots that shook France earlier this month following the fatal shooting of a teen named Nahel in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.

Many have speculated about a connection between immigration and the rioting, with former presidential candidate Éric Zemmour explicitly blaming French immigration policy during an interview published last Sunday.

“No one can ignore reality anymore,” Zemmour said and added, “in spite of everything, most of the political class wants to believe that it is a social crisis when the root cause is obvious: immigration.”

Apart from the 96 arrests and 255 burned cars, Bastille Day passed off without a hitch in France. A bullish Interior Minister, Gerald Darmanin, expressed his satisfaction in a tweet, thanking the 45,000 policemen and women who had been deployed across the country. It says much for the state of France that avoiding a riot on their national day is a cause for celebration.

Still, one can understand why the government is grateful for small mercies after the trauma of the recent uprising. The financial cost of the damage caused by the rioters is predicted to top €1 billion (£858 million), a staggering sum for a country that is already dangerously indebted. This figure is double that of the unrest of 2005, when for three weeks youths went on the rampage.

More than seven in ten people in France are in favour of stripping citizenship for foreigners who participated in the violent riots that broke out following the death of an Algerian teenager last month.

A survey conducted by French broadcaster CNews this week found that 73 per cent of the country would support removing French citizenship from dual nationals who took part in the recent spate of racially-inspired riots accross the country.