Rioting in France
Rioting in FranceiStock
I am worried about France, because it is the cradle of European culture.

I love its writers and ideas, Henry James in his 1903 masterpiece "The Ambassadors" speaks of Paris as the epitome of civilization, it is the country that has given so much and to which we owe so much as Europeans, the country that gives us the only intellectuals in Europe to reflect on our world.

But it is the country that no longer knows how to defend that culture.

I am worried about France, because it is the "eldest daughter of the Church", because my favorite pontiff (Benedict XVI) was at home there and now its churches are burning, these are sold, converted, demolished, abandoned and its priests and faithful sacrificed in front of the altars.

I am worried about France because its Jews have been physically attacked for twenty years, they are fleeing that country, they have to hide their symbols, they have buried their children as in Toulouse and then in many other massacres, and we know that Jews are the canaries of the coal mine.

I am worreied about France because its failures in integration and its short-sightedness have created a black hole of Islamic fascism and fanaticism in its bosom, entire areas lost to the state and to the law, and this poses a threat to all of Europe. France did not have the courage to act even after the 100 deaths of the Bataclan.

I am worried about France when a high school student receives 50,000 threats for "offending Islam" on social media and now has to go into hiding, change schools twice, be protected by the police and no civil rights organization, feminist or leftist, does it out loud.

I am worried about France because, in the face of this massive assault on our freedoms and our culture, an army of "useful idiots" has formed there to side with the enemies of civilization, anti-racists, indigenists, anti-colonialists ...

I am worried about France because one of its professors was beheaded just four months ago in broad daylight and now another has to resign following death threats for bravely doing his duty and not only were no real measures taken afterwards. after what happened, but the affair did not become an opinion campaign in Europe.

I have always thought, for at least fifteen years, when I began to follow what was happening in that country, since my friend Robert Redeker, a philosophy professor in Toulouse, had to go into hiding, become a refugee in his own country, for having defended Ratzinger from Islamic lynching after his speech criticizing Islam at Regensburg, I always thought that France was playing the game that would decide the fate of this civilization shock in Europe.

I am worried about France, because in the face of this war that has been declared to it, I do not see courage, the will to prevail and moral fiber, but the fiber of an exhausted world. Ours.

Giulio Meotti is an Italian journalist with Il Foglio and writes a twice-weekly column for Arutz Sheva. He is the author, in English, of the book "A New Shoah", that researched the personal stories of Israel's terror victims, published by Encounter and of "J'Accuse: the Vatican Against Israel" published by Mantua Books, in addition to books in Italian. His writing has appeared in publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, Gatestone, Frontpage and Commentary.<