Macron and Candace Deserve Each Other

 by Roger Simon

I was going to write a piece supporting the lawsuit of Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron against the sociopathic Candace Owens for her having repeatedly claimed, or more exactly proclaimed, that Mme Macron is a male. This is more than the usual clickbait grandstanding on Ms. Owen’s part. It seems actually sadistic in its motivations because so personal. It’s not the kind of thing a decent human being does without genuine evidence, which Owens has never remotely evinced, no matter what you think of the other person.

(A French lawsuit on the same issue is in its second appeals phase but turns out not to revolve around the truth of the accusation but on the peculiarities of their judicial system. The two women who similarly accused Brigitte Macron were judged guilty in the first phase but the decision was reversed on appeal because the two were not “professional journalists” and supposedly made the accusation, accurate or not, in “good faith.”)

Nevertheless, in the midst of writing the article, President Macron has once again—or should I say “encore une fois”— proclaimed his support for a Palestinian state, this time targeting an official September announcement at the UN (where else?).

Ms. Owens and her ceaseless craving for attention is relatively meaningless in the grand scheme of things (e.g. the world outside X) but the idea of a Palestinian state after the October 7 atrocities is nightmarish to contemplate. It would be like having a culture of misogynist homicidal rapists for your neighbors.

My interest in defending the Macrons instantly disappeared after his announcement and this piece morphed into why I think the French president (and many European leaders) take the positions they do.

In general, it’s yet another example of the now-old saw “The Europeans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz,” but evolved in a contemporary way to reflect the changed demography.

In Macron’s case you have to begin with his popularity being among the lowest in the history of the French presidency, according to Yahoo. It languishes in the 20s, often even sub-Biden. Some of this stems from economic problems, also the suppression of the opposition in a manner, to be polite, not consistent with a democracy, but much of it comes, in the words of Google’s AI, from “being out of touch with the concerns of ordinary French citizens.”

What does that mean? Well, many of France’s citizens are alarmed their country has the largest Muslim population in Europe, the majority of whom do not assimilate or anything close. The French didn’t ask for this, although they allowed it to happen, so they are far from blameless themselves.

It’s hard to say the exact size of the Muslim population because identifying one’s religion is illegal in France, but Google’s AI reports “the Muslim population is around 9 million, representing roughly 13% of the total population, according to Wikipedia. This marks a notable increase from earlier estimates, such as the 6.8 million (around 10% of the adult population) estimated in 2023.”

Whoa, that’s some increase. From personal experience—I have been to the country a number of times—so-called “no go” (for police) Muslim enclaves ring Paris and other cities. Marseilles itself is one big “no go” area, nearly lost in its entirety. Except in the tourist centers of the big cities and certain rural areas, you feel you are in a Third World country.

Where is this headed? The novel Submission by Michel Houellebecq, published 2015, that described an Islamist winning the French election became an international sensation. I read the book and it is riveting because you believe it. It’s Mamdani on a national level and on steroids. (Exacerbating the situation, like most of Europe and the USA, France has a low —below replacement—fertility rate, though not the lowest.)

France does still have the biggest Jewish population in Europe and the third biggest in the world after Israel and the U. S. but it comes to only an estimated 440,000, roughly a twentieth of its growing Islamic population. Also, the Jewish population of France, despite having contributed immensely to French culture (Proust, Ophuls, Chagall, Pissarro, Soutine, and on and on), is rapidly diminishing. According to the Times of Israel, 51,000 French Jews have moved to Israel since 2000, the largest number of any European country. ChatGPT puts it closer to 70,000 as of 2023. According to one survey, 53% have considered leaving.

Those that are still there, for the most part have assimilated into French culture. There are no Jewish “no go” zones that I know of, though there are “no go” zones for Jews, an increasing number. 43% of Fremch Jews “avoid displaying Jewish symbols or wearing clothing that identifies them as Jewish for safety reasons.” The other day saw a group of 50 French Jewish school children treated horrendously on a visit to Spain. They were kicked off their Vueling air flight, apparently for singing in Hebrew, their young leader physically assaulted by the pilot who just happened to be the flying instructor who taught two of the 9/11 terrorists to fly the jumbo jets into the World Trade Center.

Qatar is Vueling’s biggest investor. Not inconsequentially, and just being reported as I write, is that Qatar has announced an investment of $10 billion in France. How well timed!

No wonder Macron feels he can attack Israel with impunity and stand up for a Palestinian state for which he has not, thus far, named a location. Ambassador Mike Huckabee has recommended the French Riviera. The ambassador undoubtedly had his tongue in cheek, but his point is well made.

Not that long ago—Bastille Day, July 14, 2016—a massive terrorist attack occurred in Nice on the French Riviera. Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, reportedly influenced by ISIS propaganda, drove a 19-ton rental truck into a crowd on the Promenade des Anglais, killing 86 people and injuring hundreds.

Does Macron think about that when he recommends a Palestinian state… on the Rivera or anywhere? Probably not. He thinks about himself first and foremost, as does, quite obviously, Candace Owens. So I’m not losing sleep over their mutual enmity.

What I do try to think about instead is some of the great French films I have seen. One of them is “Au Revoir les Enfants: (Goodbye, Children) by writer/director Louis Malle that was autobiographical. From Rotten Tomatoes:

“In 1943, Julien (Gaspard Manesse) is a student at a French boarding school. When three new students arrive, including Jean Bonnett (Raphael Fejto), Julien believes they are no different from the other boys. What Julien doesn't know is that the boys are actually Jews who are evading capture by the Nazis. While Julien doesn't care for Jean at first, the boys develop a tight bond -- while the head of the school, Père Jean (Philippe Morier-Genoud), works to protect the boys from the Holocaust.”

And then the Gestapo arrives…

The film is based on the true story of Père Jacques, a French priest and headmaster who attempted to shelter Jewish children during the Holocaust. As you might guess, neither he nor the children came to a happy end. The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

There’s little question what we are going through today is what that famous Frenchman Yogi Berra called “Déjà vu all over again.”

It’s probably unfair to say Macron is precisely playing the role of Marshal Phillipe Pétain, who became the leader of the Vichy government when France fell to the Nazis in 1940 and did the genocidal bidding of his German masters. But he is what Baudelaire—at the end of his poem “Au Lecteur” (To the Reader) from his collection “Flowers of Evil”— calls “semblable” (similar). The man has lost his way. Arguably, so has his country… and much of the rest of Europe.

Not to leave this on a negative note, something I never like to do, I conclude with what someone vastly more powerful than the French president, initials DJT, said about Macron’s Palestine blather when asked today by a reporter: "What he says doesn't matter.”

And how.

I would add that the wise person should try to think positively all around. We are in amazing times when much evil is being uncovered that we thought would never surface. Do not fall into that understandable—we’ve all done it—negative mindset that everything will be swept under the rug. People do that so they won’t be disappointed, but that only contributes to the feared negative results. It’s also personally depressing. We have a remarkable president who showed us how to “Fight fight fight” and how that brings a positive result. As we used to say in China, “Learn from Chairman Donald!”

https://americanrefugees.substack.com/p/macron-and-candace-deserve-each-other