Is Civil War on the Horizon in France? – The American Spectator

The inflammable cocktail of immigration, crime, real or alleged racism, hard-handed police tactics, and fiery left-wing politicians is again exploding in France’s face. Never before, however, has the c-word — “civil war” — been bandied about so openly.

Poor France. As if fighting violent insurrectionists wasn’t enough, the United Nations kicked it in the teeth. The UN high commissioner for human rights ordered the country to “address racism in the police force” at the height of unprecedented turmoil. Or, according to right-wing politician Eric Zemmour, “ethnic war.” It’s a war that started on June 27 in Nanterre, a suburb of Paris, when a police officer shot dead a young motorist. The circumstances remain murky for French investigators, but not for UN spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani. She alleged that racism motivated the cop to shoot 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk. His death set off a still-smoldering wave of violence, far worse even than the turmoil in 2005, which had set a seemingly unassailable record.

Shamdasani’s explanation coincides with that of the rioters, many — if not most — of whom adhere to the ill-named diversity.

Who Was Nahel Merzouk?

Nahel Merzouk was the son of an absent Algerian father and a Moroccan mother. His funeral, last Saturday in Nanterre, shed light on Muslim separatism in French society. After a service in a mosque, mourners gathered at the local cemetery, at which Nahel’s mother and grandmother were the only women allowed.

Nahel’s hometown of Nanterre, near the chic Parisian suburb of Neuilly, is a former communist stronghold. On his last journey, Nahel’s Mercedes drove past streets, avenues, and neighborhoods named after such left-wing icons as Pablo Neruda, Salvador Allende, and Nelson Mandela. At school, he did not stand out for his academic achievements. To keep him off the streets, the city council made him a member of a rugby club, and the Ministry of Labor financed his course at a vocational college. He made some money on the side delivering pizzas and kebabs in his neighborhood, which is named after Pablo Picasso. (RELATED: France Burns, Macron Dances)

Was Nahel an “angel,” as France’s star soccer player Kylian Mbappé alleged, or “scum” and “racaille,” as others see him? He was certainly a perseverant young man, judging by the many times police in Nanterre and other suburbs stopped him for driving without a license. Multiple reprimands, fines, spells at police stations, and a summons before a juvenile court could not discourage him from pursuing his passion: racing around illegally in luxury automobiles.

As was the case that fateful morning in June, when, with two mates, he roamed around in a sporty yellow Mercedes AMG with Polish license plates, stepping on the accelerator in a bus lane out of which he should have stayed. Two motorcycle cops had already noticed that his driving endangered pedestrians and cyclists. They signaled him to stop, but Nahel would have none of it. When, in a traffic jam, he had no choice, he still refused to switch off the engine. Both cops drew their pistols, and when the boy again drove off, one of them shot him dead, according to French media, who base their reports on what the prosecutor in the case said the next day.

One of Nahel’s mates alleges that the cop pistol-whipped the driver, whose foot then slipped off the brake. From his perspective, the Mercedes drove off unintentionally, prompting the policeman to shoot. Whatever the truth, the cop who shot Nahel has been remanded in custody awaiting a possible trial for unintended murder, to howls of indignation from the French police. 

There was a time when French people “of color” could look up to such role models as African and Arab writers, thinkers, and politicians, whose love of French culture did not stop them from criticizing colonial wrongs. Today, young criminals are supposed to fulfill that role, such as Adama Traoré, who died while trying to avoid his umpteenth arrest. And now Nahel — who, although never convicted, was unfavorably known to the Nanterre police for previous escapades — is being turned by anti-racist activists into the French George Floyd. Rallies in his honor take their cue from tributes paid to the criminal in the United States.

French Government Angers Police Unions

As a fatally wounded Nahel crashed his car against a pole, President Emmanuel Macron was visiting Marseille and waxing lyrical about the city being a melting pot of peoples and cultures. As the news from Nanterre reached him, he sensed the danger. To quell the threatening turmoil, he lambasted the “unforgivable” action of the policeman. Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne went further, disregarding the separation of powers. On the basis of the grainy images of the incident, taken with a smartphone, she concluded that the cop had violated the rules for using his firearm. 

The next day, Parliament observed a minute’s silence in Nahel’s honor. Members of the right-wing party Rassemblement National (RN), led by Marine Le Pen, hurried out of the chamber just in time. (READ MORE: Knife Attack on Babies in France: All the Media’s Dirty Lies)

The appeasement efforts failed miserably, as the uproar that had started in Nanterre and elsewhere in the Paris region rapidly spread across the country. Unlike the revolt of 2005, which started when two young Arabs were electrocuted while running from the police, this orgy of violence resembles guerrilla warfare in some places. This time, not only the poorer suburbs but also the centers of major towns and cities were involved. The northern town of Denain, one of the poorest in the country, has seen considerable destruction. In Macron’s beloved Marseille, nearly 400 shops were looted or vandalized, often in broad daylight.

The rioters, looters, arsonists, and lynch mobs took on the already overstretched police forces, who had already confronted the often violent demonstrators against Macron’s modest pension plans and, before that, the fanatical Yellow Vests. But this time, the cops felt betrayed by the president, the prime minister, Parliament, and the prosecutor who had sent their colleague in Nanterre to jail. In a rare feat, Macron had managed to provoke the 45,000 men and women whom France relied upon to retain a semblance of control for a week until the revolt petered out.

“Our colleague is being pilloried to please the rioters,” a leader of union Alliance Police Nationale stated in a communiqué, thrashing “those wild hordes” coming from “violent minorities … who have been making our lives a misery for several decades.” A policeman tweeted, “Congrats to our colleague for his services to road safety in Nanterre.”

The policeman in question, a former soldier, is 38 years old, married, and the father of a young child. Before he ran into Nahel, his record was excellent, and he was recommended for bravery. By Wednesday, a friend of Zemmour’s swiftly raised 1.6 million euros ($1.7 million) for the cop’s defense and the relocation of his family, who had fled their home after receiving death threats. By contrast, a whip-round to collect funds for Nahel’s mother only raised 400,000 euros. 

France Has a Long-Standing Immigration Problem

The police feel stabbed in the back not only by Macron but also by the leader of the left-wing opposition, Jean-Luc Mélenchon. “We refuse to appeal for calm. Instead, we cry out for justice!” roared the 71-year-old man, who has remained faithful to the extreme left-wing, cop-hating ideals of his youth. His ally among the Greens, Sandrine Rousseau, could not understand why people around her guffawed when she defended the looters: “It is because they are poor; they have no choice.” 

There is no denying that the suburbs are home to many poor people, although the French welfare state guarantees most people an income of some kind. Since the revolt of 2005, many billions of euros have been invested in these banlieues, and its current repeat Mach 2 proves, if needed, that merely throwing money at a problem doesn’t solve it.

The ever-increasing number of immigrants, legal or otherwise, from France’s former colonies; family reunifications on huge scales; the arrival of refugees; and fears that clampdowns will stir up hornets’ nests have contributed to more and more poor suburbs virtually seceding from the rest of France. Criticism of what happens there can lead to accusations of playing into the hands of the extreme right. The would-be silencers failed. At last year’s parliamentary elections, Le Pen’s RN became the biggest opposition party.

The complaints about racism — notably on the job market — police heavy-handedness, and racial profiling in these “foreign enclaves,” as Zemmour calls them, are not baseless. But they are to be expected when a country allows its territory to be flooded by people who do not necessarily…