O’Neill: French Riots Highlight Shared Issues

If you’re following the riots in France that some fear may be a prelude to civil war, it has special meaning for Americans.

And that’s not just because France is one of our oldest allies and because its writers, philosophers, warriors and chefs make it one of the pillars of Western civilization.

At the core of the riots are two crucial problems destabilizing America, too: massive immigration from the Third World, and a ruling party at war with the citizenry.

The protests started after French police shot a 17-year-old boy of North African descent who fled a traffic stop in the vehicle he was driving.

First, family, friends and neighbors took to the streets in the Paris suburb where the boy was raised, then other neighborhoods joined in, and then entire cities around France were in flames.

With apartment buildings and stores burned to the ground, the damage is extensive and costly, certainly in the billions of dollars already. Video reports show rioters pushing cars out of elevated parking lots to the ground stories below.

As France burned, President Emmanuel Macron was partying at a concert, confirming for the French middle class that their leadership had left them to fend for themselves.

Accordingly, young Frenchmen rallied in the streets to protect their families, homes and businesses from the violence the police could not stop. There were a few confrontations between the patriots and the rioters, and it appeared there was more to come.

Maybe there have been pitched battles, but we don’t know because Macron shut down large parts of the internet. The purpose was partly to stem the contagion on social media — the rioters used cellphones to identify their targets and call in support. But stemming the flow of information was also to shield the government from embarrassment, for the riots are evidence of its failures.

Most of the rioters are originally from the Middle East and Africa, and their attacks on French cities are evidence they have not assimilated into French society.

Many blame racism, but the problem isn’t French society. Rather, it’s a government more beholden to globalist agenda items like climate change than to cultivating peace and prosperity at home. Sound familiar?

It’s bad enough the current American administration has opened our borders to millions of illegal aliens. But compound that with the fact that the ruling establishment teaches contempt for America, its history and its values, even its anthem and holidays, and you have a recipe for civil unrest.

On one side are traditional Americans determined to protect their country, not only from the invading masses who scoff at our laws but also from a government equally disdainful of hard-working middle-class Americans.

Once again, we Americans find ourselves allied with French patriots, like the Marquis de Lafayette, who fought alongside Washington and his Continental Army to light the torch of liberty in the newly liberated colonies.

When U.S. forces landed in Europe in 1917 to fight alongside France in World War I, an American military delegation honored Lafayette with a visit to his gravesite.

Col. Charles E. Stanton, aide to Gen. John J. Pershing, the commander of the American Expeditionary Force, turned toward the grave, raised his arm, and dramatically exclaimed, “Lafayette, we are here!”

French patriots, your fight is ours, too — for liberty, brotherhood and equality. We stand with you. We are here.

The post O’Neill: Pay Attention to the French Riots – We Have the Same Core Problems appeared first on The Western Journal.

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases