Will France Remain French?

Recently Paris and some 20 surrounding cities have been plagued with rioting. It started in a poor suburb east of Paris named Clichy when Muslim youths were stealing parts from cars parked on the street. The police came, chased the youths, and two young Muslims ended up in an area cordoned-off around an electric pylon where they were subsequently electrocuted.

Amir Taheri writes in the New York Post:
Once news of their deaths was out, Clichy was all up in arms.
With cries of "God is great," bands of youths armed with whatever they could get hold of went on a rampage and forced the police to flee.
The French authorities could not allow a band of youths to expel the police from French territory. So they hit back — sending in Special Forces, known as the CRS, with armored cars and tough rules of engagement.
Within hours, the original cause of the incidents was forgotten and the issue jelled around a demand by the representatives of the rioters that the French police leave the "occupied territories." By midweek, the riots had spread to three of the provinces neighboring Paris, with a population of 5.5 million.

These areas are basically slums made up of Muslim immigrants, mainly from North Africa. Part of the reason why the areas are so poor is that the Muslims have driven out shopkeepers that sold pork or alcohol and have closed down cinemas, theaters, dancehalls, and other establishments associated with the "sinful" French culture. So instead of assimilting into the culture of France these immigrants have made parts of France Muslim and basically kicked out the French.

Taheri continues:
As the number of immigrants and their descendants increases in a particular locality, more and more of its native French inhabitants leave for "calmer places," thus making assimilation still more difficult.
In some areas, it is possible for an immigrant or his descendants to spend a whole life without ever encountering the need to speak French, let alone familiarize himself with any aspect of the famous French culture.
The result is often alienation. And that, in turn, gives radical Islamists an opportunity to propagate their message of religious and cultural apartheid.

This story has been covered by the American press, but in the spirit of political correctness you're usually two or three minutes in before you hear its a Muslim problem.

Ironically, no other country has tried harder to appease the Muslim world than has France. When Chirac opposed the invasion of Iraq I'm sure he figured he would be a hero to Islam. Looking at Paris today it is obvious that appeasement doesn't work.

The population of unassimilated Muslims, through birth rate and immigration, is rising in France much faster than that of the French. Will there one day be civil war? Are these riots the beginning? And when the French ultimately surrender will the Muslims tear down the Cathedrals? Will they destroy all the western art in the Louvre? If France becomes a Muslim-run nation will liberals in America finally realize we are at war?

When Hugh Hewitt interviewed Mark Steyn on the subject of the Muslin riots in Paris, Steyn had this to say about our future:
"I'm sometimes accused of being terribly pessimistic when I speak in North America. And I always tell Americans and Canadians, that the one great advantage people have... there may be a lot of bad news in the world, but the one advantage North Americans have, is that Europe is ahead of you in the line. And you have to learn what's happening. You have to confront honestly what's happening with these disaffected Muslim populations in Europe."

America, liberals and all, needs to wake up and see the opportunity we have in Iraq. If we are successful maybe Iraq, and some day its neighbors, will be the prosperous and free democracies while France and much of Europe struggle in a Muslim theocracy.
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