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Watching the riots throughout France (the BBC laughably called them “mostly peaceful” while showing cities in flames, and U.S. media disagreed on whether they are the fault of the right or the left) made me think of the classic 1966 film “Is Paris Burning?”

The plot was inspired by Adolf Hitler’s 1944 order for German troops to destroy the city should Allied forces appear ready to capture it. Fortunately, the general tasked with fulfilling the order refused to do it, saving the City of Light.

Unfortunately, the riots may be a precursor to partially fulfilling Hitler’s wishes.

How could these riots happen? They were predictable, but too many don’t want to face facts or take seriously what the destroyers say they wish to achieve. In a Substack post, Rod Dreher writes of the French riots: “The intifada there – by Muslims, African and Middle Eastern migrants and their children, and radical French leftists – cannot be understood apart from the long civil war between Civilization and Anti-Civilization. At this point, it’s hard to predict which side will prevail.”

You can’t allow people into a country who refuse to assimilate and don’t share that country’s values and beliefs, otherwise the country will cease to exist. This has been the point President Trump has been trying to make when it comes to the U.S. southern border.

French elections are scheduled for next April and candidates from all political sides are trying to benefit from the riots. Imagine that!

You couldn’t have a better answer to “why” than what Guy Milliere has written for the Gatestone Institute: “The founder and leader of France Unbowed, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, is a Trotskyist who, already in his youth, embraced the concept of ‘permanent revolution.’ Mélenchon, over the years, has made no secret of his desire for a radical transformation of France. He supports the Islamization of the country and advocates a ‘great replacement’ of the native French population with a new demographic from the Muslim world that would constitute what he calls the ‘new France.’”

French President Emmanuel Macron reportedly kept locked up a French government report describing the Muslim Brotherhood as “a threat that spreads insidiously and progressively.” It has put the spotlight not only on the secretive movement’s growing influence in France, but also on the extremist threat it poses more widely around Europe.

The government report was leaked to conservative media. As reported by EUReporter, “(The report) names several organizations in France it says are linked to the (Muslim) Brotherhood. They include the Averroès high school in Lille, the Al-Kindi school group near Lyon and two European Institutes of Human Sciences, which focus on teaching Arabic and the Quran.” The Brotherhood’s strategy, says the report, “is to install a form of ideological hegemony by infiltrating civil society under the guise of religious and educational activities.” It also highlights a broader “ecosystem” in several French cities, with Brotherhood-linked structures in education, charity work and religion that “cooperate with each other.”

Does this even remotely mirror what is happening in the U.S.? Macron apparently fears being called an “Islamophobe” – a label that is rapidly replacing “racism” as the go-to epithet for anyone who opposes the agendas of the left and Islamism.

Warnings of how Germany was violating the 1919 Treaty of Versailles and rebuilding its military were ignored until it was too late, costing hundreds of thousands of lives in World War II. France appears to be making a similar mistake when it comes to its “enemy within.” Will America be next to “burn”? Again, the Islamists openly say we are on their list.

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Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com. Look for Cal Thomas’ latest book “A Watchman in the Night: What I've Seen Over 50 Years Reporting on America" (HumanixBooks).

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