Unlike Merkel, Trump understands the Islamist threat to the West

The reaction in Europe to Donald Trump’s recent remarks critical of the continent was all too predictable. It was an echo of the response when, following the Islamic terror attacks in November 2015 that left 130 Parisians dead, Trump said: ‘Paris is no longer the same city it was….they have sections in Paris that are radicalised, where the police refuse to go there. They’re petrified.’

On that occasion the liberal media and the French Establishment reacted with outrage, rejecting the idea that the Republic had lost control of parts of Paris. The mayor, Anne Hidalgo, even threatened legal action against Fox News when they repeated Trump’s assertion.

Now it’s Angela Merkel who is up in arms. The German chancellor is allegedly reeling in ‘astonishment and agitation’ from the president-elect’s assertion that it was a ‘catastrophic’ mistake of hers to open the country’s borders. It was a mistake, of course, and Merkel doth protest too much, as Hidalgo does at any suggestion that parts of Paris are no-gone zones.