Gavin Mortimer

France’s most infamous antisemite is back in the headlines. At the weekend, the president of the National Rally, Jordan Bardella, declared in an interview that he didn’t believe Jean-Marie Le Pen was an antisemite. This came as a surprise to many given that the 95-year-old Le Pen, who founded the National Front in 1972, has been condemned on six occasions by French courts for just such bigotry.  Le Pen’s most notorious declaration was during a television interview in 1987 when, discussing the gas chambers, he said that although he didn’t deny their existence they were nonetheless a ‘small point of detail in the second world war’. The remark caused uproar and turned Le Pen into a political pariah overnight.

Emmanuel Macron has suggested the formation of an international coalition to combat Hamas similar to the one deployed against the Islamic State several years ago. The president of France floated the idea on Tuesday during his visit to Israel. An Elysee source later fleshed out the proposal in more detail. 'We are available to build a coalition against Hamas or to include Hamas in what we are already doing in the coalition against Isis,' said the source, adding that as well as operations on the ground, the coalition is 'involved in the training of Iraqi forces, the sharing of information between partners, and the fight against terrorism funding.

When an Islamist extremist charged into his school in Arras, northern France, with a knife, Christian Berroyer could have hidden away. Instead, the caretaker decided to confront the killer. 'I grabbed a chair without thinking and I went outside,' said Berroyer. Asked why he did what he did, Berroyer said he was 'just doing his duty as a Frenchman'. Berroyer returned to work last week, just a few days after that attack in which a teacher was stabbed to death. His bravery marks a stark contrast to the cowardice of France's politicians. The school handyman joins a list of other Frenchmen who have ‘done their duty’ in the last decade.

Last year, a French broadcaster asked if Belgium was in danger of becoming a narco state. The question was posed in light of the news of the cocaine flooding into the country and the growing influence of Belgium’s drug cartels.   Others believe that Belgium most closely resembles an Islamic state. The former Belgian senator Alain Destexhe accused his country this week of living in denial and allowing Belgium to become ‘a laboratory of Islamism’.  France has its own grave struggle with Islamists but at least there is an awareness of the danger Belgian has undergone a radical demographic change this century, particularly in the capital. Of Brussels’s 1.2 million residents, 61 per cent were born outside Europe and Moroccans make up the largest number of this figure.

For a man so keen to thrust himself onto the international stage, Emmanuel Macron has been surprisingly quiet over the last fortnight. At the beginning of 2022, the President of France shuttled across Europe in an attempt to avert conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Though his diplomatic efforts were criticised in some Anglophone quarters, Macron earned the respect of many in France for attempting to talk Vladimir Putin out of war.   Now there is another war raging but this time Macron has had little to say about the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

On Monday evening a service of remembrance was held in Arras cathedral in northern France. The congregation was there to pay its respects to Dominique Bernard, the teacher who was murdered by an Islamist at his school last Friday, not far from the cathedral. The service was led by Bishop Olivier Leborgne. ‘We don't have all the answers, but we believe that peace is our future,’ he told the congregation. As worshippers lit candles, the choir sang ‘Jesus, the Christ, the inner light, don’t let the darkness speak to me’.

Rarely has the publication of a book been so providential. The Teachers Are Scared was released in France last Wednesday, written by Jean-Pierre Obin, a former teacher who rose to become the General Inspector of France’s National Education.   Two days later, Dominique Bernard was stabbed to death in his school in Arras. The man arrested on suspicion of his murder is a young Islamist of Chechen origin, the same profile as the extremist who killed Samuel Paty in 2020.   Two dead in three years, and France’s teachers live in fear that there will be more Two teachers murdered in three years. No wonder, as Obin states, ‘80 per cent of teachers are scared’.

Emmanuel Macron’s appeal for France to unite has not been heeded. Barely 12 hours after the president made his address on primetime television, a 20-year-old of Chechen origin stabbed a teacher to death and wounded two others in a high school in the northern city of Arras.   The assailant, now in custody, is reported to have shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ during his rampage. Interior minister Gérald Darmanin announced that the knifeman was on an extremist watchlist, a revelation that is politically explosive. Yet again, someone known to be radicalised has been able to commit bloody murder. Just this week, the trial concluded of an accomplice of Larossi Abballa, who in 2016 fatally stabbed a married police couple in their home south of Paris. He, too, should have been under surveillance.

The European Parliament hosted an event in Brussels last week entitled ‘Close Guantanamo’. It was hosted by two Irish left-wing MEPs, and among the invites were representatives of Cage, which has been described by the French government as an ‘Islamist' organisation, an allegation Cage denies. Cage was briefly infamous in Britain in 2015 when its director, Asim Qureshi, called Islamic State butcher Mohammed Emwazi, aka ‘Jihadi John’, who made a living hacking off Westerners’ heads, a 'beautiful young man' and blamed security services for his radicalisation. Qureshi later said he regretted his 'inappropriate description' of the Isis fighter. Cage isn’t the only organisation with dubious credentials that has been courted by the EU in recent years.

Last Saturday in Paris a police officer leapt from his car and levelled his handgun at a baying mob. The thugs backed off long enough for the policeman and his colleagues to make good their escape.   The chief of the Paris police, Laurent Nunez, praised the officer’s ‘sang-froid’ in successfully extracting his team from a dangerous situation. The Green MP Sandrine Rousseau took a different view, describing the policeman’s behaviour as 'unacceptable'.

Pope Francis spent the weekend in Marseille where he admonished Europe for their attitude towards migrants. Specifically, the Pontiff took to task those who used words such as ‘invasion’ and ‘emergency’ when discussing the millions of migrants who have arrived in Europe in the last decade. 'Those who risk their lives at sea do not invade, they look for welcome,' he pronounced. Those who said otherwise were 'fuelling alarmist propaganda' and acting contrary to the teaching of the Catholic church.   The Pope reiterated the Vatican’s four-stage approach to migrants: welcome, protection, promotion and integration, the overriding aim of which is 'the safeguarding of human dignity'.

It is Keir Starmer’s misfortune that he arrives in Paris today for a meeting with Emmanuel Macron at the moment Europe faces one of its gravest challenges of recent years. More than 11,000 migrants have landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa in the last week, an unprecedented influx that has exposed the deep divisions within the EU. Labour's leader reportedly wants to discuss how to better improve relations between Britain and the EU, but he may not have the full attention of the French president. Not only is Europe arguing amongst itself over how to tackle the migrant crisis, but Macron’s own party, Renaissance, is also at loggerheads over the content of the government's impending Immigration and Asylum Bill.