French violence and French voting
An article entitled “France Sliding toward Barbarity and Chaos” was published today by the Gatestone Institute. It presents the situation in France as dire; for example:
The borders between France and other European countries are open and, like all the borders of Europe, porous. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants enter Europe illegally each year. Many head for France and stay there. They have been benefiting, since 2000, from financial aid and free medical care to which even poor French citizens do not have access. If they are arrested, like Lola’s murderer, they are ordered to leave the country, but are not placed in a detention center so the order, never enforced, is not an order at all. In 2020, 107,500 orders to leave France were issued; fewer than 7% took place.
Illegal immigrants in France are the perpetrators of nearly half of crimes committed in the country, according to the recently published L’ordre nécessaire (“The Necessary Order”), by Didier Lallement, former chief of the Paris Police. Approximately 48% of all crimes committed in Paris in 2021, he notes, were committed by illegal immigrants. Murders almost as gruesome as Lola’s — most of which are committed by illegal immigrants — are committed nearly every day. No one even mentions them. The victims often have their throats slit. When the mainstream media report on the murders, they do not talk about slit throats. They say the victim was “stabbed in the neck.”
The French now live in a climate of generalized violence.
The author indicates that the presidential candidates who would like to crack down on this don’t seem to get elected:
Polls show that the French population are seeing violence rising sharply: 68% of French people say they feel their lives are increasingly insecure, and 75% say that the record of Macron and the government fighting crime is poor. 70% believe that illegal immigration is a serious problem. Nevertheless, in May 2022, a majority of voters re-elected Macron and rejected candidates who promised to fight crime and illegal immigration.
In an apparent attempt to explain this odd outcome, many commentators say that the French population now expects the downfall of their country.
As I read this, I began to wonder. Are those statistics about half of crime in France true? I was surprised to discover that Macron himself has said it in an interview, although with great reluctance:
Mr. Macron first refused to acknowledge a “substantive link” between the two, or to “generalize.” “On the other hand, looking at (…) crime, for example in Paris, where there’s a high concentration of illegal immigration for geographical and bureaucratic reasons, it’s very evident in the crime figures,” he said, voicing concerns about “nuances” and “having a feeling for the truth” on such a “sensitive subject.”…
To illustrate his claim, Mr. Macron cited a statistic: “If we look at crime in Paris today, we cannot fail to see that at least half of the crime comes from people who are foreigners, either illegal immigrants or waiting for a residence permit. In any case, they’re in a very delicate situation, often coming in through these [illegal immigration] channels.”
That article about the Macron interview goes on to mention the Didier Lallement book, and to discuss slight disparities in the statements between what Lallemont wrote and what Macron said. But the gist of it is that illegal immigrants commit a ton of the crime in France.
As for why the French keep voting for people like Macron, I can think of a lot of possibilities, not mutually exclusive. One might be ignorance of the severity of the problem. Another might be that other issues take priority. But what I really think is behind their votes is that the subject is so “sensitive” and “delicate” and they don’t want to be on what is labeled the bigoted and non-compassionate side of it. Macron sounds like the good guy, the nice guy.
There is an old Jewish saying to the effect of “he who is kind to the cruel ends up being cruel to the kind.” It has a harsh ring, doesn’t it? But there’s a reason the saying is famous; it’s because it often seems to turn out to be true.
Speaking of truth, if you look up the Gateway Institute in Wikipedia, you’ll find virtually the entire entry is an attempt to discredit them as lying Islamophobes. Interesting. It makes it so much easier for people to discount what the Gateway Institute says without even reading it and judging for themselves.
I think France has the “ranked” voting system recently installed in Alaska which has the feature of almost always seeing that the incumbent wins.
“Polls show that the French population are seeing violence rising sharply: 68% of French people say they feel their lives are increasingly insecure, and 75% say that the record of Macron and the government fighting crime is poor. 70% believe that illegal immigration is a serious problem. Nevertheless, in May 2022, a majority of voters re-elected Macron and rejected candidates who promised to fight crime and illegal immigration.
commentators say that the French population now expects the downfall of their country.”
Sounds like Los Angeles, except our Leftists that concern themselves with not being labeled bigoted or non-compassionate actually aren’t expecting a downfall. They are heedlessly steering us toward going off the cliff without any knowledge that it is even there.
At least the French know how to conduct elections properly (paper ballots with proper ID, little mail-in voting, etc); on the topic of Wikipedia, it has been obvious for quite some time that, on any remotely controversial or even slightly ideological topic, it is not to be trusted. it is useful and accurate in some ways (e.g. various geographical features, the particulars surrounding the cast and the making of a certain film, etc), but one should always be very wary of its devious politicization of anything remotely political (unfortunately, search results from Goolag are often highly misleading as well). Becoming well-informed on any issue requires a judicious use of many sources as well as skepticism towards the established wisdom, often derived from leftist academicians.
A few years back there was a long article discussing how the government has completely lost control of significant sections of various cities. The police don’t even go in those areas. It isn’t safe for them to do so.
As for the crime stats, they are all bogus. It’s much worse. The government came up with an incentive plan that was so stupid only a Robert McNamara could love it. They rewarded police brass with large bonuses, if they brought down the number of reported crimes in their jurisdictions. Magically, the number of reported crimes dropped. Who’d a thunk it? The awesome power of incentives!
There is an incredibly important lesson for us. Immigrants have to be committed to accepting and supporting the constitution, the use of English, and the cultural social contract. Immigration is fine when it benefits the nation. Accepting a large influx of people who hate the culture, hate the nation, hate the people and hate the rule of law is stupidity on steroids.
“Accepting a large influx of people who hate the culture, hate the nation, hate the people and hate the rule of law is stupidity on steroids.”
And what of the people who have been indoctrinated with this infection in our institutions K through college?
It’s times like this you really have to admit the Almighty is looking out for the United States. We’ve had an enormous influx of illegal immigrants but at least they’re basically Western in values and mindset and capable of assimilating.
Mike
I think France has the “ranked” voting system recently installed in Alaska which has the feature of almost always seeing that the incumbent wins.
It doesn’t. The incumbent is the person who won the last time, and that demonstrates a certain capacity to connect and that makes the incumbent the devil you know. Betsy Hodges in Minneapolis would be pleased to learn that incumbency guarantees a win in a ranked-choice contest.
France has used a cruder system of multi-round voting that has some of the same aims as a ranked-choice system. The country’s electorate breaks down into a multiparty system naturally, so ranked-choice or runoff elections are preferable.
The government came up with an incentive plan that was so stupid only a Robert McNamara could love it.
Which government where?
“The country’s electorate breaks down into a multiparty system naturally, so ranked-choice or runoff elections are preferable.”
Yeah…I’m not sure France, a country apparently losing the capacity to effectively govern itself, is really the shining example of ranked-choice voting you want to be holding up right now.
If anything, the France situation seems to demonstrate the second-major weakness of ranked-choice voting by benefiting inoffensive candidates. But the main way candidates become and stay inoffensive is by ignoring thorny, controversial problems.
Mike
There’s a minority in the US that commits something like 48% of the crimes, and for 60 years we’ve been throwing money at them, and bending over backward to make excuses for them or otherwise accommodate them. In fact in 2020 we allowed our cities to burn in their name.
I don’t think France has more will to do anything differently.
Saw an article on Zerohedge about arbitrage and Overton windows (how companies that address issues you aren’t allowed to discuss may ‘unexpectedly’ overperform). Just the comment about the ‘so “delicate”, so “sensitive”’ made me wonder what is going to ‘solve’ that problem?
Western Liberals prefer suicide to being accused of racism. That’s a personal choice. But condemning their grandchildren to enslavement and murder is not just unforgivable… it’s monstrously evil. Even the Nazis weren’t that indifferent to their children’s fate.
“We have to take our country back, yes? We have to take our country back. It’s insane that we’re talking about jailing parents for protecting their children,” she exclaimed. “Who would have thought that we would be having that conversation? But that is how radical, how extreme today’s liberal, progressive Democrat Party has become.” Virginia Republican congressional candidate Yesli Vega
Seems as though Banlieu 13 is well on its way to becoming reality.
The first movie is, unsurprisingly, much better than the second. The first is notable for two things, one being it was scripted by Luc Besson (and hence pretty good), and the other is that the first one was the film that greatly expanded awareness of Parkour to the public, being one of the very first to have it appear significantly in it. The lead actor was one of the most well-known of the early Parkour afficionados.
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls056417160/
Yes, there is an “Escape from New York” vibe to the overall concept. District 13 is “the district they abandoned” (akin to Manhattan) to lawlessness.
}}} The country’s electorate breaks down into a multiparty system naturally
Old Joke:
Put three Frenchmen in a room, they will promptly found four political parties.
I’ve heard arguments that three Italians will found five political parties, but both assertions would be absurd.
Yeah…I’m not sure France, a country apparently losing the capacity to effectively govern itself, is really the shining example of ranked-choice voting you want to be holding up right now.
I’m wondering why you fancy France is in worse shape than the United States, Canada, or Britain in this regard.
Speaking of truth, if you look up the Gateway Institute in Wikipedia
Er..um… that would be Gatestone.
Several times a month I read articles that link to Gatestone. Find Gatestone more trustworthy than Wiki. 😉
There’s a minority in the US that commits something like 48% of the crimes
Steve Sailer has an interesting article on recent changes in homicide rates and motor vehicle death rates.
https://www.takimag.com/article/the-floyd-effect/
Put three Frenchmen in a room, they will promptly found four political parties.
There is a similar joke about the propensity of geologists to create theories.
As Gringo points out, your last paragraph should read “Gatestone Institute,” not “Gateway Institute.”
But anyway, yes, Wikipedia is often tendentious in its entries on conservative entities. The writers/editors love to put the most biased possible summation of the article topic right in the first sentence, as with the Gatestone Institute article.
I recommend looking at Infogalactic, a kind of Wikipedia offshoot (somehow automatically generated from Wikipedia? at least in part?). Take a look at https://infogalactic.com/info/Gatestone_Institute. Note that the article does eventually get to criticism of Gatestone, toward the end under the subhead “Criticism.” But overall, the article seems fair and balanced.
“Paris has Fallen” to borrow from movie titles. Then how does Claire Berlinski, whose first book “Menace in Europe” (2008) concerned this very topic, persist living there?
Mike Bunge: “We’ve had an enormous influx of illegal immigrants but at least they’re basically Western in values and mindset and capable of assimilating.”
A significant fraction of both illegal and legal immigrants to the U.S. are very poor prospects for assimilation. And, anyway, we’ve largely stopped demanding that they do so, a point made repeatedly by Hudson Institute scholar John Fonte. I wrote approximately 8,000 words on the subject a few years back: https://www.thesocialcontract.com/pdf/twentynine-four/tsc_29_4_nachman.pdf