by Giulio Meotti
“Is the Muslim vote decisive?”, the Algerian writer Kamel Daoud asked himsel in the French weekly Le Point. Yes, judging by Macron’s victory (85 per cent of Muslims voted for him) and seeing what had happened the week before the second round vote.
Speaking with The New York Times, Éric Coquerel, an MP from Mélenchon’s party who won 69 percent of the Islamic vote in the first round, said Muslim voters would benefit Macron. For Julien Talpin, sociologist at the National Center for Scientific Research, the mobilization of Muslims is “something completely new”.
On Friday, the Grand Mosque of Paris organized a dinner after Ramadan, the iftar, for Macron’s re-election. “How can a president who never wishes a Merry Christmas to the French people, in this country of Christian origins, go to the great mosque in Paris for the end of the Ramadan fast?”, some users wondered. No bishop could have said to the faithful about him “vote for him”, it would have been considered an “interference”. But the Islamic vote now dominates France.
Also in the mosque in Paris was Christophe Castaner, Macron’s former interior minister and president of his party. Rugby star Frédéric Michalak invited votes for Macron by posting a photo of his sister, who converted to Islam. For his part, Macron on Friday evening courted the Islamic vote with a visit to the great banlieue of Saint-Denis. Earlier, Macron had complimented a Muslim girl, “veiled and feminist”. And as sociologist Mathieu Bock-Côté explained, “Macron wants to send the message that the veil is a symbol of openness to tolerance to target the electorate of the Muslim community”. French newspapers, such as Le Parisien, interviewed Muslim voters after Macron’s reconfirmation: “My mother will be able to wear the veil …”.
In the first round, 69 percent of Muslims had voted for Mélenchon’s left. Votes then went to Macron (in Saint-Denis, Macron got 70 percent of the votes). Even Islamist Amar Lasfar, leader of the Muslims of France and who previously defended Sharia law and accused Jews of “subjugating the West”, asked to vote Macron.
The rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris also called for a vote for Macron in the second round. The “Muslims of France”, the abbreviation of the Muslim Brotherhood, appealed to vote Macron. And even the current Minister of the Interior, Gerald Darmanin, paid a visit to the Grand Mosque to praise the conversion of a general of Napoleon to Islam.
And the votes for Macron have arrived. Trappes voted for Macron 74 percent, twenty points above the national average. In Roubaix, 70 percent for Macron. In Grigny, 70 percent for Macron. And 77 percent in La Courneuve, 74 percent in Bondy, 80 percent in Colombes, 83.5 percent in Les Lilas, 75.5 percent in Bobigny… These are the symbolic cities of Saint-Denis. Like the provincial cities, Trappes:
“70 percent Muslims, 40-50 different nationalities which take on the appearance of some Lebanese localities, microworlds enclosed within the perimeter of another religious reality and civilization. The ethnic grid of the Balkans is also not far away ”.
And Roubaix, the city already 40 per cent Muslim… In Trappes in the first round Mélenchon had made it through with 60.61 per cent and Macron had remained stuck at 16.6. In the second round, Macron at 74.1 … Among the great factors of the re-election, therefore, Macron had the votes of Mélenchon which in turn represent up to 80 percent of the votes of the suburbs and other Islamic strongholds such as the “93 ”(Saint-Denis), Roubaix, Trappes…. In Mulhouse, where the Muslim community is already 25 per cent of the population, Macron had 65 per cent of the votes.
In the northern districts of Marseille, which had largely voted Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the first round, it is Macron who wins. These are the neighborhoods where a large part of the Islamic community lives (30 percent of the total population of the city) and which group together a quarter of all the inhabitants of the city. Just read from Le Figaro: “The northern districts of Marseille, a ‘small country’ where communitarianism is a daily reality …”.
“Muslims are not afraid to take a political position unlike the Catholic Church,” writes Christine Boutin. “Yup ! The Great Substitution is on the way ”. And in fact, in an article on the elections in France, entitled “Algeria has chosen its field”, the Algerian newspaper El Watan writes that “the two candidates in the second round are aware that Algerians can change the outcome of the elections” .
And in exchange for votes, just to give an example, the communities obtain the necessary permits to open mega mosques. The Mirail mosque, which can accommodate 4,000 worshipers, opened in Toulouse on Monday. Larger than that of Empalot, inaugurated in 2018 and which can accommodate 2,800 faithful, or that of Al Salam (3,500 faithful), “the Mirail mosque becomes the largest place of worship in Toulouse, all faiths put together”. A 22-meter minaret that lights up during prayer. Three prayer rooms (which can accommodate 1,500, 1,300 and 600 people respectively), nine Arabic classrooms, meeting rooms, a library, offices, kitchens, ablution rooms for men and women, and even … a gym . 6,500 faithful were present at the inauguration.
“Voters will have to choose between pursuing an ‘open society’, defended by macronism in the name of globalization and universalism, or returning to the priority nation”, Ivan Rioufol wrote yesterday in Le Figaro. “France in 2050 will not have the same fate depending on whether it has accepted or not to merge into the ethnic and cultural diversity brought by the spirit of the times, but rejected by the nationals”.
Political Islam only has everything to gain from what they call an “open society”, which in reality, as Jerome Fourquet said, is more of an “archipelago”.
This is demonstrated by the weekly Marianne, which on presidential day informs us that the French advertising companies have given up promoting a book on the Muslim Brotherhood, considering the subject too “political” for the electoral period. While an agreement was reached, advertising companies JCDecaux and Insert canceled a poster campaign in Paris.
On page 217 of Submission by Michel Houellebecq, who imagined France in 2022 in this 2015 novel, we read: “Europe that was the pinnacle of human civilization literally committed suicide within a few decades”.
In 2027, perhaps, we will look back and think back to 2022 as the last chance for France. And I fear it will be too late.