Lawlessness in France fuelled by mass immigration has spread from the inner-city suburbs to the French countryside as the government continues to ignore the reality staring it in the face, Marine Le Pen has claimed.
In a recent interview with Valeurs Actuelles, the firebrand nationalist and former presidential candidate evidenced the spread of disorder among migrants by citing the tragic case of Thomas, a 16-year-old promising rugby player who was stabbed to death by a city gang who infiltrated a village’s winter ball at its local hall and stabbed several attendees in the early hours of Sunday morning.
“A kid died in circumstances that should never have existed,” Le Pen told the publication. “This tragedy corresponds to the feeling that many French people now feel: No one is safe anywhere.
“A new threshold has been crossed. We are witnessing an organized attack, emanating from a certain number of criminogenic suburbs in which there are armed “militias” carrying out raids,” she added.
The National Rally parliamentary party leader revealed she had spoken with many mayors of small towns who are now experiencing a dramatic rise in crime that was previously non-existent as violence and disorder spill out from urban to rural France.
“I know so many mayors of small towns who no longer organize village festivals. Some suffer from looting and external damage, which economically damages these modest communities. Others seriously fear physical attacks,” Le Pen said.
“All this suggests a form of method which is repeated: gratuitous attacks, cities which serve as rear bases and, in the end, the astonishment of the public authorities who have no response to provide except their indignation and their compassion.”
When pressed on the extent to which she believes the deterioration of French society is irreconcilable, Le Pen remained optimistic that France could be saved, but insisted that the country must be run by politicians who recognize the problem in order to do so.
“We are not there. What only affected the difficult neighborhoods of large cities in the 1980s spread to medium-sized towns, then to small towns. Now, this wave is reaching our villages. But I assure you: It is still too early for pessimism. Nothing has really been attempted by successive powers to stem the phenomenon,” she explained.
The conservative politician compared politicians to doctors who, if they refuse to see the symptoms and diagnose the problem, can never find the solution.
“Levels have been passed by delinquents and criminals thanks to the blindness, laxity, and lack of courage of those in power. If you don’t stop the criminals, they won’t stop,” she warned.
French citizens either growing up or living in the countryside used to feel protected from the reports coming from crime-ridden inner-city suburbs but “now realize that this is no longer true,” Le Pen claimed. “They sometimes feel like game.”
Asked for her view on the media’s reporting of the incident in the French village of Crépol where Thomas was murdered over the weekend, during which many news outlets referred to the attack as a “brawl” between two sets of youths, Le Pen claimed that the mainstream media in France continues to bury its head in the sand when it comes to immigration.
“We have the impression of finding ourselves faced with Cologne syndrome. No one wants to see reality as soon as it involves immigration or people with an immigrant background. We have to name things to better combat them. We are witnessing real punitive raids on villages committed by criminals equipped with bladed weapons,” she said.
The propensity for youths to carry weapons has increased significantly in recent years, according to the National Rally politician, who revealed that “teachers, police officers, mayors are warning us: There is an absolutely insane number of young people who carry a weapon with them at all times.”
She quipped that the figure is now so large that anyone would think it had become legal.
Le Pen remained confident that her party is capable of implementing the radical change France desperately needs and said, to re-use the doctor-politician metaphor, “I think we have more than proven ourselves in terms of diagnosis over the past 40 years.”
She called for regime change and a new approach from emotional reactions to the adoption of major laws that have a “profound impact.”
“Governing is not about stringing together media stunts or tinkering with circumstantial laws. If we aspire to govern like those who have governed us for decades, then let’s leave them in place!” she added.