The French are losing the demographic war

OPINION:

France’s recent election shows a nation in turmoil. Many French citizens are afraid that “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” will give way to “Allahu akbar.”

The U.S. media report the election as a surprise victory for the left and a defeat for Marine Le Pen’s “far-right” National Rally party.

It’s a bit more complicated than that.

Ms. Le Pen’s party got a plurality of votes in the first round of balloting. To stop it from forming the next government, French President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party allied with the hard-left New Popular Front, led by Jean-Luc Melenchon, who calls the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel “an armed offensive of Palestinian forces” and French Jews “an arrogant minority.”

A coalition of socialists, communists and Islamists, Mr. Melenchon’s party will have the most seats in the next Parliament, though not a majority. No party will be able to govern alone.

National Rally will go from 88 seats in the current National Assembly to 142 seats due to the election — not a bad consolation prize.

The party’s rise reflects the concerns of a nation on the brink. In a 2023 poll, 87% said they feared a civil war as a result of open immigration and Islamic extremism.

France has the largest Muslim population in Europe — currently 10% and expected to rise to 17% by 2050. It’s hard to imagine a group less likely to assimilate into French society.

Every two weeks, another church closes and another mosque opens. There are now more than 2,500 mosques in the land of Charles Martel, including one in Toulouse that can accommodate 4,000 worshippers.

Like most Europeans, the French are nominally Christian — 64% identify with Catholicism. But only 4.5% say they’re practicing Catholics. Of French Muslims, 75% describe themselves as “believers.” Among those 18 to 25 years old, 57% support the imposition of Shariah (Islamic law), which is incompatible with democratic values.

Almost 2,000 French Muslims have traveled to Iraq and Syria to fight for the Islamic State group.

In a recent survey by the weekly Le Journal du Dimanche, 17% of French Muslims said they hate Jews. Almost 40% have a “bad” or “very bad” opinion of Judaism.

Not surprisingly, 45% say they want Israel destroyed and condone the murder, rape and torture of Israelis on Oct. 7 as “an act of resistance.”

According to the Council for Jewish Institutions in France, the number of antisemitic incidents increased 400% last year. Almost all violent acts of antisemitism — including the gang rape of a 12-year-old girl — are committed by Muslims.

Among the general population, there are approximately 120 knife attacks and 200 rapes a day, most committed by Muslim men.

France has the largest number of no-go zones in Europe (751) — off-limits to police, controlled by street gangs and radical imams.

The more spectacular acts of terrorism include the 2015 attacks by ISIS sympathizers, in which 130 were killed and 416 wounded, the attack on the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, and the slaughter in Nice when a truck driver plowed into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day, killing 86.

Mr. Macron used to speak out against radical Islam and supported a 2023 law that prohibits wearing the hajib (Muslim headscarf) in public schools. Lately, he has had little to say on the subject of Islam’s growing influence on French society. His new radical partners see any move against the troubling trend as intolerant and favor mass immigration. They should seek input from President Biden.

Demography is destiny. The fertility rate — the number of children the average woman will have in her lifetime — is 1.8 for all French women, well below the replacement level of 2.1. For Muslim women, it’s 2.9. In many cases, this is subsidized by the state. Nearly 25% of newborns have Arabic names.

The former head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, Hans-Georg Maassen, declares, “Europeans will succumb to Islam.”

National Rally says it’s opposed to radical Islam, not Islam per se. It wants to fight the former but is vague about how other than strict enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws.

If Ms. Le Pen’s party were serious about preserving La Republique, it would support a crash program to encourage large families, as Viktor Orban’s government has in Hungary. But for that to succeed, France would need to return to its Christian roots.

Whether France is to remain the nation of St. Joan, Lafayette and Victor Hugo will depend on whether this generation of Frenchmen produces the next generation of Frenchmen.

• Don Feder is a columnist with The Washington Times.