Civilisation in France is unravelling amid widespread violence, the spread of conspiracy theories and the influence of radical Left-wingers dreaming of a new revolution, President Macron has said. The Times has the story.
Ministers are concerned about a breakdown in law and order since a spate of attacks on elected representatives plus incidents such as the deaths of three police officers in an accident caused by a driver under the influence of drugs and alcohol and the stabbing of a nurse by a psychiatric patient. …
“No violence is legitimate, whether verbal or against people,” Macron told the weekly cabinet meeting, according to an official summary. “We have to work in depth to counter this process of decivilisation.”
Presidential advisers said the term was a reference to Norbert Elias, the 20th century German sociologist who described how self-restraint and social inhibitions had civilised Europe, first in royal courts and then among the rest of the population, in his book The Civilising Process.
Macron is said to believe the process has gone into reverse in what one adviser called a “Trumpisation of minds and a denial of reality”.
“Taboos are falling one after the other. There is no more restraint,” one minister said, attributing the trend to social media. “People are getting used to comments that are more and more violent, to mud-slinging and to accusations that are more or less brutal.”
Macron is said to believe that the trend is present throughout the West but that in France it is driven not so much by the populist Right as by the radical Left. He has blamed followers of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the France Unbowed party, who one minister said wanted to bring back the Reign of Terror, the period of the French Revolution marked by massacres in 1793 and 1794.
There have been weeks of violent protests against Macron’s pension reforms, including an attack on the great-nephew of Brigitte Macron, Macron’s wife.
Macron has been criticised for using the term ‘decivilisation’ because it is the title of a book by Renaud Camus, the author behind the ‘great replacement’ theory, which holds that white Europeans are being deliberately replaced by migrants in a plot hatched by capitalists in the search for cheap labour. A totally ludicrous suggestion, obviously…
To be fair, ‘capitalists’ – the Left-wing term for business leaders and investors – do seem to have an insatiable demand for importing cheap labour, and governments have put up too little resistance to this despite its social and economic costs. And the woke do seem to hate the sight of white people and want to ‘diversify’ them wherever they see them in any kind of numbers. But the idea that these two distinct agendas – cheap labour and woke anti-white animus – combine in some kind of global plot driven by business leaders and investors acting in concert to replace white people is, well, a fanciful Left-wing conspiracy theory.
Clutches of malign and self-interested agendas do not a conspiracy make.
Macron doesn’t seem to mean this though. He just means Left-wing activists have become more violent. But this is France.
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Every member of the British empire was a British subject. Seems pretty inclusive to my eyes saying all those Africans and Asians were actually British. Given the empire was created largely on a contract of free trade/law rather than violence ordinary ppl in empire were likely amongst the greatest beneficiaries financially in % terms. Also the empire didn’t exist because “slavery” it came into existence because the British economy ran a giant trade surplus thanks to the spinning Jenning, flying shuttle, steam engine etc, the excess capital had to be invested somewhere.
A good comment, and it was Arthur Wellesley whilst in India in about 1795, insisted that the rules of governance and law extended to all with equal effect. A principle that was utilised throughout what is now referred to the British Empire.
Until HMG sent lefty academics to guid ethe decolonised governments on how to arrange their “democracy” and how to arrange a free market.
We have known for more than a century that prosperity follows a few simple requirements:
Private property rights
Access to fair justice
Open markets
All else will fillow.
The consequences are not conducive to dictatorship or socialism. They do result in uindividual liberty and prosperity.
Indeed, every citizen of the British Empire was a subject of the monarch, each one, pari passu. And nearly all of the countries which gained independence in the second half of the 20th Century wished to become members of the British Commonwealth. That says something, but the wokerati won’t listen, they’re deaf to reason and probably too ignorant to understand it anyway.
I only became aware of all peoples of the Empire being British Subjects when I watched a fascinating interview from the 1960, with Dick Cavett and Enoch Powell. (Search for them. Its half an hour of a Masters.) Dick was looking for the ‘racism soundbite’ I think, and Enoch made the history very clear.
In any case, the countries that were of the Empire seem to have done well against the fortunes of those of the French, Belgian and German Empires. Perhaps a note of thanks to the British is in order..?
I’ve watched that it’s an excellent interview.
“Despite Britain’s pre-eminence, at least during the first half of the 19th century, as ‘the workshop of the world’, the available statistics show Britain generally running a visible trade deficit only partially offset by a surplus in services.
The reason why Britain had a major overall current account surplus during the 19th century was that the country enjoyed the benefit of a huge accumulation of net assets abroad, which generated a massive net income.”
The beginnings of the British Empire – actually English – were with the East India Company during the reign of Elizabeth the first. That trading empire grew as gold was traded for commodities such as spices, tea, coffee, silks, chinaware.
Britain was a huge importer.
The empire only grew spectacularly once the trade surplus became so enormous courtesy of the industrial revolution. Please don’t say you think empire would have grown so large without the industrial revolution, the east India company initially was simply overseas adventuring for privateers and toffs. Once vast accumulated wealth from things like the mill trade was injected into such things spectacular growth followed.
‘The British Empire contained both goods and evils, which are of such disparate kinds that they cannot be weighed against each other rationally to reach a utilitarian conclusion that one exceeds the other’
Nigel Biggar, Colonialism, A Moral Reckoning
My Uncle Willie was torpedoed twice by U Boats in the Atlantic and rescued twice from the sea. With the freedom that he and others fought for during the war he went on to live in Mt Isa Australia in the Mineral Mines and had 5 kids. He died aged 90 a few years ago. ——-Why did he even bother? Little did he realise at the time that today’s ideological idiots would be chucking all of that freedom away.
My preferred solution:
Deport every person working for The Key to Rawanda. Might as well put the facility to some use after all we’ve paid at least £290 million for it.
People advising others about education and imparting knowledge who are themselves devoid of both.
The stupid/talentless teaching the ignorant.
Whenever the conversation moves onto politics I now say that I’m “far-right”. That I believe that children shouldn’t be mutilated, that women don’t have a penis, that a child needs a mother and a father, locking people in their homes is tyrannical, and that importing millions of people with a different set of moral and cultural values might, just might, lead to problems. Yes, I’m a bloody extremist.
I think there are a lot of us on the extremities. The words of Marcus Aurelius come to mind, “The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
Off-T
It looks like Kneel and Reeves are coming for pensioners.
https://www.express.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/1920670/Labour-plot-means-test-state-pension-Starmer-tax-raid-Rachel-Reeves
They also came for the pensioners in 2020. Pathways. NG163. State sanctioned democide .
Indeed.
This is probably good news. ——-It means labour will be obliterated at the next election assuming the phony Tories can at least return to being 20% Tory.
Reform will mop-up so many votes!
If it quacks like a cultural revolution, then maybe it is.
“… teach colonialism as ‘invading and exploiting’…”
I agree.
Nowadays it’s called ‘immigration’ or ‘asylum seeking’.
Yes I think that’s a fair assessment. This comment from a local resident makes the exact same point, and the link to the Daily Mail gives more context, but it’s from 2016 so God knows what Dewsbury’s like now. I don’t know how many towns or cities that is now that have been successfully colonised in England, where white indigenous folk are now a minority, but I wouldn’t choose to stick around. I’d sell up and get the hell out of Dodge. Maybe commenters on here might be familiar with this particular area or others that they know have been ‘claimed’;
”In Dewsbury pro-Palestinian supporters hold collections, aggressively soliciting from members of public. It also contains Savile Town a virtually entirely a Muslim community. One of my followers tells us what happens there.
“I live locally & every time it was local elections they would knock on my door & demand to know why it wasn’t a Pakistani family living there.
“I wish I had kept the CCTV footage but they went to every single house.
“I think it’s a problem that people are slowly realising but it’s too late to do anything about it
“The local Catholic school has had to install a prayer room for the Muslims, my daughter’s infant/junior school had 2 Muslims & they had to serve Halal food so as not to upset them.”
In 2016 only 48 of 4,033 residents were white. A Daily Mail reporter went to investigate & asked directions to a mosque.
“His response was to spit at me & shout: “Go away, you shouldn’t be here. Don’t come back.”
A white resident was asked when she was gong to sell up to a Muslim.
They are colonisers, who have no-go areas.”
Someone in the comments agreeing;
”I was born and raised in Dewsbury, the town was a great place when I was a kid, people would come from all over the country on bus trips to the famous market. Absolute hell hole now, we left in 1999, I sometimes go back to visit family and the place is unrecognisable now.”
https://x.com/DaveAtherton20/status/1811804116072407431
Parasite Politicians created this hell on earth. I despise these squirming hand wringing SCUM
Idiots.
Time to bring back public flogging. Fact and reason don’t work any more.
Probably coming in the new crime bill as a penalty for misgendering.
Don’t worry, the colonisers are likely to do that. It’s in their law!
I suspect none of the “experts” who wrote this rubbish has lived in a British colonial country. I wonder do they believe that the citizens of Hong Kong are better off under China? likewise ordinary Sri Lankans have nothing but praise for the legacy left by the British, their education system still uses our Alevel system, you know the ones where the pupil had to have a good depth of knowledge about the academic subject, likewise the railways and administration, corruption in the country has been rife since we handed over the colony. The British left its colonies in a good state, infrastructure, administrative systems, infrastructure, education. But obviously that is not a story to appease the anti white, anti british racists in The Key organisation.
100% correct!
This has not happened in the past 2 weeks. It has developed with the permission of the “Conservative Party”.
Good riddance
I am only part of the way through the book, “The Making of India” by Kartar Lalvani but it really is an excellent read. Quoting from the book:
This story began in the seventeenth century, when a small sea-faring island, one tenth the size of the Indian subcontinent, dispatched fragile sailing ships laden with iron, tools and workers over a distance of 12,000 miles on a six-month voyage via the Cape of Good Hope, in search of new opportunities. Over the next three centuries, the girders for every bridge, the track for every mile of railway, the locomotives and the vast array of machinery required at the outset to build every piece of infrastructure in India were all made in Britain and loaded on to countless craft and transported on a hazardous journey to the subcontinent, where they were assembled according to plans laid by the finest engineers of the time, who arrived by the same route. In the end they helped build a new nation, from dozens of kingdoms and languages, that became the world’s largest democracy.
The sheer audacity, courage and enterprise of such an endeavour have no parallel in world history. The sins of colonial rule are well documented, but now 70 years after independence, are we not obliged to look back dispassionately and to give credit where credit is due? It is worth pausing to consider what India would be like today if the British had chosen to stay at home.
The author praises three vital legacies left by the British: the all-important Indian Civil Service, the English legal system with its impeccable nationwide judicial network and the formation of the well-drilled, highly disciplined, unified and loyal Indian Army.
Some time ago I read another book written by the last governor of Bechuanaland (now Botswana). It was fascinating to read the effort made by the Colonial Service to improve living conditions, investigating the suitability of growing various crops there, and all the while trying to fairly solve tribal conflicts.
Those were fascinating times when ordinary British men and women could serve in many countries around the world. Of course mistakes were made, of course some were disastrous, but in general there was a will to achieve good in the name of the British Empire. And it was the same reason why the empire was gradually disbanded: the British sense of fairness and equality meant that an empire was actually untenable.
Was there exploitation? Presumably but the British also gave a lot, as is proven by the current economic situation of UK: definitely not the richest of countries!
Thanks for posting.
Excellent comment!
If India was a seething bed of resentment against the British, how did they manage to control a vast population with a tiny expat army and civil service? And what happened when they left? Degeneration into bloodshed. Same in Nigeria. Slavery? Who sold Africans to the British? Other Africans (or Arabs). Business is business.Of course the propagators of this anti-colonialist nonsense forget the Tibetans, Uighurs, Hong Kong residents and the Pacific Rim countries that China has or is is trying to colonise. And Ukraine. Much of the rubbish is based on the simple fact that it is unwise to judge the past by the standards of today or, as with the Church of England’s setting aside huge sums to compensate for its investment in the South Sea Company, a failure to read the evidence..
I recommend “Last Man In” by John Hare, which describes his work in the British Colonial Administration in Northern Nigeria keeping warring tribes at peace. He suggests that while none of the factions would listen to each other, they would listen to him.
Do those teachers also talk about the Islamic Ottoman Empire?
Do they tell the children that European male children aged 7 to 20 were snatched and relocated to Turkey where they were forcibly converted, circumcised, assimilated and trained to serve into the fanatical Janissary corps or trained for palace guards?
Or, do they mention that special squads would kidnap beautiful European girls for the Turkish harems, specifically to whiten the race?
(or, that both were practices also favoured by wealthy Arabs.)
Or, the mass conversion using bribery in places like Bosnia and Albania, the two officially Muslim countries in Europe?
in contrast, the long-lasting effect of the British Empire’s influence has brought nothing but benefits, financial, social and scientific to the dominions.
It was so evil that every member nation of the Empire chose to join The Commonwealth.
And some nations which weren’t even part of the Empire chose to join as well.
How do the anti-British propagandists explain that?
In other words, “it worked against the Germans” (or so deluded people believe) and hence, it’ll certainly also work “against the English”, this being driven by the usual ahistoric perspective of your “friends and allies” (democrat faction) from accross the big pond, to whom the history of mankind started in 1492, at least mythically, and to whom nothing outside the anglosphere save “lost kingdoms of noble savages” really exists.
One should also note that this infantile moralizing of human history – the good and the bad, give me a f***ing break, life is not a hollywood action movie and humans invariably believe that whatever they’re doing is “good” and that what their enemies do is “evil” – comes straight from the Marxist playbook: History is the struggle of the one-dimensionally “good” oppressed against equally one-dimensionally “evil” oppressors. And as the “oppressed” proletarians unfortunately preferred working in their jobs in order to pay off their mortgages over world revolution, no matter how much students ranted and fumed about that, they’re now obviously the evil oppressors and their supposed victims interestingly coloured people living in delightfully exotic countries.
These ”Key” people need to do some empirical research. I lived in a Commonwealth country for 24 years and could see no evidence of the negative impact of Empire. I found very little evidence of resentment towards the British and most wanted Brits to teach their kids. In fact an Indonesian chap working there commented that the country was lucky to have had the British, his country got the Dutch! I’m not saying it was all rosy in every country, but overall, we brought good governance, the rule of law, fairness and stability and abolished inhuman practises, to every country we occupied and were one of the first colonisers to grant independence. Most opted to join the Commonwealth (even countries that were not part of our Empire have joined) and have continued to prosper and even overtake us. The ”Key” policy advisers need to visit Singapore, a country which has left the UK behind!
These people don’t do empirical research because they’re idealists, ie, believe that knowledge is gained through idea/ theories alone and that observable reality doesn’t matter that much. They have an essentially Marxist theory about the world and to them, the world is what this theory says it should really be, see comment about the oppressor/ oppressed dichotomy above.
Irish famine, Indian famine, Opium Wars to name but a few– really the advisory committee is being too generous.
As I already wrote above: Life is not a Hollywood action movie where “good guys” fight “bad guys”. That’s a puerile perspective for people TPTB want to keep dumb (and thus, more easily controlled).
Thw communist pigs are in charge. Save your children. Teach them the truth and teach them to disobey and push back. It will build their character and be useful in the coming communist sh1t hole we will inhabit.
God, I pray for the civil war to start.