Grenoble, Marseilles, and Strasbourg. Three cities, that were the place of three recent tragic events, with no relationships among them, and many would like to make them appear as simple or ordinary news items. In Grenoble, two young men were massacred by a gang of thugs, for a misinterpreted look. In Marseilles, police officers corrupted by drug traffickers. In Strasbourg, a young Antillean who had converted to Islam, perpetrator of an anti-Semite attack in Sarcelles, died as an apprentice terrorist his weapons in his hand.
These are not the first similar incidents. And for many, they are anecdotal. I do not think that they are. They are a reflection of the new power in France, a new world, underworld, underground, outside of the law. An « infra-France », who does not accept any form of authority, who disregards it when in charge, and who acknowledges only the codes of honor, as defined by the new tribes.
In the same way the public debt, the erosion of the State, the violence, are no longer limited to the developing countries. In Europe today, the rule of law is challenged everywhere; an illegal economy is expanding, underworld, which is now without a doubt almost a quarter of the produced wealth in the EU. A crime-based economy is also emerging (and this is much more serious), from drug trafficking to prostitution; it is developing in the administration, the police, and even in the judiciary.
The current crisis, which originated in the weakness of the Rule of Law globally, discredits the States, incapable of providing everybody with a job; it accelerates the weakening of the rule of law in each country, challenging all forms of authority. France, so far, was able to escape this. She had succeeded, for a thousand years, in building a State and in retaining, at all levels, its authority: that of the Republic had replaced that of the monarchy. That of the secular family had replaced that of the Church. Both today are disappearing, without a European state being built in its place, giving way to an underworld France, a France of lawlessness, an infra-France, one of corruption, violence, and fanaticism.
If the republican authorities do not regain control of the country quickly, the nation is doomed. She will be replaced gradually, as elsewhere, by the rule of a fait accompli, of tribes and mafia.
The French do not want this. They want authority. They expect, even if they deny it, a captain to set the course. That a father put rules in place. Even if that means to break them.
And authority may not consist in pressure from the police, useful though they are. It begins with the fixing, by the highest authorities of the State, of a clear political trajectory, with a well thought project, even if it is unpopular. Next comes restoration of the authority of intermediary bodies, local elected representatives and, especially, teachers. Finally it means the enhancing, as much as it is still possible, of the role of the family.
All this is neither a right-wing nor a left-wing issue. It is Republican. Nothing more or nothing less…