How Many More Shocks Can France Take?

 This article first appeared in New English Review.

This week, France has once again been thrown into a state of shock and outrage. A 12-year-old French girl, identified only as Lola, was kidnapped on her way home from school and was later found dead in a trunk, almost beheaded, and with numerical markings written on her body. Reports indicate she had been raped and tortured. In custody are four Algerian nationals, two women and two men. One of the women was reportedly captured on security cameras enticing the victim away from her apartment building. It is suspected that the motive behind this act was organ harvesting. And now, to add fuel to the fire, it is reported that the woman in question had been under a deportation order that should have been carried out weeks ago.

The question begs: How many more of these shocks can France take? It seems after each outrage committed by foreign nationals, many for religious (read Islamic) motives, the French people would have reached their limit. Yet, the horrific incidents are seemingly non-stop in nature. The Charlie Hebdo massacre, the Bataclan massacre, the massacre at a Jewish school in Toulouse, the truck massacre in Nice, the murder-beheading of Samuel Paty, the murders of French priests and worshippers in their own churches, the attacks upon Jews in the streets,…….Now this. (It should be emphasized here that the motive of this specific crime does not appear at this point to be religious.)

The former colonialist France is no stranger to immigration, especially from its former colonies. There have been good and bad times, but in the past decade, things have really gone off the rails. Undoubtedly, there are millions of immigrants in France who unfairly tarred by the despicable acts of more recent arrivals. No decent person would blame all immigrants for the crimes of others, but with this latest news regarding the immigration status of at least one of the accused murderers of little Lola, is it unreasonable to ask why appropriately-mandated deportations of undesirables are not being carried out? Is it unreasonable to argue that this victim would still be alive and free to live out the rest of a long life ahead of her if not for the failure of the French government? A failure to enforce its own immigration and deportation laws. A failure to protect its own citizens.

To be sure, after each event, there are signs that the French have said, “Enough is enough”. There was the “Je suis Charlie” (I am Charlie) wave after the Charlie Hebdo massacre. World leaders rallied in support of France and free speech. ( Of course, America’s ridiculous then-Secretary of State, John Kerry, trotted singer James Taylor over to Paris to perform, “You’ve got a friend” before a befuddled audience of French officials.)

Yet, in spite of the obvious failures of France’s governments, French voters continue to elect the same tired old politicians to national office, the latest being Emmanuel Macron. The plain simple fact is that like most other Western European countries, (the most glaring exception being Italy), we see the same faces, the same parties remaining in power. And the migrants, asylum-seekers, and refugees just keep coming, mostly from Muslim-majority countries, with little promise of assimilation.

And the people keep dying. The women continue to be raped.

This week, the French people are rightly outraged at the horrific murder of a 12-year-old girl, allegedly by four Algerians, one of whom was in the country illegally. Just as they were outraged after Charlie Hebdo, Nice, Bataclan, Samuel Paty, Toulouse, and countless other outrages. But will anything change? Will France close its borders? Will they seriously start deporting criminal aliens or foreigners known to be radicalized and dangers to national and public security? Will they elect new leaders who promise to accomplish the above? Or will they “move on” after a few days waiting for the next attack and James Taylor to come and serenade them?