Emmanuel Macron, President of France, caused a stir some time ago during his three-day visit to Denmark and Finland. In Copenhagen on August 29, he declared that there is no such thing as “a true Dane,” no such thing as a “true Frenchman.” He was widely criticized for this remark at home. What could he possibly have meant?
But let’s back up. Macron began last February by talking grandly about his intention to create an “Islam of France.” He promised he would roll out his plans after Ramadan ended in mid-June. In early July, in the pages of Le Monde, the plan drawn up by Macron’s collaborator Hakim El Karaoui, was published. It provides for the creation of an association managed by French Muslims that will train and pay the imams in France (no longer would they be trained abroad or paid by foreign Muslim groups or states), pay for the building and maintenance of mosques (thus replacing foreign governments), and manage communication between organized Islam and the state.
The most important part of Macron’s plan was the proviso that the mosques and the imams’ salaries would be paid from taxes both on halal food products, and on pilgrimages to Mecca. This plan was hailed by a few Muslims, but denounced by many others as an unacceptable interference by the Infidel state in the practice of Islam. Several months later, the plan has still not been implemented in the slightest way. What is Macron waiting for, or has he simply gotten cold feet? Or have very deep-pocketed Muslim states, with tens of billions of dollars in properties and investments all over France, such as Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and Qatar, managed to get to Macron and explain that they might sell off some of those investments if the French state arrogates to itself the training of imams, and the financing of mosques? Whatever has been said behind the curtains, it appears that Macron has put his ballyhooed plans on hold. Islam in France is not yet becoming an “Islam of France.”
There are as yet no taxes on halal products, nor on pilgrimages from France to Mecca. Macron’s sleight-of-word has so far led to exactly nothing, except furious outbursts from French Muslims who declared Macron had no business interfering in the foreign funding of French mosques and imams.
In late August, Macron began to show his frustration. On a trip to Denmark and Finland, he roundly declared in Copenhagen that “there is no such thing as a ‘true Dane,’” there is no such thing as a “true Frenchman.” It’s difficult to know what he meant. When asked by a Danish student about the future of national identities in Europe, Macron added a bit more to his original remark, that “the ‘true Dane’ does not exist — he is a European.”
“Even your language is not just Danish — it is European. The same is true for the French,” he added.
What does this mean? Does it mean that the Danes speak their own language and then the lingua franca of the European Union, English? And is that what he means “for the French” as well — that they speak French but also the EU’s recognized common tongue, which happens to be the language of a country that won’t be in the EU much longer? And doesn’t a supra-national identity — i.e., that of being “European” — come only after, and builds upon, one’s national identity, i.e., being “French”?
Macron also praised Denmark as a nation which is “completely open to the rest of the world” compared with a France, whose people, he said, showed a “Gaulish stubborn resistance to change.” Possibly Macron is unaware that the Danes have been less “completely open to the world” recently, but have shown a distinct displeasure toward Muslims. Even the liberal and tolerant Danes have been mugged by Muslim reality. Denmark recently banned the niqab. Furthermore, the government has introduced new laws mandating that children living in “ghetto” neighborhoods (i.e., where Muslims predominate) must spend 25 hours apart from their parents every week. During this time, they’ll be taught “Danish values,” including Christmas and Easter traditions, and receive Danish language classes.
By regulating life in these neighborhoods, the government hopes to “Westernize” these children and immerse them in Denmark’s secular culture and society. They see it as protection of the many at the expense of the few. The penalties for non-compliance suggest that the Danes are fed up with Muslims who refuse to make any attempt to integrate into Danish society. Hence the children will be required to spend 25 hours each week outside their Muslim neighborhoods, learning the Danish language and “Danish values.”
Parents who refuse to cooperate will be fined and their welfare payments halted. The fact that these new rules target low-income, predominantly Muslim enclaves reflects the Danish government’s fear that the existence of insular Muslim communities will facilitate the development of extremist ideologies.
Even liberal, tolerant Denmark has been changing, faced with the reality of Muslim behavior, Muslim demands, Muslim crime, Muslim “extremism.” Macron’s praise of Denmark being “open to the world” shows he’s not been keeping up with the latest Danish response to its Muslim problem. And what business is it anyway of young Emmanuel Macron to lecture the Danes, insisting that there is “no such thing as a true Dane”? What chutzpah! What gall!
As for his comments on the French, he criticized his own people for the very thing many of us find most admirable: a “Gaulish stubborn resistance to change.” If France is able to save itself from the march of Islam, it will be precisely because of that “stubborn resistance to change,” based on a deep sense of national identity and pride, that Macron deplores..
What does Macron mean when he says there is “no such thing as a true Frenchman”? I think he is groping for a way to deny the very strong sense of national identity in France, so as to make it easier for Muslims, who will then not have to integrate into that strongly-held identity, but rather, into something approaching, Macron clearly hopes, a kind of all-embracing multicultural mush.