A Report From Marseille

Marseille is the second city of France. And now half of its population is Muslim. Much of the city appears to be a large souk, where women in Islamic dress, accompanied by a large brood of children, do their shopping. The city’s Jews are frightened; the men cover their kippahs, and the women hide the Star of David signs on their necklaces. The forces of order are overwhelmed, and only a curfew has brought some slight relief from the violent protests that have rocked Marseille, as they have so many cities across France. More from Italian journalist Giulio Meotti on France’s second city can be found here: “There are more Kalashnikovs in Marseille than in Kabul,” by Giulio Meotti, Israel National News, October 22, 2026:

France is in chaos and the government imposed a curfew in certain areas, after Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez resigned: “In some cities we have lost control”.

Pascal Bruckner speaks of a “silent coup d’état” in Le Figaro:

“What is striking is the good humor of the participants who shout ‘Wallah, Wallah!’. They are cheerful, they are the masters. Everywhere the same slogan on the walls and shop windows: ‘Bismillah the darkness’: the promise of a dark period of looting and violence, the consequence of a long series of abandonments that some of us have been denouncing for twenty years, from the tolerance of internal rot to the eruptions of violence in the banlieues explained by ‘racism.’ A silent coup d’état.”

To understand the intensity and scale of what is happening one must not look at Paris, but at Marseille.

The population of Marseille is 886,040 inhabitants.

According to the authorities, about 30,000 residents of Marseille took part in the lootings on 17 October.

30,000 people are 3.4 percent of the total population of Marseille. Three inhabitants out of a hundred who took part in the devastation of their own city.

This is why Pierre-Henri Tavoillot, president of the Collège de philosophie at the Sorbonne, no longer hesitates to evoke the term “civil war.”

And yet Emmanuel Macron, in his ridiculous address to the nation, blamed the “French.”

Yes, there were French far-leftists, supporters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and the far-left party he leads, La France Insoumise, who were the majority of the protesters, but it was Muslim “casseurs” (people who break things),who were the leaders of the most extreme violence. It was they who led the looting of shops and carried out the most violent attacks on the police; more than 1000 policemen and gendarmes have been injured. It was Muslim-led rioters who set fire to a synagogue. It was Muslims who draped a hijab over the head of a statue of Joan of Arc, and placed a “Palestinian” flag by her side. Macron won’t say a word about the Muslim contribution to the riots. He instead blames “the ultra-left seditious groups” that, he claimed, were attempting to “bring down the Republic.” Macron explicitly rejected claims that “hordes of migrants and Islamists” had invaded France, calling those assertions — which foreign figures including Trump and Netanyahu made —”completely false,” “unacceptable,” and “stupid.” He stated that foreign leaders were manipulating information and exploiting France’s social unrest. He was angrier with anyone who pointed out the Muslim role in the protests than he was with the Muslim protesters.

Here again is Giulio Meotti:

The last time I was in Marseille two years ago, after a few hours I already felt the physical need to leave….

He meant he could not bear to see the second city of France turning into a North African one.

In some neighborhoods of Marseille the insecurity is such that (from Le Figaro) postal services have been interrupted. Journalist Philippe Pujol writes that “there are more Kalashnikovs in Marseille than in Kabul.”

Those Kalashnikovs belong to the North African Muslims who make up nearly half the population of Marseille. And they use them, in committing crimes, in resisting the police, and in feuds with fellow North Africans.

There is still time to right the ship of the French state. If the National Rally wins — and the recent riots have only helped Marine Le Pen’s prospects — it will likely call a halt to any further Muslim migration, stop providing welfare benefits to migrants already in France during the first five years of their presence, make migrants, when they are financially able, to pay back the state for the welfare benefits they have received, and deport migrants who have been convicted of crimes or have shown no signs of being either willing or able to integrate into the larger society.

The hopeful motto of Paris should now become the motto of France: Fluctuat nec mergitur. That means “She is tossed by the waves, but does not sink.”