As France Burns From Mobs of Students and Muslims… Where Is Another Charles Martel?

Thoughts from Mark Tapson on Charles Martel and the Battle of Tours, where in 745 A.D., he turned back the Muslim invaders threatening Europe, can be found here: “Where is Charles Martel When You Need Him?,” by Mark Tapson, FrontPage Magazine, October 13, 2026:

As I watched Paris burn recently at the hands of what the whitewashing news media call “students,” I was reminded that last week was the anniversary of an epic battle that dramatically shaped the future of the Western world, and which may still hold inspiration for us in the West today.

After the death of the Muslim prophet Muhammad in 632, Islam spread like a bloody tide throughout the Arabian peninsula, north to the Caspian Sea and east through Persia and beyond, westward through Egypt and across North Africa all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. From there it crossed the Straits of Gibraltar and consumed virtually all of the Iberian peninsula, or al-Andalus as the Saracens called it. In a mere one hundred years, the warlord Muhammad’s imperialist legacy was an empire larger than Rome’s had ever been.

By 732 that fallen Roman empire had devolved into a patchwork of warring barbarian tribes across what is now continental Europe. When Abd-al-Rahman al-Ghafiki, the governor of al-Andalus, crossed the Pyrenees with the world’s most successful fighting force and began pillaging through the south of what would become France toward Paris, there was no nation, no central power, no professional army capable of stopping them.

No army except one – led by the Frankish duke Charles, the eventual grandfather of Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne. His infantrymen, as historian Victor Davis Hanson puts it in a fascinating chapter of Carnage and Culture, were “hardened veterans of nearly twenty years of constant combat against a variety of Frankish, German, and Islamic enemies.” Hanson writes that the Roman legions had crumbled “because of the dearth of free citizens who were willing to fight for their own freedom and the values of their civilization.” But the seasoned warrior Charles had gathered spirited, free fighters under his command who were willing to defend their Christian society, and he led them to intercept the marauding infidels leaving a ravaged trail toward the ultimate prize, Paris.

In October 732 (the exact date is disputed, but it is commonly held to be the 10^th), the two armies met on a wooded field between Poitiers and Tours (and so the ensuing confrontation is sometimes called the Battle of Poitiers), barely 175 miles from Paris as the crow flies. Abd-al-Rahman arrayed his cavalry against Charles’ solid block of Frankish footsoldiers, which at 30,000 was by some estimates not even half the size of the Arab and Berber army (Hanson speculates that the armies were more evenly matched, but the Franks were unquestionably outnumbered)….

Europe needs not one, but many Martels, who will recognize the demographic peril of Muslims in their midst, and fight to end Muslim immigration into their countries. And that will not be enough, for there are already tens of millions of Muslims now living in Europe. These new Martels must find ways to make their countries no longer hospitable to those Muslims already inside, so that some will choose to leave. For example, since Muslims come as economic migrants, intent on receiving the cornucopia of benefits that the generous welfare states of Europe have heretofore lavished upon them, a law making immigrants ineligible to receive any benefits during their first five years in a country would keep many of them out, or if they are already inside the country, impel them to leave if they can no longer count on a free ride. Another law might end the jus soli,or birthright citizenship. Still another might require that any migrant convicted of a crime, after serving his sentence, must be deported back to his country of origin.

Among those prepared to assume such a charles-martel role — many martels will be needed — are Alice Weidel of Alternative für Deutschland in Germany, Marine Le Pen of the National Rally and Éric Zemmour of the Reconquête Party in France, Santiago Abascal of the Vox Party in Spain, Giorgia Meloni of Fratelli d’Italia in Italy, Rupert Lowe of Restore Britain in the U.K., and Geert Wilders of the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, among others, and there will be many others who no doubt will appear as the demographic situation worsens. A case, one might say, of “Cometh the hour, cometh the man.” There is still time — just — for Europe to turn back the Muslim tide.