On Bastille Day, 1883, the people of Limoges inaugurated a beautiful new town hall, paid for from the legacy of a rich burgher with no children. On Saturday, rioters set fire to it. “Barbarism is not the prehistory of humanity but the faithful shadow that accompanies its every step.” That was Alain Finkielkraut, but I know it because Clive James quoted him when he wrote of how to keep our societies and values alive. He said we liked to think being cultured warded off barbarism, but that barbarism doesn’t care if we are cultured or not. He was only half right. Barbarism does care: it hates us for being cultured. Barbarism, whether imported or home bred, wants to see our culture burn.

Societies fall when they despise their own achievements

Societies fall when they despise their own achievements

You will have seen the images of masked hordes throwing missiles at the police – including chimney pots chucked from roofs with vicious intent – and raiding shops from Louis Vuitton to whatever is the French equivalent of Dick’s Sporting Goods.

Le Figaro carries JD Vance’s argument blaming immigration by those who hate western liberalism, and hate France. The paper talks of guerrilla war and left-wing demagogues. Le Parisien sounds apocalyptic; Le Monde writes of hundreds of thousands of ordinary demonstrators, but of others wreaking........

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