‘How Can French People Do This to France?’

“Nous dormons sur un volcano” — “we are sleeping on the edge of the volcano.” That was Alexis de Tocqueville’s warning to France in 1848. The riots now convulsing the Fifth Republic ratify de Tocqueville’s farsightedness even if, as the New York Times reports, France is “in a state of shock” over an explosion of riots, looting, and arson. President Emmanuel Macron asked in an address on Sunday “How can French people do this to France?”The answer, Monsieur Macron, is that the people setting France ablaze are enemies of France, the West — and Israel. Our Sharon Kehnemui reports that rioters “burnt to the ground the City Hall at Limoges, built in 1883. Other city halls, at Lille and Marseille, were also damaged while widespread destruction of public and private property hit Paris, Lyon, Agen, Nice, Toulouse, Rennes, Brest, and Bordeaux, among other cities.”The pretext for the disorder appears to be discontent over conditions in French schools. Some 2,000 arrests have been made, with 600 police officers suffering injuries, and 1,500 shops have been damaged or looted. France’s Federation of Commerce and Distribution reckons that damage could amount to hundreds of millions of euros. On Friday night, Mr. Macron was seen at a concert by Celine Dion.Mr. Macron’s response has been more “Let them eat cake” than “My Heart Will Go On.” His call for “order, calm, not an escalation” suggests a failure to grasp the ideological dimension of the violence, much of which has transpired under unfurled Palestinian flags. The French have an old history of protest that is being mutated into a newer form of rage. A synagogue at Paris’s 19th arrondissement was vandalized, and some report the targeting of Jewish businesses.Israel’s Aliyah and Integration Minister, Ofir Sofer, says, “In light of the riots in France, we must prepare a plan to absorb a massive immigration of Jews.” This is a drum that Jerusalem has sounded before. In 2004 Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called for French Jews to make aliyah. That prompted Le Figaro to plaster “Sharon’s Insult to France” on its front page. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has issued a similar call.While French Jews have resisted such entreaties, they appear to be voting with their feet. i24 news reports that “since the beginning of the year, nearly 4,000 Jews have emigrated from France, 40 percent more than the same period last year.” As the gentile narrator of Michel Houellebecq’s “Submission” — another prophetic work — observes, “There is no Israel for me.” Meaning that all of France, and not just her Jews, is under attack.The riots come as France readies to vote in April on Mr. Macron’s replacement. The frontrunner, Marine Le Pen, a rightist, declares in a video that “our country is caught in a vise, or even taken hostage, between violence and powerlessness.” She cites the country’s “battered, mistreated and ransacked” streets as evidence that the Fifth Republic has drifted into “a profound crisis of trust.” Conventional wisdom holds that the riots help her.Her primary opponent, the leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon of the France Unbowed Party, has criticized the unrest but draws his political power from the forces that propel it. One to watch is the leader of the Socialist Party, Raphaël Glucksmann, who could provide something of a middle way between Madame Le Pen and Mr. Mélenchon. France, so fond of lecturing the world, now teeters on the volcano’s lip.

‘How Can French People Do This to France?’

‘How Can French People Do This to France?’

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