It has just been revealed that Emmanuel Macron, President of France, has in the first three months of his presidency spent more than $30,000 on make-up services. That would be a remarkable sum for anyone to spend, but what makes it even more remarkable is that Macron is only 39, the youngest French President ever, and therefore, one might assume, someone who would be least in need of such services, and certainly not to this expensive extent.
Even before this embarrassment, Macron had been stumbling. Just a few months ago, a political neophyte, he had defeated Marine Le Pen for the French presidency with an astonishing 65% of the vote. Now his popularity has plummeted to 36%. What explains this colossal drop? Partly it has to do with Macron’s authoritarian personality, revealed only after the election, and most evident in the curt way he treated the army chief of staff, who objected to defense cuts, leading to the general’s resignation. Partly it has to do with his proposed cut of 10 billion euros to spending on research, health, and housing, and on his controversial proposal to revamp the labor laws, making it easier for employers both to hire and fire.
But Macron’s rather cavalier views on Islam may also have played a part in his drop in popularity. During the election, he said little on the subject of terrorism. It was enough for voters that he was not Marine le Pen, who had been endlessly maligned in the media, labelled an “Islamophobe’ for expressing alarm both about what the Islamic texts and teachings inculcate, and about the observable attitudes and behavior of too many Muslims. But the little that candidate Macron did say on Islamic terrorism was disturbing. “We have a share of responsibility,” he warned, “because this totalitarianism feeds on the mistrust that we have allowed to settle in society…. and if tomorrow we do not take care, it will divide them [the Muslims] from us even more.”
So for Macron, it was “we” — the French — who must acknowledge responsibility for Muslim terrorism, because it is our mistrust of Muslims that causes them, in turn, to subscribe to Islamic “totalitarianism.” We must force ourselves not to “mistrust” them. But that’s an attitude that cannot be commanded. How should the French react, after each attack by Muslim terrorists, at Charlie Hebdo, at the kosher market, along the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, at the Bataclan nightclub? How should they react as each thwarted attack — along the Champs-Elysees, outside the Louvre, in front of Notre Dame, beside the Eiffel Tower — is announced? With so much murder and so much mayhem, how can they not mistrust the Muslims in their midst? Macron followed up this impossible demand with a sentiment worthy of Pope Francis: To lessen this “mistrust,” Macron said, French society “must change and be more open.” More open to what? To Islam, of course.
On April 20, 2017, during the campaign, after an Islamic terrorist killed one police officer and wounded two others in Paris, Macron said: “I am not going to invent an anti-terrorist program in one night.” He had been a government official during two years of continuous terrorist attacks on French territory. Didn’t the public have a right to assume that he would have given some thought to anti-terrorist measures to be taken? Instead of insinuating that he was being unfairly asked to suddenly come up with “an anti-terrorist program in one night” (he was being asked no such thing), shouldn’t he at least have shown the French people that he had been thinking carefully about how to deal with the terrorist threat, and here were some of his thoughts?
Also disturbing was the revelation, during the campaign, that there were some doubtful Muslims on his staff. One of these was Mohamed Saou, who was discovered to have promoted on Twitter the Islamic statement: “I am not Charlie.” Sensing a potential scandal, Macron felt compelled to dismiss Saou on April 6. But on April 14, on a Muslim French radio station, Macron was caught on a “hot mic” describing Saou as a “good guy, a very good guy.” Is a Muslim who insists he would never express solidarity with the murdered cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo a “very good guy”?
On April 28, Mohamed Louizi, author of the book Why I Quit the Muslim Brotherhood, released a detailed article on Facebook that accused Macron of being a “hostage of the Islamist vote.” Republished by Dreuz, a Christian anti-jihad website, Louizi’s article gave names and dates, and explained how Macron’s political movement had been infiltrated by Muslim Brotherhood militants. Since Macron has not refuted the article’s facts, we can assume it is correct. And if it is correct, then we have to worry about Macron, and it’s he who, with the election behind him, has to convince the French public that he recognizes the meaning, and menace, of Islam. It’s the only way to calm their fears.
Since being elected, Macron has announced the formation of a task force on terrorism, consisting of around 20 people, chiefly intelligence analysts, who will supervise and oversee all counter-terrorism efforts directly under the president’s authority. But this, while laudable, is not nearly enough; he has to express a different vision of France, one that has no room for a supposed “amalgame” with Islam.
Is Macron an open promoter of Islam in France? It is more politically correct to say that he is a “globalist” and an “open promoter of multiculturalism.” He does not want to think of France as too French. For he wants to deny the French that heightened sense of their own country, with a specific history, art, literature, politics — a French civilization — of which they have always been proud. Instead, he thinks of Islam as part of this new, multicultural amalgam that he claims France has become. When he visited London last February 22, he told an audience of expatriates that “French culture does not exist, there is a culture in France and it is diverse.” The same day he dared to dismiss one of the greatest sources of French national pride: “French art? I never met it.” Clouet, Chardin, Manet, Monet, Cezanne, Gauguin, Derain, Bonnard, Matisse, then, are apparently not French artists, for there is no such thing as “French art.”
If France is for Macron nothing but a cultural amalgam or olla-podrida, and there is no longer anything specifically French about that county’s civilization, then the Muslims in France are just as “French” with their Muslim culture as the French are with French culture. But the Muslims do not accept the idea of an “amalgam.” They do not celebrate multiculturalism. They want not a mixture of cultures, but for Islam to dominate. Macron fails to realize that it has not been the French who rejected the Muslims; France has made great efforts, teaching its language and its culture to many different kinds of immigrants. The country has been open and welcoming to these migrants and tried, with great success in most cases, to integrate them. That program of integration worked with immigrants from Portugal in the 1950s, from the French Antilles in the 1960s and, in the half-century since, with immigrants from all over: Eastern Europeans, Hindus from India, Filipinos, Brazilians, Andean Indians, Vietnamese Buddhists, and sub-Saharan African Christians. Only the Muslims have failed to integrate, that is have failed to willingly accept the laws, customs, understandings of the Infidel French. In French schools, it is Muslim students who refuse to study topics they deem anti-Muslim, as the Crusades or the history of the French monarchy, or as likely to encourage sympathy for the Jews, as the Holocaust. Meanwhile, Muslims press for ever greater attention being given in those same schools to the study of Islam.
In May, Macron visited West Africa, where French troops are engaged in a campaign against Islamic militants in Mali, Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso and Mauritania, and where he promised to be “uncompromising” in the fight against the Jihadists. One wonders why he can be so forthright and clear-headed about the Islamic threat in West Africa, and at the same time fail to recognize the threat within metropolitan France from those millions of Muslims whose religion teaches them to hate the Kuffar, who are commanded to wage Jihad until the entire world is subjugated, and Islam everywhere dominates, and Muslims rule, everywhere. The fact that not all Muslims follow the Qur’an’s commands is slight consolation, for that may reflect not moral but prudential considerations. The time may not be ripe, as Muslims still constitute less than 10% of the French population. But the duty does not dissipate, and Muslims are patient. Macron recognizes a Muslim menace, but so far only in a not-in-my-backyard, limited-to-west-africa sort of way.
At this point, Macron has little to lose in taking a strong anti-Islam position. Everything that has happened since he won the election on May 7 has only increased alarm in France and in Europe. Just two weeks after he was elected, there was a major attack at a concert in Manchester. Other attacks have taken place since then in France, Sweden, Belgium, Spain, Finland. Jihadist attacks include the Barcelona van attack, a car attack on French police, a car attack on police in Belgium, a knife attack in Paris, a knife attack in Hamburg, an attempted bombing in Brussels, a car attack in Paris, a knife attack in London, a knife attack attempt in the United Kingdom, a knife attack in London, a hammer attack in France, a vehicle attack with knives at London Bridge, a machete attack attempt outside Buckingham Palace, a machete attack in Brussels, a second machete attack attempt in Brussels, a stabbing attack in Turku, a machete attack outside Buckingham Palace…and these are only the ones that come instantly to mind.
President Macron is surely aware of all this. It’s time he started to talk about Jihadists in Paris the way he talked about them in West Africa. He needs to stop painting his face, and start telling his own people, the French people, that this entirely factitious ‘“amalgame” of Muslim and French culture does not exist, that French civilization — its politics, its art, its literature, its music, its philosophy — is eminently worth defending, and that if Muslims have their way, France would end up looking, at best, like one of the dreary North African countries. What Macron needs most is not all that expensive makeup and the services of some pretty esthetician, but a makeover in his understanding, so that he will sound the way in these parlous times he ought to sound, which is to say, a lot less like Tariq Ramadan, and a lot more like Charles De Gaulle.
Grendel's mother says
$30,000 on cosmetics? Good heavens! I would recommend to Macron that he give Rimmel Mach foundation a try. It sells for about US$5.99 at the K-Mart and is quite effective in covering those little annoying imperfections and giving an overall even coverage, especially for such young smooth skin as I’m sure he has, not to mention the wear and tear on the French who actually pay taxes.
mortimer says
He’s doing his share to help the French cosmetics industry, for sure!
One can devoutly hope his plummeting approval rating (35%) continues!
It’s hard to believe he actually received 65% of the vote. Something is fishy about this OVERGROOMED BANKSTER.
Gea says
Perhaps money went to cosmetic services for his wife who is 64 and may need them to keep her boy husband who is only 39? How did this guy ever get elected if it were not for the French LEFT propaganda and covering up for the jihadi ideology of Islam.
Westman says
Does anyone hear that refrain in the background: “She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys she calls friends…..”
Valkyrie Ziege says
; ”Welcome to L’Hotel California”.
Andy says
My gosh all that money spent on make-up and not one bit of improvement, I think he should have tried ELIZABETH GRANT products instead. Or better yet some vanishing cream to get rid of the little globalist.
eduardo odraude says
A useful window on the situation in France.
TL says
Hugh Fitzgerald, you lamented that “Only the Muslims have failed to integrate, that is have failed to willingly accept the laws, customs, understandings of the Infidel French.” Yes, how dare they! How dare the Muslims reject the ennobling ways and means of filthy communists, secular degenerates, and the remnant of idolaters who believe that a Jew is their god. How dare the Muslims refuse to abandon all self-respect in favor of the civilization of males who pretend to be females!
Hugh Fitzgerald, says
Though I am neither a secular degenerate nor a filthy communist, but about as square – even the word square betrays just how square I am– as the Amish, your comment demands a response. I don’t mind Muslims being Muslims, and doing all those wonderful things Muslims apparently do, in art and music and literature and philosophy and science and so on, piling up those Nobel Prizes, just as long as they stick to Dar al-Islam. Do what you want in Saudi Arabia or Yemen or Algeria, but for god’s sake leave France alone.
TL says
Hugh, I object very much to the Muslim being a Muslim anywhere. He, too, has been given a great commission, and it can’t be honored through idleness in the place(s) of Islam’s origin, wherever that might have been.
Now, that stated, it’s still true that a person born into Islam in France would have to be a moron to adopt the culture of egalitarianism, populist republicanism, insatiable capitalism, female suffrage, gay marriage, etc. So let’s not become upset when a Muslim rejects the degradation of integration into the West. We ought to reserve, instead, some reluctant respect for people who are surely above the partisans of humanism.
Richard Paulsen says
But protection from and in such bad countries is okay. And to change them into the same as one escaped from.
Richard Paulsen says
What protection is it? Claiming asylum, blaming the country you escape to, intending to change it into the same as you escaped from.
No way.
Richard Paulsen says
Sorry, first of my two comments slightly wrong. Please ignore.The second okay.
Jack Diamond says
“in favor of a civilization of males pretending to be females!”.
Oy veh. Did you forget what was written about Muhammad, your prophet? “He (Muhammad) said to her, “Do not injure me regarding ‘A’isha. The revelation does not come to me when I am in the GARMENT of any woman except ‘A’isha.” al-Bukhari, Hadith Number 2442
Did you forget Muhammad’s favorite homicidal maniac general Khalid ib-Walid, who reportedly killed the Byzantine general at the battle of Yarmuk by disguising himself as a woman, so as to get near him?
Did you forget Arafat fleeing Jerusalem disguised as a woman? Isn’t this a long, noble tradition of the “best of Muslims” for both attacking and fleeing the kuffar? Need I mention all the ISIS fighters seen or captured disguised (often ridiculously) as women? Or Taliban commander Haji Yakub, who tries to hide himself among some Afghan women disguised in a burqa. He is discovered in a search (must have been the Adam’s apple) charges the soldiers, and is killed.
–Imam Abdul Aziz was nabbed Wednesday evening after a female police officer who was checking a crowd of women fleeing Islamabad’s Red Mosque tried to search his body, which was concealed by a full-length black burqa…{Islamabad}
–26-year-old Yassin Omar, one of the men accused of trying to blow up the London underground on July 21, 2005, was shown video footage of Omar in a bus station the day after the attempted bombings took place. For fear of arrest, the 6-foot-2-inch Omar had disguised himself by wearing a black burqa. He was also carrying a woman’s purse.
—Two assailants in burqas threw a grenade among worshippers at a Christmas Day service on in the village of Chianwala, northwest of Lahore, killing three and wounding thirteen. (December 25, 2002)
–Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, eluded Western forces over a three-year period through wiliness. In the description of Bill Powell and Scott MacLeod of Time, “al-Zarqawi was a maddeningly elusive target—a master of disguise who could pass as a woman in a burqa one day, an Iraqi policeman the next.” (June 11, 2006)
Amin al-Husseini escapes Palestine: Tipped off in July 1937 that the British police were coming to arrest him, the mufti of Jerusalem first took sanctuary on the Temple Mount for three months, then escaped Mandatory Palestine in October 1937 by putting on a woman’s covering and sliding down a rope in the dark. He fled successfully to Lebanon where he resumed his pro-Nazi activities.
So, are the Grand Mufti and Arafat and Khalid ibn-Walid and Zarqawi all degenerates too? Or is this ok as part of the “war is deception” Islamic doctrine? Maybe just Muhammad’s frequent cross-dressing
falls into degeneracy? But talk about a “civilization” of males pretending to be females!
The only (legitimate) reason for Muslims to live among the “infidels” in dar-al-harb, which you find so repulsive and contemptible, is to wage Hijrah, part and partial of jihad conquest, migration and colonization (commanded by Muhammad and following his example at Medina) which like certain parasites eats its host alive from within before a final sword thrust can come from without. Integration is forbidden regardless of how infidels dress, isn’t it?
They don’t leave anyone alone unless they are compelled to, so let’s have some compulsion.
For the sake of their own self-respect, and oh, the survival of the West.
Jack Diamond says
Integration is forbidden except as another (temporary) ruse, I should have said. The levels of deception toward the infidels called for in the Hijrah doctrine are remarkable. Pathologically speaking.
Dacritic says
Bravo.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
It was enough for voters that he was not Marine le Pen, who had been endlessly maligned in the media, labelled an “Islamophobe’ for expressing alarm both about what the Islamic texts and teachings inculcate, and about the observable attitudes and behavior of too many Muslims.
Modern mass media forms an operating system that programs public opinion. It need not be a conscious conspiracy among actors, just a confluence of opinion among the working parts of the system will do. The operating system includes more than just newspapers, magazines, TV and radio. It’s also the classroom, the permanent bureaucracy, the judiciary and even the TV shows, the movies and popular music. If these align in a particular opinion position then that opinion is propagated upon and programmed into the general population. So what if the true nature of Islam is plain for any objective observer to see? In the media operating system the programmed opinion prevails, in spite of the high costs and grave risks. Those don’t matter enough to prevail. It’s as if when it comes to adult matters of quality of life and life and death, we’re a bunch of children on a playground flocking to the most popular kids.
Note I didn’t mention literature, because few read anymore. So objective observers like Fitzgerald, Spencer, Geller, Horowitz, Steyn and Gaffney have limited effect.
Daniel Triplett says
France affects all of us. French destiny affects the World.
If we don’t influence France now, our children will soon face confrontation by a Muslim-majority, nulcear-armed subjugated state.
Chet Bundy says
He may have authorized it, but the makup was actually for his Mommy/The Mummy.
Lou says
$30,000 of make-up services in 3 months…hum…must be a joint account with his 64 years old lady…
Macron belongs to jail, like all the other G(lobal) Soros disciples.
Jean Terry says
This globalism thing is ridiculous. Each country should be proud of their heritage, especially the good parts. And also not forget their history. France has added a lot to art and literature, etc. The liberals like this man are like the ones in the states who like to belittle their own country and act like they are ashamed of their heritage. To me makeup on a man is ridiculous and does not say much about his masculinity.
Karina says
Agreed. You can still interact with other countries and their people, have a love and respect for other cultures without denigrating your own. That’s what cultural exchange is all about. But I do not find globalism to be acceptable. It is a Marxist ideology that seeks to have a one world government with no concept of borders, nationalities, and no concept each country having their own culture/heritage. It is a truly disturbing and disgusting ideology.
Loison Helmer says
Well, we have his clone in Canada except his popularity though dropping is not plummeting fast enough. Has already to
D Canadians we have no history, culture and are post national. Recently said to be a real Canadian you need to be Muslim. Also said new Canadians are real Canadians not those born here. I could go on but you get the jist. Beware what you wish for for a pretty face may be your country’s demise.
Davegreybeard says
@Daniel Triplett
“If we don’t influence France now, our children will soon face confrontation by a Muslim-majority, nulcear-armed subjugated state.”
I appreciate the concern Dan, but it is a distraction to make plans to help the neighbors when our own house is on fire. Besides, WHEN have the French ever listened to US?
We may very well have to deal with a Muslim Europe down the road and if that ever happens best pray that enough Americans are fully informed as to Islam.
Daniel Triplett says
Agreed, we must extinguish our own fire. But we’re smart enough to juggle more than one ball at once. “Delegation.”
We can’t lay back and watch Europe totally collapse, then take action. Extinguishing a small fire is much easier than a big fire.
If France doesn’t want to listen to us, then we should deliver some Big Brother attitude adjustment. Tough times require tough measures.
We can’t let France drag the whole World down with them.
Richard Paulsen says
Good article. Agree fully. Woner how come he was elected and Marie Le Pen was rejected? She talked about real and serious problems, he avoiding and still winning.
Bad choice.
Wellington says
Whatever’s wrong with France, and there is a great deal wrong with France today, it’s nothing that Macron will ever fix. EVER.
He’s a mediocrity at best; at worst, an enabler of the continuation of Western European disintegration in the name of some kind of stupid bureaucratic, anti-democratic European unity, or that even greater error, globalism.
In short, Pretty Boy is a far cry from Charles de Gaulle. Yeah, just imagine what de Gaulle would think of Macron were he still here, including Pretty Boy’s cosmetic expenses. I rest my case.
marina says
Macron is a Islamo pandering politician but what were the French thinking? The french are equally at fault for rejecting Marine.
jewdog says
Send in a Mary Kay saleswoman with martial arts training. She should drain his bank account and then tie him up and ship him to Boko Haram to be a sex slave. I’d say “Merci Boko”.
Eric says
Hear. Hear.
Eric
Eric says
Macron may be a French Obama.
Eric
PKG says
The Boy Wonder may fly in and fly out with his golden cape, makeup and all, but no amount of make-up can hide the ugliness and superficiality that lies within…
The French are already getting tired of his disaster-on-legs mummy (ified) wife, ( who probably needs double the make-up bill that he does) and likewise, they are slowly waking up to the reality of who they voted for!!!!
Alas, one can only hope beyond hope that the tide will turn to such an extent as to afford Marine Le Pen a better chance next election…
(Very) Hopefully, the French will remain resolute but unbroken for Europe and whole world’s sake,… grievously wounded but far from destruction…
The first round of the French elections were far more indicative and representative of the extent of support for Marine Le Penn around the country before she was swamped and viciously maligned by the media and the political establishment….
carpediadem says
Great piece, except for the last few words mentioning Charles de Gaulle.
IT was de Gaulle who pushed the EU, via France, into the EuroArab Dialogue and who dreamed (among others) of allying the EU with the Islamic world.
From: http://www.meforum.org/696/eurabia-europes-future
“Eurabia in the Making
This pernicious merger [between Europe and the Islamic world] began with Charles De Gaulle in the 1960s. De Gaulle saw that the power of France diminished with the loss of its colonies and he believed a more unified Europe would restore some French glory.
In order to unify Europe, the continent needed to form an international bloc that could rival America. The Arab nations of the Middle East, unparalleled in their oil wealth, seemed to be good partners. Laying the foundation for this relationship, on November 27, 1967, De Gaulle said that French-Arab collaboration would be a fundamental element in French politics.
Since then, France has adopted a highly amiable policy toward the Arab world and a hostile attitude toward Israel.”
he also said, from:
https://www.washingtonreport.me/1999-october-november/de-gaulle-calls-jews-domineering-israel-an-expansionist-state.html
“It was 32 years ago, on Nov. 27, 1967, when President Charles de Gaulle of France publicly described Jews as an “elite people, sure of themselves and domineering” and Israel as an expansionist state.1 De Gaulle’s comment came in the context of his disappointment that Israel had launched the 1967 war against his strong advice and then had occupied large areas containing nearly a million Palestinians [ie Arabs].”
De Gaulle helped to orchestrate the mess France is in, and gloried in it.
Jack Diamond says
All too true, though I suppose the reference was to invoke the de Gaulle of 1940, not 1967.
The Islamophilic currents, like the antisemitism, long preceded de Gaulle. The vision of an Arab-Muslim Empire governed by France reflected the map of its colonies. Anti-Americanism and a policy against Israel (starting in 1967 and full-blown by 1973 in siding with the Arabs) were more areas of common cause. De Gaulle even gave shelter to the fleeing war-criminal Grand Mufti Al-Husseini, who became an important agent for this alliance with the Arabs.
FYI says
macron
the French word for fop
James Stamulis says
A girl has to look their best right Macron? Boy did the French screw up on that election.
Guy Macher says
Our boy in Canada, Justy Trudeau, is prettier than Macron!
rbla says
The Macron candidacy was a ploy by the French version of the “swamp” to keep themselves in power. But I can’t feel sorry for the French. In rejecting LePen they voted for the suicide of their nation. To paraphrase the commercial from 40 years ago. “They asked for it, they got it, Toyota”.
Mike says
According to RIPOSTE LAIQUE , a french re-information web -site , Macron bought in the last month tearing gazs for 22,000 euros !!
Tom says
Macron is Trudeau 2.0 and what is described in this article can be transposed exactly onto Canada under Justin Trudeau. A brain dead leader of a party infiltrated with muslim brotherhood operatives that is changing the political and social landscape of the country in favor of acceptance of Islam as the dominant political ideology.
We Canadians are to blame for putting Trudeau in a position where he can achieve this and Frenchmen and women are even more to blame for voting for Trudeau’s accomplice in capitulation to Islam. After seeing what a mistake Canadians had made they did not learn and voted for Trudeau 2.0 in Macron.
Although many of us here in Canada tried to educate our fellow citzens about Trudeau, we obviously did not succeed and now we are paying the price in illegal border crossings and the blatent attemot by Trudeau and his MB operatives to deny us our Charter rights to free speech and assembly with their motion m-103 which will soon become law.
Only coutries like Poland and Hungary give us hope in defeating the Islamic Jihad being perpetrated on the world today with the backing of idiots like Merkel, Macron and Trudeau.
Politicianaphobia says
TL, You speak of self-respect, does a Muslim man who thighs a child have self-respect, or does he think of himself as a degenerate or a filthy, disgusting, swine who has mental problems? Muslim “Leave the kids alone”