“Europe pays the price of her usual cowardice and, once again, the majority of the politicians only think of capitulating. However, on the long run, it is like adding fuel to the fire.” The more so as “the agitation of today is merely an episode in an infinitely broader power struggle.”

First, we should not to forget the inescapabe demography. “From now to 2050 the population of our continent will drop by 50 million while that of the neighbouring arabo-Moslem crescent will increase by 700 million.”

In this context, “one can distinguish three major dividing lines”. To put simply, the first separates the developed North and the developing South, while along the second crystallizes the tension between the rich elites of these countries of the South and their popular masses. “The third is in the increasingly deep gap at the very centre of our European societies.” “At the heart of these three tension spots, there are all too real economic and social problems that can always be referred to when “selling" extremist programmes. Behind religious rhetoric, these political forces have their own hidden agenda - the religion is an excellent means to galvanize the crowd, but the stakes, themselves, are eminently political.”

“In the European system of values, religion is the private affair of each individual. That had cost us a series of painful lessons of our history to arrive finally at this conclusion. If Moslems feel wounded because of the caricatures, they are free to institute proceedings. But the problem is not there. It is in the claim of fundamentalist, under the pretext of the religion, to the right to privileged treatment. The Christian, Jewish, Hindu religions can be the object of laugh, but not theirs. In France, beside the Islamic veil, large crosses and the Jewish kippa are also prohibited from school, but only the case of the veil caused a stormy debate.”

“This is part of an extremely dangerous process which, if it goes on, would lead to the fragmentation of our societies, the disappearance of our values and the dismemberment of our state sovereignties. Instead of assimilating our immigrants on the basis of citizenship, we take pleasure to hammer "multicultural" slogans in order to let them lock themselves up in isolated community enclaves, obeying to their own laws. This, in the long term, would undermine the cohesion of our societies, as well as the indivisibility of our constitutional orders. On top, of course, of eroding our fundamental values (such as the freedom of expression).”

“Certainly, one can find that the caricatures are of bad taste or politically inappropriate. Certainly, one can and must seek to avoid escalation. But especially not by relativizing our basic values and thus depriving ourselves of our little remaining credibility. The way in which the interior affairs Commissioner and the majority of the Member States’ leaders retracted the ones after the others is the shame of Europe.”

“Europe spends one billion euros each year to help the neighbouring arabo-Moslem world. 500 million per annum to help build the autonomous State of the same Palestinians who are now lapidating our European diplomatic representations and burning our flags. Without the political will and action able to convert our economic weight into real influence, we are ourselves financing to be turned into object of derision and target of violence. And let not even speak about European public opinion. Each year, the Commission comes up with a new communication strategy, in the hope of winning the citizens to the cause of Europe. Which Europe?”

“The solution, once again, would be to finally make what is called a policy. The excitation of the crowd can partly be based on real and serious socio-economic problems. Those should absolutely be addressed, but within a coherent strategic framework. A family policy aimed at slowing down the decline of the European population would form part of it, just as the strict regulation of immigration and its maintenance at a "digestible" level. Accompanied, of course, by the appropriate social, educational and corresponding measures intended to facilitate assimilation.”

“Above all, our task is to preserve and to represent credibly our own identity. Otherwise we do have nothing to which integrate those who come here, and nothing on behalf of which to dialogue with our partners on the international scene. Europe would disappear in the dustbin of history.”

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