In 2021, dozens of retired generals and other high-ranking officers from the French army signed a joint letter warning that, unless the French government got control of the immigration and integration failures that had roiled their country, civil war was a real possibility. The government and media might have considered that these men had a point. But the French authorities took the other option, the same one chosen by governments across Europe: They shot the messengers. Not literally, in this case. They merely hounded the signatories, stripped many of them of their pensions, slandered them, and more. This is the modern equivalent of carrying out a punishment beating pour encourager les autres.
- Douglas Murray, France Stares Down the Abyss of History, The Free Press, October 19, 2026
[Photo by Lucas Lemoine at Unsplash]
