My fear for France is grounded in its lack of courage to fight for its civilization and the right of its people to speak their minds.
I am worried about France, because it is the cradle of European culture. I love its writers and ideas, Henry James in his 1903 masterpiece “The Ambassadors” speaks of Paris as the epitome of civilization, it is the country that has given so much and to which we owe so much as Europeans, the country that gives us the only intellectuals in Europe to reflect on our world. But it is the country that no longer knows how to defend that culture.
I am worried about France, because it is the “eldest daughter of the Church”, because my favorite pontiff (Benedict XVI) was at home there and now its churches are burning, these are sold, converted, demolished, abandoned and its priests and faithful sacrificed in front of the altars.
I am worried about France because its Jews have been physically attacked for twenty years, they are fleeing that country, they have to hide their symbols, they have buried their children as in Toulouse and then in many other massacres, and we know that Jews are the canaries of the coal mine.
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