Islam versus Europe

A number of extraordinary stories have come out of Marseilles in recent weeks. Collectively, they attest to the fact that the city is sinking rapidly into the third world. It has been massively colonised by Muslims, and they are now reproducing there the conditions found in their home countries.

The first bizarre incident to make the headlines was a Wild West-style train robbery. Shopping carts, rocks and bits of metal had been placed across a railway track, forcing a passenger train to stop. A cargo train arrived some time later and found its way barred by the passenger train. Around 20 hooded jeunes (youths) [this is the code the French elite use for Muslims, much like 'Asian' in the British media] then appeared, broke into the cargo train and made off with some of the boxes it contained. According to the news reports about the incident, this was not the first time it had happened.

Last Sunday, at between 4 and 5 am, around 15 people "apparently in a state of drunkenness" broke into the barracks belonging to a military fire service, shouted at the firemen on duty there then began firing shots at them. 7 firemen were wounded, of whom 4 were taken to hospital. The party of "jeunes" had apparently come from a bus chartered by a group of Cape Verdians in Nice to travel to an "Africa night" in Marseilles.

This week, a bus driver was attacked by passengers when he refused to allow two burka-clad women to travel on his bus. It is illegal in France to wear the burka in public. When one of the women tried to board the bus, displaying a bus pass bearing a photograph, the driver insisted that she unveil so he could verify her identity. She refused to do this and, after some discussion, decided to leave and wait for the next bus. Angry passengers ("jeunes") then took the side of the women and beat up the driver, accusing him of being a "racist". They then invited the burka-wearing woman to re-enter the bus. But when the police arrived, they scattered. Police booked the woman for wearing a burka.

In reacting to the incident, the president of the Marseilles Transport Authority, which operated the bus, appeared to sympathise with the woman rather than, as might have been expected, his own driver. The driver's reaction was "inappropriate", he said. The explanation comes with this "president's" name: Karim Zéribi. An invader.

Muslims have now set up unofficial checkpoints in various parts of Marseilles. Anyone entering "their" area has to stop and submit to inspection. Last week, the driver of a van belonging to a food bank, which distributes free food and drink to poor people, was stopped by a group of "jeunes" when trying to enter the Marseilles district of "Air-Bel". The road had been barred with concrete blocks and bins filled with sand. They searched his vehicle "like policemen applying the law in their territory" in order to "check there weren't any policemen inside". When they saw he only had milk, they let him pass through.

Jacques Ansquer, president of the local Food Bank was indignant. "Before, they were attacking policemen, firemen, bus drivers. Now they're attacking those who are bringing help to the most disadvantaged!" He lodged a complaint with the police, but many people have contacted him urging him to withdraw the complaint because they feel that pursuing it would complicate the Food Bank's operations in future.

"Politicians and administrative officials must assume their responsibilities for re-establishing republican order," Ansquer insists. "These zones of non-law are becoming zones that are governed by laws other than ours, a kind of customary law."

Valérie Boyer, a local UMP (main right-wing party in France) deputy, says that these "checkpoints" have "more or less always existed" but not with the "scope and regularity" they have now. She says the town is a real "draughtboard" where peaceful areas rub up against "enclaves" that are less safe. "We need to close our eyes a bit to it here because, afterwards, we'll have some issues with the drug traffickers". She speaks openly of a "territorial war".

More resources have recently been allocated to the police in the area but a spokesman for the police trade union says it is nowhere near enough faced with "over-armed drug traffickers". "We're not playing in the same league," he says, complaining about the lack of personnel and equipment. "Faced with a Kalashnikov, we are basically powerless."

When the European War for Survival starts later in this century, I predict it will either be in Brussels or Marseilles that it kicks off.