Behind the Façades in France: What expats and the mainstream media (French and American alike) fail to notice (or fail to tell you) about French attitudes, principles, values, and official positions…
After helping to organize an homage for Charlie Kirk in Paris two days before the TPUSA founder's memorial service, the ex-pat group Republicans Overseas France is back in the news, having decided to launch a major legal counter-attack.
Indeed, during and in the wake of Sunday's memorial service, French TV channels were replete with a plethora of drama queens using the most foul language to describe the (entirely peaceful) crowds in Glendale, Arizona. You know the verbiage by now: fascists, Nazis, religious nuts, even members of the Taliban. ROF collected a handful of the most depraved and insane comments in what can only be called a modern-day display of anti-Americanism (video at the hyperlinks):
• Appearing on France Info on September 21, former French Minister of Culture Aurélie Filippetti said of
the Kirk Memorial event: “It inspires me with disgust and fear. All fascist movements have as a
characteristic to victimize themselves and to instrumentalize their so-called heroes who died in
battle” (The ministry of culture seemed determined to overlook the left's pantheon of larger-than-life heroes and martyrs during the past century, such as Lenin, Stalin, and Mao, not to mention Che Guevara.)
• During the program C Politique broadcast on France Télévision’s France 5 on September 21, one Judith Perrignon declared, regarding the Charlie Kirk tribute: “American
white supremacism is completely connected to Hitler’s racial ideology … The first time I watched the footage, I thought of the Nazi rallies
that took place in the United States in the 1930s. There were large
gatherings … The connection is still there.” Just as scandalous was the mere fact that the “C Politique” host, Thomas Snégarof, did not, in any way, attempt to contradict his guest, even partially.
• On September 22, during the program Les Partis Pris broadcast alive on TF1's LCI, Abnousse Shalmani
said: "It was an evangelical mass of religious nuts — and I am carefully weighing my words — and all of this had nothing to envy of the Taliban before the launch of a crusade. Everything was soaked in an atmosphere of violence and a crusade barely contained…" (The word "crusade" comes from the word "cross" — thus, whether considered in a positive or in any other light, it only pertains to Christians; the word for Muslims and Islamists and other types of Taliban being "Jihad" — a word scrupulously avoided by the Frenchwoman born in Tehran.) In a registered letter on September 30, LCI responded to a ROF request for "un droit de réponse" (a right of reply) by turning it down.
• Again on LCI, a former U.S. Ambassador to Finland, Charles Adams, compared Charlie Kirk’s death to the 1933 Reichstag Fire, which shortly preceded
Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. A direct descendant of two of America's earliest presidents (John Adams and John Quincy Adams), the TDS-laden Democrat and vocal supporter of
Barack Obama declared that “I would even say that for me this story of the murder,
rightfully condemned, represents for Trump what the fire of the Reichstag represented for Adolf Hitler
at the time. The parallel is absolute and obvious.”
Prior to that, the presenter of France Culture, Guillaume Erner, wrote an editorial called "Je suis Charlie." That lead to outrage in the journalists' union, la Société des journalistes de France Culture, and Guillaume Erner, a former writer at Charlie Hebdo no less (where the phrase originated in the wake of the 2015 shootings), felt he had no choice but to apologize when confronted by the union's denunciation: "By obscuring Kirk's extreme verbal violence, which contributes to endangering already vulnerable minorities, this post tends to elevate the influencer into a symbol of freedom of expression," said the SDJ, which fears that this stance will cast "discredit and suspicion on our entire network" in a context of "repeated attacks" against public broadcasting. As for the title, France Culture decided to change it.
Of course, this brings us all the way back to square one: the murder of someone like Charlie Kirk is What Is Bound to Happen When You Constantly Refer to Your Adversaries as "Fascists" and as "Threats to Democracy".
The left’s habit of slapping labels like “fascist” or “Nazi” on its
political opponents isn’t just name-calling; it’s a green light for
violence. [Greg] Gutfeld spelled it out with brutal clarity: “You label someone a fascist
or a racist or a Nazi, it makes you free to attack them, and that has
been the ideology from the start.”
“Remember this: The corporate media, Democrats, and Hollywood don’t call
us Nazis because we’re Nazis. They call us Nazis to justify their
ongoing murder campaign against us.”
You assassinate us. Then you celebrate our assassination. Then you call us evil while we mourn.
All of which led one ROF spokesman to appear on Morandini's CNews show Tuesday morning, in order to inform the French public that the group of ex-pats was filing complaints with ARCOM (l'Autorité de régulation de la communication audiovisuelle et numérique or the Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication, France's administrative agency responsible for both audiovisual and digital communications).
Nicolas Conquer, spokesperson for Republicans Overseas France, was Jean-Marc Morandini's guest on "Morandini Live" on CNews. He notably discussed a segment broadcast Sunday evening on C Politique on France 5 …
While discussing the memorial service for Charlie Kirk, journalist and novelist Judith Perrignon said on the show: "The first time I saw the footage, I thought of the Nazi rallies that took place in the United States in the 1930s. There were large gatherings."
"I jumped out of my seat when I heard this comparison," declared Nicolas Conquer, "while we were attending this tribute, which was magnificent and poignant. We see this contrast, which is disconnected and truly an aberration […] The moderator, Thomas Snégaroff, doesn't correct his guest. He agrees with her. It demonstrates this ideological bias."
He added: "I'm obviously contacting ARCOM. We're also going to file a complaint for incitement to hatred against a group — Christian conservatives, MAGA supporters. By normalizing this comparison with Hitler and Nazism, they're targeting activists. This is extremely serious!"
"We are calling on Arcom to take responsibility rather than tracking down the statements of [exclusively right-wing] activists. It should monitor what is said about the public service," he concluded.
That's true. I totally remember that rally where Hitler publicly forgave the plotters who tried to assassinate him and then he called upon them to give their hearts to Jesus.
In fact, that was pretty standard at most Nazi medals.
Today’s rising
tide of Jew-hatred from all directions – Right, Left, Muslim, Christian,
secular, knowing and unknowing – started on September 30, 2000 — Richard Landes
UPDATED: Tuesday marks the quarter-century anniversary of the beginning of one of the biggest scandals of the past 50 years, the Mohammed al-Dura affair, which saw French television video and photos of a 12-year-old Palestenian and his father being supposedly felled by Israeli bullets in Gaza, and which led to the creation of a new word — Pallywood.
Chief among those instrumental in debunking the hoax was a young free-thinker by the name of Philippe Karsenty, and so it was natural that, 25 years later, Alexandre Gilbert of the Times of Israel would wish to interview him.
In the interview, the man who has since become the spokesman for le Comité Trump France gave to the Isreali newspaper, he spoke about the media wars — regarding Daniel Pearl, etc, but most notably the al Durrah affair which had its start on September 30, 2000; which Karsenty himself was instrumental in helping to debunk; and whose lawsuits No Pasarán covered over the years. (Shookhran for the instalink, Sarah.)
Less than a year after the IDF's dastardly Jews' alleged murder of the 12-year-old Arab — not, as it turns out, at all incidentally — the world witnessed the 911 attacks on New York and Washington.
Before we take a look at the Philippe Karsenty interview, a must-read is the piece that Richard Landes penned in The Jerusalem Post five years ago — as the Abrahamic accords were being signed — about the twentieth (20th) anniversary of "one of the most disastrous events in the year 2000". It's a hard, indeed a mind-boggling, read — check out RL's blog, The Augean Stables — especially coming three years before the October 7th massacre.
The
image of Muhammad al-Dura via the narrative that the IDF had targeted
him became the global symbol of Palestinian suffering at the hand of
Israeli cruelty. It rapidly became an “icon of hatred” that had a
greater immediate and long-term effect on the new century than any other
such vehicle of incitement.
A
cry arose, for some of pain, for some of rage, but for all a clear sign
that the Infidel, led by the twin Satans Israel and USA, were making
war on Muslims. Indeed, no single event so far has done more to arouse
the spirit of jihad against the West than this footage, which, as Bin
Laden quickly pointed out in his recruiting video for global jihad,
demanded vengeance against al Yahud and their allies.
… the Muhammad al-Dura icon fed an apocalyptic jihadi narrative: to #GenerationCaliphate Israel was the Dajjal (Antichrist).
The
West followed suit. Lethal journalists like Robert Fisk quickly
affirmed the charge of deliberate murder. Where before such comparisons
were considered ugly if not worse, now comparing Israel to the Nazis
became common. A prominent French news anchor, speaking for many,
declared that al-Dura “erased, replaced the image of the boy in the
Warsaw Ghetto.” It was a new, post-modern “replacement narrative.”
Instead
of Christians or Muslims replacing Israel as the true Chosen People, it
was the former chosen people replacing the Nazis, and the poor
Palestinian victim suffering the fate of the Jews. The progressive
refrain, “Israel has lost the moral high ground.” … … Al-Dura
justified terrorist attacks on Israel in the minds of both Muslims and
non-Jews, especially Europeans. “What choice do they have?” progressives
responded when Palestinians targeted Israel civilians. They were merely
resisting … … At
the height of the suicide terror campaign, siding with the Palestinians
was a “litmus test of liberal credentials.” Suggesting this heinous
violence was genocidal aspiration, not state-deprived desperation, was a
ticket to cancellation. … ANGRY PROTESTS in the West accused Israel of genocide, and a large plurality of Europeans believed it. … the Western legacy media constituted one of the most potent weapons in the cognitive war “Caliphaters” waged against the West. … The icon of al-Dura was the first successful blood libel in the West
since the Nazis rode their ecumenical Jew-hatred to mega-death for all
in 1930s and ‘40s. Unlike earlier versions, this was spread by a Jew and
carried by the professional news media, and its primary impact was on
progressive, leftist circles, giving birth to a “new antisemitism” in
its 21st-century avatar, eliminationist “anti-Zionism.” Today’s rising
tide of Jew-hatred from all directions – Right, Left, Muslim, Christian,
secular, knowing and unknowing – started on September 30, 2000. … Whether we know it or not, those of us entering this very grim-looking
third decade of the 21st century are the inheritors of this
al-Durah-triggered new wave of Jew-hatred and its accompaniments: fake
news, conspiracy theories and violence. … As some honest Arab journalists point out, #FakeNews is something of an
Arab specialty, and for far too long public opinion has been manipulated
by dishonest and malevolent actors masquerading as journalists.
Alexandre Gilbert: Osama bin Laden explicitly cited the Al-Dura
case as justification both for the assassination of Daniel Pearl, a
journalist from the Washington Post, who was about to find him, in
Abbottabad in 2002, and for the 9/11 2001 aircraft hijack and attacks on
the United States. How do you interpret that?
Philippe Karsenty:Bin Laden
invoked Al‑Dura very directly. He pointed to the footage as proof that
Jews and the West were child‑killers. He then used that grievance as a
pretext to justify Daniel Pearl’s murder — presenting it as vengeance
for Al‑Dura. And he cited the same image again as moral cover for 9/11,
claiming that the attacks on New York and Washington on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon, were retaliation for the supposed killing of a
Palestinian child. In his rhetoric, one short televised clip became the
excuse both for executing a single journalist and for massacring
thousands of civilians.
That’s how far the reach of this image went: from Gaza, to Karachi,
to the Twin Towers. Modern media ecosystems — from satellite networks to
the social platforms that would come later — are accelerants. An
emotionally charged image, broadcast without context, can spiral into a
global narrative within days. Bin Laden’s invocation was not the origin
of that mechanism, but it displayed how effectively extremists could
harness it. That is why accountability, forensic analysis, and the
willingness to pursue uncomfortable inquiries are vital. If we ignore
how images propagate and mutate, we hand the moral high ground to those
who traffic in outrage.
It’s crucial to understand that we moved from the notion of
“deicide” to “genocide.” In Christian tradition, Jews were stigmatized
as “Christ-killers.” With the Al-Dura case, the Jews were recast as
child-killers, genocidal by nature. This image of Mohammed Al-Dura,
supposedly shot by Israeli soldiers in 2000, became the ultimate weapon
of demonization against the Jewish people. And honestly, if you search
through every existing representation, you won’t find anything more
powerful or more destructive than that image. Everyone knows it, even
people completely detached from politics or the conflict.
… You stress that you weren’t the first to discover the Al-Dura fabrication. Who was?
Philippe Karsenty: It was Nahum Shahaf,
an Israeli researcher. He was the one who opened my eyes. When I saw
his analysis, it struck me as obvious. So I approached France 2,
expecting them to correct their mistake. Instead, they dismissed me. I
went to the CRIF, to the Israeli ambassador—everyone brushed me off.
Ambassador Daniel Shek even refused to shake my hand, calling me a
“conspiracy theorist.” That was the environment I was up against.
Let’s talk about the legal battle. How did it begin?
Philippe Karsenty: Since I had no legal standing
to sue, I published a deliberately provocative article, hoping France 2
would sue me for defamation. They did. In 2006, at my first trial, the
prosecutor said I had presented convincing evidence of a staged event
and should be acquitted. Yet I was convicted. On appeal, the court
demanded France 2 release its raw footage. I had obtained 18 minutes of
it. The footage exposed blatant inconsistencies. I was acquitted, and
the case made global headlines—even appearing in US diplomatic cables
later revealed by WikiLeaks.
But the story didn’t end there, did it?
Philippe Karsenty: No. France 2
appealed to the Court of Cassation. Despite the Attorney General’s
conclusions in my favor, I lost—on a procedural point. The court ruled
that I didn’t yet have the footage when I published my article, and
therefore my claim was defamatory at the time, even if later proven
correct. In 2013, at the retrial, I brought experts from around the
world—architects, analysts. France 2 was demolished in court. But once
again, the verdict went against me. I was ordered to pay €11,000. At
that point, I decided to stop. The system was hopelessly politicized.
So where does that leave you today?
Philippe Karsenty: Today, I continue to say
openly that the Al-Dura video was staged. France 2 can no longer sue me.
Their only argument—that I lacked proof at the time of publication—has
expired. I have the evidence, and I speak freely. The irony is that the
more they tried to silence me, the more the affair spread—the Streisand
effect in action.
How do you respond to being associated with conspiracy figures like Alex Jones, Steve Bannon, or Alain Soral?
Philippe Karsenty: I reject that completely. I
have no connection to those people. In fact, they despise my work. Why?
Because it disrupts their antisemitic narratives. I expose Palestinian
propaganda as fraudulent, which doesn’t serve their agenda. Unlike
others who were co-opted by conspiracy networks, I remained
isolated—especially in the pre-social media era. That isolation made the
fight very lonely. But it also kept me clean.
… The distorted vision of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is
mostly in France a quarrel between Alsatian Ashkenazi and Algerian
Berbers, isn’t it ?
Philippe Karsenty: Yes. And a conflict suggests
two equal sides fighting each other. That’s not the case. Israel never
wakes up in the morning deciding to kill its neighbors. What exists is a
war: the Arab attempt to destroy Israel, ongoing for 75 years. They
tried conventional wars, terrorism, rockets—all failed. Where they
succeeded was in waging media warfare. And in that realm, Israel doesn’t
fight. The Al-Dura case was their greatest victory. That’s why I
insist: this is not a conflict, it’s a war fought on a different
battlefield—the media.
Hommage national pour Charlie Kirk: pour Philippe Karsenty, porte-parole du comité "Trump France", Charlie Kirk "était un homme de dialogue" pic.twitter.com/W9iD0uxB9h
Philippe Karsenty was in the media several times this week, mostly about the Charlie Kirk tragedy and Donald Trump's UN speech. But perhaps his most interesting appearance had nothing to do with current events, but with a hoax a quarter of a century ago that he helped debunk, when a new word — Pallywood — had, of necessity, to be dreamed up.
The night before the tribute for the founder of TPUSA, the spokesman for le Comité Trump France was on BFMTV not once but twice. Here he pointed out that Charlie Kirk had been "a man of dialogue."
Hommage national pour Charlie Kirk: pour Philippe Karsenty, porte-parole du comité "Trump France", Charlie Kirk "était un homme de dialogue" pic.twitter.com/W9iD0uxB9h
Five days later, Karsenty participated in a debate on Sud Radio about Donald Trump's United Nations speech — notably immigration, Russia, Palestine, and the climate — comparing it to Emmanuel Macron's UN speech. The spokesman for le Comité Trump France, incidentally, doesn't believe that there is any way the Nobel committee will ever give Trump the Nobel Prize.
Avec Philippe Karsenty (porte-parole du comité Trump France) et Arthur Kenigsberg (spécialiste de l'Europe centrale et fondateur d'Euro Creative, auteur de 'L'Europe de l'Est n'existe pas : Ces pays oubliés où se joue notre avenir" aux Editions Eyrolles)
UPDATED Over in the Richmond area of Virginia, Damian Bennett has his doubts regarding the countries of the Old Continent. (Spasibo za giperssylku, tovarich Sarah.)
What
is it with the Euro itch for war? And not just any war, but war with
Russia bristling with nuclear weapons? No Euro-NATO-Russian war will be
neatly confined to a few drone strikes, a few lobs of ordnance, a
few nukes. A Euro-Russian war immediately will default to global war,
which will immediately default to nuclear war. Who wants this other than
the globalists, the militarists, the profiteers?
Russia is no altar boy, but NATO was squarely behind the Russo-Ukrainian war of attrition -- a war NATO KNEW/KNOWS
Ukraine can not hope to win without NATO escalation, and NATO is just
an army on paper without America. So the endgame is WWIII.
The world is off its nut.
From Greenwich (CT), Duncan Hill joins the conversation:
Sort of feels like
between WW I and WW II.
I agree whole heartedly
that Biden and NATO suckered Putin into invading Ukraine. Just
imagine what we could have achieved if Harris had won.
You probably have seen
the news that today Trump admonished the UN delegates for their
imbecilic policies. Ukraine should have all their territory
returned to them. And Trump said that NATO countries should
shoot down Russian aircraft violating of their air-space.
Clearly, Trump has coordinated with NATO in turning up the heat
on Russia. This should give Putin pause...a big pause.
So, I wonder if Macron
is adding credibility to Trump's escalation? No doubt Trump's
shift was discussed with NATO before he made the statements.
Whatever the reality,
at least we don't have Neville Chamberlain to worry about.
I wonder if this had anything to do with Trump's change in position on the Ukraine war. Putin double crosses Trump and, in addition, fires..."voluntarily" resigns...the guy who perhaps was for negotiations.
Is this another giant step toward WWIII? I don't know...that's the peacenik [with the purple tie]. They all look like cuddly folks. Kind of reminds me of the guys at the corner table at Dominic's on Arthur Ave.
The
Russo-Ukraine tea leaves are hard to read. Kozak's resignation is a
departure from the usual accidental self-defenestration job vacancy. I
can think of dozens of unobvious reasons why Kozak has been, for the
time being, spared -- some dark, some 3D chess jooks.
Suffice
to say, Trump's unexpected positional shift is strategic, not tactical.
I think Putin knows he misplayed his patty-cake approach to DJT.
DJT wants a result (think Fordow, Isfahan, Natanz),
not a long endless string of phone calls, stalls, and peace conferences
with open bar and hot canapés. Neither Putin nor NATO nor anybody else
is used to this -- an approach that doesn't feed the grift of diplomacy.
Unlike Putin, unlike NATO, unlike EU and its sputtering hawks
with butter-but-no-guns economies, America has the muscle and, in Trump,
the political will to produce a desired result -- peace.
When
Trump leaves office Departments of State worldwide had better've
rewritten their American playbook, because JDV48 is DJT 3.0.
Google vowed on Tuesday to offer YouTube accounts that were permanently
banned for political speech the ability to be reinstated, and the big
tech giant admitted that it once faced pressure from the Biden administration to remove content about COVID-19.
… "Reflecting the Company’s commitment to free expression,
YouTube will provide an opportunity for all creators to rejoin the
platform if the company terminated their channels for repeated
violations of COVID-19 and elections integrity policies that are no
longer in effect," the lawyer representing Google wrote.
… The document from Google also noted that YouTube "values conservative
voices on its platform" and acknowledged that the creators "have
extensive reach and play an important role in civic discourse."
… Google's revelations came in response to a yearslong Republican-led
investigation by the committee into big tech companies, including
Google, that censored and suppressed content on their platforms related
to COVID-19, the 2020 election and Hunter Biden.
Our ol'-time friend Damian Bennett — who helped me write some of the registered letters to Google (in fact, one of them was just about entirely his doing) — had the same reaction as I did.
Put down your coffee to avoid hot lap spills and a nose snort fountain...
I like to think ¡No Pasarán! shin-kicking Google was some small part of this.
To quote Abraham Lincoln: Agreed for once, a thousand times agreed.
Mutual pal Duncan adds:
Oh, damn! Coffee all
over my lap!
These admissions by
Alphabet are huge. Castrates these faux-offended Lefties over
canceling Colbert and Kimmel. My one big question is when will
the continuous collapsing of the narratives cause the Dem voters
to start questioning their "leaders?"
And I have no doubt ¡No Pasarán! and Erik's supporters...mainly
you [Damian Bennett]...made Google realize that the silenced are a
rapidly growing movement with loud voices.
Instapundit has more, holding the left to the flames:
Joe Scarborough: "OMG watch out conservatives, what would happen if a Democrat admin went after your speech??"
Will France end up getting a Turning Point Paris? asks Causeur's Lucien Rabouille hopefully as hundreds of right-leaning Frenchmen and Americans (plus one cat hailing from the Swiss Alps) flocked to the Lafayette statue on le Cours de la Reine by the Seine Friday to pay homage to Charlie Kirk (my photos at the bottom of this post; merci à Sarah pour le hyperlien).
On Friday, September 19th, at 6 p.m., the statue of La Fayette, located a stone's throw from the Place de la Concorde and the Grand Palais, was feeling less isolated than usual. At its feet, around 500 participants had come to pay a Trumpian tribute to Charlie Kirk, the young star of American conservatism assassinated on September 10th in the middle of a speech.
Halfway between a Trumpist liturgy and a Protestant revival, the atmosphere was decidedly American: star-spangled banners, a minute of silence, prayers, speeches punctuated with biblical references, quotes from Burke and Tocqueville… All punctuated by the American anthem, regularly performed by an Italian singer already in demand during the NBA tournament in Paris.
Organized in the urgency of emotion, the rally brought together the entire galaxy of French Trump supporters, familiar with Charlie Kirk's videos long before his assassination made him an icon of global conservatism. Philippe Karsenty, former deputy mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine and spokesman for the Comité Trump France, was among those who took turns at the microphone, followed by Kate Pesey, director of the Tocqueville Fellowship, which "perpetuates the intellectual legacy of Alexis de Tocqueville" by sending promising young people each year to discover the American political model. …/…
American Bible Culture and the Spirit of "I Am Charlie"
In France, politics and religion are readily separated. That evening, the right had tuned into American time and blurred the boundaries. Feminist activist Marguerite Stern, fist and rosary raised, spoke of Charlie Kirk's "martyrdom" and invoked his "mystical" presence, while drawing thunderous applause for Donald Trump's decision to classify Antifa as a terrorist organization. Randy Yaloz, for Republicans Overseas (an association that brings together expatriate members of the Republican Party), recalled Kirk's taste for tough debates—the young man had made confrontation in hostile academic terrain his trademark. One speaker recalled that Moses, who began his career as a stutterer, had to learn to speak well to convince Pharaoh: "One sharpens one's arguments better when ideas are confronted."
... A singular syncretism: a touch of America's Bible culture mixed with France's Voltairian spirit.
A Turning Point à la française ?
Franco-American Nicolas Conquer, master of ceremonies, actively disseminates the ideas of the American right in France. With his easily identifiable style and language, he has become the face and voice of French Trumpism since the 2024 elections. In his closing remarks, he called for Charlie Kirk's fight for freedom of expression and conservatism to be revived in France. Is there a need to consider a French-style Turning Point USA, named after the political platform founded by Kirk? From the podium, Conquer praised Kirk's ability to raise funds and disrupt traditional media.
... Across the Channel, the project has already resonated with Turning Point UK. Why not here? "The sooner the better," confided one participant. "We need to organize ourselves," says Nicolas Conquer, who sees the GOP as a model of political organization capable of inspiring French and European right-wing parties, which are often too centralized and incapable of launching vast platforms for disseminating ideas.
"What if the best tribute to the deceased wasn't
to extend his fight and his role model in France?" Lucien Rabouille ends by asking in Causeur. Among other media also present were Frontières and Europe 1.
Just in case you think of this as an entirely positive event, understand that the ceremony was held outdoors precisely because, in spite of dozens of phone calls from Republicans Overseas France (whose members were instrumental in organizing the event), it was impossible to find a single church, protestant or catholic, which would accept to hold a ceremony inside their walls. ROF organizers were looking to approach a synagogue when word came that the Paris préfecture had agreed to allow the ceremony to be held near the Grand Palais.
Speaking of synagogues: Incidentally, Kirk — whose name means Church in
Scottish and the Scandinavian languages (not in German, Don Trump Jr, where it is
Kirche, although it obviously derives from the same root word origin) — vowed, after discussions with Dennis Prager (of The Rational Bible fame), to honor the Sabbath and its Jewish customs (no phones for 24 hours, etc…) every Saturday.
Florian et Laurent, Canadiens, familiers de l’Amérique du Nord ont sorti l’outfit trumpiste pour l’hommage à Kirk. Photo: Lucien Rabouille In the background, far left, sporting a MAGA cap: ROF's Paul Reen
Vendredi 19 septembre, à 18 h, la statue de La Fayette, située à deux
pas de la place de la Concorde et du Grand Palais, s’ennuyait moins que
d’habitude. À ses pieds, environ cinq cents participants étaient venus
rendre un hommage trumpiste à Charlie Kirk, la jeune star du
conservatisme américain assassinée le 10 septembre en plein discours.
À
mi-chemin entre liturgie trumpiste et revival protestant, l’ambiance
était résolument américaine : banderoles étoilées, minute de silence,
prières, discours ponctués de références bibliques, citations de Burke
et de Tocqueville… Le tout rythmé par l’hymne américain, régulièrement
interprété par une cantatrice italienne déjà sollicitée lors du tournoi
de NBA à Paris.
Organisé dans l’urgence de l’émotion, le rassemblement a réuni toute la
galaxie des trumpistes français, familiers des vidéos de Charlie Kirk
bien avant que son assassinat n’en fasse une icône du conservatisme
mondial. Au micro se sont succédé Philippe Karsenty, ancien adjoint à la
mairie de Neuilly-sur-Seine et animateur du comité Trump France,
puis Kate Pesey, directrice de la bourse Tocqueville, qui « perpétue
l’héritage intellectuel d’Alexis de Tocqueville » en envoyant chaque
année de jeunes gens prometteurs découvrir le modèle politique
américain. …/…
Biblisme américain et « Je suis Charlie »
En France, on sépare volontiers politique et religion. Ce soir-là, la
droite s’était mise à l’heure américaine et brouillait les frontières.
La militante féministe Marguerite Stern, poing et chapelet levés, évoqua
le « martyre » de Charlie Kirk et invoqua sa présence « mystique »,
tout en faisant applaudir à tout rompre la décision de Donald Trump de
classer les Antifa comme organisation terroriste. Randy Yaloz, pour Republicans Overseas
(association qui regroupe les membres du Parti républicain expatriés),
rappela le goût de Kirk pour les débats difficiles – le jeune homme
avait fait de la confrontation en terrain universitaire hostile sa
marque de fabrique. Un orateur rappela que Moïse, bègue à ses débuts,
dut apprendre à bien parler pour convaincre Pharaon : « On affûte mieux
ses arguments dans la confrontation d’idées. »
… Singulier syncrétisme : un brin de biblisme américain mêlé à l’esprit voltairien français.
Nicolas Conquer, maître de cérémonie a eu l’occasion de rendre hommage à Kirk sur les médias ces derniers jours. Et si le meilleur hommage rendu
au défunt n’était pas de prolonger son combat et son modèle en France
?
Un Turning Point à la française ?
Le Franco-Américain Nicolas Conquer, maître de cérémonie, diffuse
activement les idées de la droite américaine en France. Par son style et
son verbe facilement identifiables, il est devenu depuis les élections
de 2024 le visage et la voix du trumpisme hexagonal. Dans sa conclusion,
il a appelé de ses vœux à reprendre en France le combat de Charlie Kirk
pour la liberté d’expression et le conservatisme. De là à envisager un Turning Point USA
à la française, du nom de la plate-forme politique fondée par Kirk ? À
la tribune, Conquer a loué la capacité qu’avait Kirk à lever des fonds
et à bousculer les médias traditionnels.
… Outre-Manche, le projet a déjà trouvé un écho avec Turning Point UK.
Pourquoi pas ici ? « Le plus tôt sera le mieux », confie une
participante. « Il faut nous organiser », assure Nicolas Conquer, qui
voit dans le GOP un modèle d’organisation politique capable d’inspirer
les partis de droite français et européens, souvent trop centralisés et
incapables de lancer de vastes plateformes de diffusion d’idées.
In front of Paris's Lafayette statue
Along le Cours de la Reine on the right bank of la Seine in Paris
The Eiffel Tower on the horizon
As they walk by, two Eastern Europeans ignore the Fuck Kirk letters that some locofoco has printed beforehand on le Cours de la Reine
"Being right-wing kills" or, alternatively, "Being right-wing is a deadly endeavour"
Two American ex-pats join the commemoration
A French woman has taken the Left's 2015 "I am Charlie" sign and added "Kirk" on the bottom
Echoing TPUSA itself, many attendees and speakers hailed from youth organizations of French students unhappy with the left's dominance of culture and institutions
As the blogosphere rallies in support of ¡No Pasarán!'s restoration to the Internet, some commenters have misunderstood the very title of the blog, going as far as to wonder whether, based on its title (“They shall not pass” or "None shall pass", aligned with the Left during the Spanish Civil War), ¡No Pasarán! isn't a pro-communist blog or even a communist blog.
The short answer is No (or, in Spanish, "¡No!") — not at all. On the contrary: thumbing its nose at leftists — by appropriating their battle cry — the blog's raison d'être is to denounce anti-Americans of all stripes — domestic as well as foreign.
Certainly, if you are familiar with the blog's banner, you would agree that it is highly unlikely that a (pro-)communist would ridicule the famous photo of Che Guevara by having El Che (or, as we
called the Dissident Frogman's doctored photo, Mi-Che) wear Mickey Mouse
ears on the top of his noggin.
In keeping with the cheeky and irreverent element, recall that "None shall pass" is also the motto of the black knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (although we hope to have been more successful than John Cleese).
The blog was born in 2004 — when a number of ex-pats living in France (mainly Paris), most of them on the right, one single left-leaning member, grew increasingly outraged over the amount of anti-Americanism in French media and French society rising in spite of (or because of) the
horrendous attacks on 911; and continuing with the George W Bush decision to invade Iraq in order to remove Saddam Hussein. They adopted the slogan: This (i.e., this anti-Americanism, French or other) will not go unanswered.
Having said that, here is some historical background: Although best remembered as the war cry of the Spanish republicans (sic — a misnomer if there ever was one; actually a mix of socialists and communists) against Franco’s army during the Civil War in the 1930s, the origin of “They shall not pass” or "None shall pass" actually has nothing to do with communism or any political leaning.
It was purely military, originating a generation earlier when the French poilus in World War I made a vow regarding the German invaders, notably at Verdun: “Ils ne passeront pas!”
And No Pasarán has never shied from telling the atrocious truth about leftists, in Spain, in France, in America, or anywhere else. (Indeed, that is (was?) the blog's raison d'être.) As Paul Johnson put it,
Throughout the Spanish war, Stalinism was assisted not only by superb public relations but by naivety, gullibility and, it must also be said, the mendacity and corruption of Western intellectuals.
Messages anti-Charlie Kirk: pour Philippe Karsenty, porte-parole du comité (Trump France), "c'est de l'apologie du terrorisme" pic.twitter.com/moHVMvNDc7
In the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Philippe Karsenty joined the guests of a BFMTV debate, where he heard the usual platitudes about right-wing censorship of free speech.
"I have been hearing about such things as 'insensitivity' towards simple 'detractors'," said the Frenchman, who went on to illustrate his points by making comparisons with the original "Je suis Charlie" motto, i.e., the machine-gunning of Charlie Hebdo personnel in 2015. "It has strictly nothing to do with free speech; it is the glorification of terrorism" (the best excerpt on X).
Moreover, when asked if the founder of TPUSA should not be considered "a martyr of the far right", the spokesman of le Comité Trump France answered No — since it was too reminiscent of the voices considering the perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo bloodbath as martyrs (as Muslim martyrs, in that case) — and that, besides, the husband of Erika Kirk had been "a conservative, not a reactionary."
Charlie Kirk: "Il était conservateur, pas réactionnaire", assure Philippe Karsenty, porte-parole du comité "Trump France"
Charlie
Kirk, 31 ans, a été assassiné par balle mercredi lors d'une réunion
publique en plein air dans une université de l'Utah, dans l'ouest des
États-Unis. Un suspect a été identifié et interpellé, ont annoncé les
autorités ce vendredi.
Messages anti-Charlie Kirk: pour Philippe Karsenty, porte-parole du comité (Trump France), "c'est de l'apologie du terrorisme"
pic.twitter.com/moHVMvNDc7
The day prior to the assassination, Philippe Karsenty appeared (misspelled) on the Qualita TV channel where he spoke of the far left and wokism, in Israel and America as well as in France.
Les institutions juives de France mettent en danger les juifs de France - L'invité du 9 Sept 2025
Philippe Karsenti, porte-parole Trump-France, qui explique la position du président américain face à Israël et critique l'attitude hostile d'Emmanuel Macron envers l'Etat hébreu ainsi que le comportement trop complaisant selon lui des institutions juives communautaires en France: "Les Juifs de France ne sont pas défendus par leurs institutions. Au contraire, celles-ci les mettent en danger.
If there is one historical quote that could be used in every single post of this blog and of No Pasarán for the past 21 years, it is that of a French writer who traveled through America two centuries ago:
It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth — Alexis de Tocqueville
That also applies in the present post addressing the Left's contention that Charlie Kirk "had it coming" due to his "insensitive" declarations in favor of that "repulsive" Second Amendment. I would like to start with a question for those, foreign as well as American — not a few of them among my social media contacts — making jokes about, laughing about, or otherwise celebrating the Charlie Kirk assassination:
Besides the fact that your attitude is heinous, how — how on Earth — do you propose to convince a sizable of citizens in future elections — not just Republicans but also Independents and even your own fellow Leftists (Democrats, Socialist Democrats, outright Communists, etc) — that a would-be leader supported by somebody like yourself (by somebody as childish and as vile as yourself) deserves to be elected to office and be put in charge of the well-being and the welfare of the country and its population?!
Incidentally, I will add that I am not in favor of Elon Musk taking down these videos on X/Twitter — I think that all people should know exactly the childish, the wicked, and the abhorrent attitudes of the "tolerant" locofocos on the Left.
In that perspective, I will add a message to those — again, foreign as well as American — who seem (slightly) less partisan and more thoughtful, "simply" calling the founder of TPUSA (or his speeches) hateful. As many others have pointed out, if you call Charlie Kirk odious and the perpetrator of hate speech — the epitome of a conservative seeking an honest debate — then there is no hope for what you claim to seek, a bridge to connect with any of you.
In addition, your homilies about a "divided America" — when Charlie Kirk did nothing but try to engage in dignified debate with you and, indeed, try to unify America — are nothing but a deliberately passive description of a rift that is entirely caused by you yourselves and by your (by the postmodern left's) own pedantic didacticism and depravity.
1) Two Basic Attitudes of Liberals That They Are Totally Oblivious About
Let us examine the holding that Charlie Kirk deserved to die because of his statements. One in particular stands out: The speech claimed to be the most controversial is that in which he is described as allegedly ignorant or uncaring about the country's murder rate, specifically school shootings of kids.
"I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths
every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect
our other God-given rights."
As usual, with the Left, it can only be described as a lie: they omit the entire context, which ends by addressing the very school shootings that CK was supposed to be criminally ignorant and/or repulsively uncaring about. (This will be examined in detail at the end of this post.)
Having said that: has it occurred to you that, first of all, you are engaging in superstition? You people of the Left don't believe in religion, you claim, and you instead prefer rationality — pure rationality. Then in the very next breath, the drama queens that you are claim that some so-called invisible force in the universe — whether it is (some type of) God or karma or whatever — that, like a deity from a pagan religion, unleashes his (or her) wrath on people and reigns down injustice on evil capitalists (see also 9-11 and Gaia and tsunamis along with various other natural catastrophes).
A more general observation about karma (and superstition) is the extent to which the charge proves too often to be remarkably one-sided and the source of double standards. For instance, when Canadians vowed to boycott U.S. products because of Donald Trump's controversial comments about their
country last winter, leftists and anti-Americans the world over cheered, saying that the conservative Yankee president was getting his just desserts. Now
that populations the world over, not least the Canadians,
are holding memorials for a conservative Yank — even singing America's
national anthem! — the karma aspect is suddenly nowhere to be seen.
Second of all, ask yourselves this, Leftists: what are we doing, exactly, by pursuing this line of thought?
Think about it…
Aren't you validating the need for the very Second Amendment that Charlie Kirk defended?!
There are millions of people who, rightly or wrongly, hold the same opinions and viewpoints as the husband of Erika Kirk. If
you say that the founder of TPUSA deserved to die, then millions of
other Americans presumably also deserve to die — by being gunned down or by any other means. Well, guess what: since we disagree with you (rather vehemently) about this, I would suggest that this makes our desire for weaponry rather more rational than (as you claim) irrational. Indeed, if one of you were to (God forbid) be elevated to a position of power in this country, how — how on earth — are we to trust you to be in any way benevolent towards us (i.e., towards that part of the population that does not agree with you)?!
In any case, your attitude about karma proves nothing less than — get this — the very necessity of private citizens to own and bear arms.
But the Left is ignoring (and the mainstream media never covers) the numerous instances of mass shootings where only two or three people died. (And for the sake of brevity, let's not get into the many instances of killings that the MSM refrains from covering because they don't further the Left's narratives — see, e.g., Iryna Zarutska.) And here you are bound to ask: If only two or three people were killed, why should the media, American or foreign, cover it?
And, besides: why would anyone call it a "mass shooting" in the first place?
Because the "mass" part of the shooting was prevented by an armed citizen (aka as "a good guy with a gun") who subdued and neutralized the shooter (either by killing him outright or by holding him in check).
Think of another mass shooting unreported
in America and across the globe, the one in December 2019 where only three
people were killed in Texas. Hold on, you ask: Three people? Certainly a tragedy,
but why, then, call the West Freeway Church of
Christ event a "mass" shooting? Well, because that low figure was due
only to one parishioner pulling out his weapon and gunning down the
(would-be) mass shootist. Jack Wilson is what we call "a good guy with a
gun."
In the comments section of a Herschel Smith piece, a person named David writes that
The other factor here is when a concealed carry holder intervenes
it often means the number of victims is not as high as waiting for
police. In that situation it doesn’t make the list of “mass shootings”.
I saw another analysis that said if you look at just the incidents
that don’t occur in gun-free zones, 46% of mass shootings end because of
intervention by a civilians.
As for Gary Griffiths, he goes on to note to what extent the logic is skewered (bold and italics by myself):
Part of the problem is, it is impossible for an armed citizen to
stop a mass shooting. Here’s why: If the shooter is stopped before
three victims are shot, it is, by definition, not a mass shooting. If
the shooter is not stopped before three victims are shot, then by
definition, the citizen did not stop the mass shooting. Liberal logic
at it’s finest!
How
many mass shootings did NOT happen because of someone with a legal
firearm? How many crimes and of what kind prevented by someone with a
legal firearm - if they only threaten to use it and do not shoot?
Police/FBI do not keep any statistics on this, but the NRA publishes a
page full of such incidents every month in their magazine.
Events like this one happen every day in America, but
because they don’t fit the narrative of liberal gun control activists,
they rarely get the attention mass shootings do. Instead of advocating
for ways by which citizens can empower themselves, rather than wait
around as sitting ducks for the police to show up, the left-wing media
habitually uses tragic events as a political platform by which to
trumpet for more gun control. Stories of armed citizens brandishing
their weapons to deter a criminal are also not as sensational as a mass
gunman killing innocent people, and, to borrow an analogy from crime prevention researcher John Lott, “Airplane crashes get news coverage, while successful take-offs and landings do not.”
An armed civilian doesn’t have to fire his weapon to stop a tragedy.
Many shootings or mass shootings have been prevented by an armed citizen
brandishing a weapon or simply revealing it to someone threatening
others. No shots were fired. There was no need. This is far more common
and just as heroic as the actions taken by Mr. Dicken.
3) Wouldn't Gun Control, European-Style, End Shootings in the First Place?
But all of this hardly addresses the call to imitate Europe and the contention that with gun control of the European type, there would be no shootings, and certainly no mass shootings, to begin with.
On May 25, 2022, I was on a train to Switzerland that morning when I was called back to Paris to participate in a debate on the BFMTV channel after the atrocious Uvalde school shooting.
That evening, naturally, I was the first guest asked to speak, in response to the question, "shouldn't Americans change their views on the 2nd Amendment?" or on the free sale of firearms, a question that they didn't think any person could answer other than Yes.
I responded as follows (slightly redacted):
Every time there is a shooting, we are told — both by Europeans and by Democrats in America — that these American neanderthals ought to imitate the rational Europeans, and notably they are told that they ought to imitate those nice countries like the ones in Scandinavia, a country like Denmark or Norway — Norway, where in 2011, a person gunned down 77 people, most of them teen-agers. Therefore, European-type legislation, i.e., gun control, did nothing to save the children of Utøya.
Then I went on to try to ask a question, indeed two questions: Wouldn't it have been a good thing if someone on the Oslo island had had a gun and shot back at Anders Breivik (perhaps not to kill him, but at the very least to get him to seek cover, thereby interrupting his killing spree)? Furthermore — to take on a different progressive talking point — didn't Breivik deserve the death penalty?
All of which was an expansion of what I wrote in my response to a New York Times gun control editorial ten years ago:
It is easy for leftists, American as well as foreign, to tout the success of the gun control laws in the rest of the Western world … when you (deliberately or otherwise) ignore:
the 1996 massacre of 16 children at a Scottish primary school; the 2000 killing of eight kids in Japan; the 2002 deaths of eight people in Nanterre, France; the 2002 killing of 16 kids in Erfurt, Germany; the 2007 shootings to death of eight people in Tuusula, Finland; the killing of 10 people at a Finnish university less than a year later; the 2009 killing of 15 people in Winnenden, Germany; and, needless to say, Anders Breivik's 2011 mass murder of 77 Norwegians, most of them teenagers.
Is it unreasonable (or perhaps politically incorrect) to wonder whether the death tolls might have been lower in any of those places — or in the Bataclan concert hall in 2015 (137 dead) — had a few of the adults (or some of the eldest teens) carried a weapon and tried to shoot back at the respective killers?
In the 18th century — the century at the end of which the Second
Amendment was being passed in the newly-born United States — the biggest
problem for the majority of the world's population was not the right to keep and bear arms.
It was the lack of the right to keep and bear arms.
In the 19th century, likewise, the greatest problem for most people on this planet was not the absence of gun control.
It was the presence of gun control.
In the 20th century, most people did not suffer from the right to keep and bear arms.
They suffered from the lack of the right to keep and bear arms.
As can be attested by the victims (assuming they could talk) of the likes of Hitler, Lenin, Stalin,
Pol Pot, and Milosevic, along with the Hutus…
As an aside, one of the first measures taken by each of the
aforementioned (ahem) leaders after coming to power — for the good of
the people, needless to say — was to impose or to tighten arms control.
And it is no different today.
Look at Saddam's Iraq, at Khadaffi's Libya, at the Assads' Syria…
(Would not the average Iraqi citizen, the average Libyan citizen, the
average Syrian citizen over the past 30 to 40 years have been better off
with the right to keep and bear arms?)
And all of this brings us back, full circle, to Charlie Kirk's "controversial" statement, with locofocos and fire-eaters falling over themselves and going ballistic with regards to school shootings — which he is accused of (carelessly) ignoring or (despicably) minimizing. Except that his reply is far less controversial if you take the TPUSA founder's full reply (tak til Thomas Petersen) into context, not least the issue of school shootings, the most important part of which he addresses forthrightly in his conclusion, notably the final paragraph's final sentence (duly emboldened below + video at very bottom of this post):
Yeah, it's a great question. Thank you. So, I'm a big Second Amendment
fan but I think most politicians are cowards when it comes to defending
why we have a Second Amendment. This is why I would not be a good
politician, or maybe I would, I don't know, because I actually speak my
mind.
The Second Amendment is not about hunting. I love hunting. The Second
Amendment is not even about personal defense. That is important. The
Second Amendment is there, God forbid, so that you can defend yourself
against a tyrannical government. And if that talk scares you — "wow,
that's radical, Charlie, I don't know about that" — well then, you have
not really read any of the literature of our Founding Fathers. Number
two, you've not read any 20th-century history. You're just living in
Narnia. By the way, if you're actually living in Narnia, you would be
wiser than wherever you're living, because C.S. Lewis was really smart.
So I don't know what alternative universe you're living in. You just
don't want to face reality that governments tend to get tyrannical and
that if people need an ability to protect themselves and their
communities and their families.
Now, we must also be real. We must be honest with the population. Having an armed citizenry comes with a price, and that is part of liberty.
Driving comes with a price. 50,000, 50,000, 50,000 people die on the
road every year. That's a price. You get rid of driving, you'd have
50,000 less auto fatalities. But we have decided that the benefit of
driving — speed, accessibility, mobility, having products, services — is
worth the cost of 50,000 people dying on the road. So we need to be
very clear that you're not going to get gun deaths to zero. It will not
happen. You could significantly reduce them through having more fathers
in the home, by having more armed guards in front of schools. We should
have a honest and clear reductionist view of gun violence, but we should
not have a utopian one.
You will never live in a society when you have an armed citizenry and
you won't have a single gun death. That is nonsense. It's drivel. But I
am, I, I — I think it's worth it. I think it's worth to have a cost
of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have
the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational. Nobody talks like this. They live in a complete alternate universe.
So then, how do you reduce? Very simple. People say, oh, Charlie, how do
you stop school shootings? I don't know. How did we stop shootings at
baseball games? Because we have armed guards outside of baseball games.
That's why. How did we stop all the shootings at airports? We have armed
guards outside of airports. How do we stop all the shootings at banks?
We have armed guards outside of banks. How did we stop all the shootings
at gun shows? Notice there's not a lot of mass shootings at gun shows,
there's all these guns. Because everyone's armed. If our money and our sporting events and our airplanes have armed guards, why don't our children?
