When Notre Dame Cathedral burned in 2019, the world mourned. It was apparently a tragic accident, and there was universal grief that one of the well-known symbols of French identity, the place of Napoleon’s coronation, and a beauty of Gothic architecture, was burned.
The town hall for Limoges, France, is now also burning. Unlike Notre Dame, this was definitely no accident. The Louvre Museum is currently closed because protesters have blockaded the entrance. One hopes that French officials have plans to protect the world’s most beloved artwork as the riots continue.
The French must now realize their culture and civilization are threatened by this lawlessness. Watching a historic building being burned to the ground should anger them, and the violence should provoke them into using force to uphold the law.
There is a video that is fast becoming a meme of a couple sitting in a cafe terrace, smoking cigarettes and drinking while the city burns in the background. While there is no way of knowing what those individuals think about the riots, their posture echoes France’s approach: ignore and whitewash the mayhem while the country burns. The Louvre, when announcing that the museum was closed, referred to the chaos simply as “student strikes.”
The burning of France due to these out-of-control protests is worrisome to the West. For years, America has watched France, the United Kingdom, and much of Western Europe reduce the size of their militaries while increasing funding for healthcare and other government social programs. The U.S. has been right to challenge our Western allies to get to 5% of GDP spending on national defense to demonstrate their seriousness about the NATO alliance. Witnessing France’s inability to defend itself has created new uncertainty about the reliability of our allies.
France must demonstrate to the rest of the alliance that it is willing to use force to rein in the disorder, that it is capable of defending its people from taking a blowtorch to the face and having their businesses ransacked.
Spain has not yet forgotten the Ceuta migrant crisis in July of this year, when 50,000 migrants frantically crossed from Morocco into the enclave of Ceuta. Violent clashes also occurred in Milan and Turin, Italy, over the weekend that looked eerily similar to what we’ve seen in France. The U.K. and the rest of Western Europe are watching uneasily.
Now is the time for our European allies to show the U.S. that they can and will defend themselves. America needs allies that can. Using a police force to rein in violent riots is not pleasant, but it is necessary to remain a functioning nation. With France’s ballooning deficit and shrinking military, it appears the French must now also exhibit their capability of basic governance.
But even more than proving their reliability as an ally, the French must rediscover national pride. France gave the world the beauty of Versailles and the Arc de Triomphe, and the artistry of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Jean-Honore Fragonard, and Claude Monet. Beauty, like the town hall of Limoges, is difficult to build but easy to destroy, which is why it must be rigorously defended.
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These riots are forcing France to answer the challenge Secretary of State Marco Rubio made in front of the Parthenon: defending Western civilization.
When Notre Dame burned with no obvious blame, the world grieved, and France understood the importance of rebuilding. Now there is an obviously guilty party that must be held accountable for this destruction and violence. France must show the world and its citizens that it is still a country that enforces the law and defends its culture and people. The world is counting on it.