Recently, I was in Bergerac for the funeral of a childhood friend. It’s always sad to lose a dear friend, even if, as Marcel Pagnol so rightly wrote: “Such is the life of men, a few joys quickly erased by unforgettable sorrows.” But my sadness was amplified when I discovered what had become of this small Perigordian town. Bergerac, a small town whose name is closely linked to that of Cyrano, whose statue stands in the old town square. And yet, as I wandered around this little corner of France for a few hours, I didn’t feel any of the panache, grandeur and pride so characteristic of Rostand’s character. Worse still, I found there a sample of what our country will be like if nothing is done to stop the movement that is underway.
In my opinion, Bergerac is the meeting point of two “Frances.” The first is the France I love, that we love, which was forged in the baptism of Clovis and built up through its beautiful churches, including the Madeleine church in Bergerac, where my friend was baptized, married and chose to end his life. A France full of charm, with its old medieval houses still standing proudly, their half-timbering adorning the narrow streets where we like to stroll and remember a country bathed in the chivalric romanticism of Cyrano. This is the France that gathers at the market in the morning, looking for a few good local products, so rich and so delicate, or at Café Vedry, one of the oldest French bistros, where it’s good to live and chat with a few Périgourdins while enjoying a good glass of Montbazillac, whose aromas and freshness are always an explosion of flavor.
It’s the France of beautiful encounters in the old town square, with French people talking about a time when Bergerac was still a little corner of paradise bathed by the Dordogne, where it was so pleasant to stroll until late at night. We’re proud of this little corner of France, we’re attached to it because, as General Charette, hero of the Vendée wars, said: “Our homeland is our land, our villages, our churches, our altars, our tombs, everything that our Fathers built and loved before us.”
The New “France”
And then there’s the second France, the one I’d rather not come across in these sad moments, the one we think we only see in our big cities, but which is unfortunately increasingly to be found in our hitherto untouched countryside. This France, if you can call it that, is home to a particularly well-established Muslim population, with its cafés, kebab shops and halal businesses. A population that imposes its own dress codes, with men in qamis and veiled women strolling by the statue of Cyrano, giving Bergerac an air of souk. This other France is also one of architectural ugliness, with low-cost housing blocks being built next to bourgeois houses from the early 20th century, and Gothic paintings adorning the peaks of medieval farmhouses. It’s a strange artistic encounter that makes me think that mixing genres is a source of confusion, and that beauty only exists in the arts if it resists the dominant culture and is preserved in its original freshness.
I finally discovered this other France when I went to the little Madeleine church on a Thursday morning. No priest to say mass, just a layman adorned with a cross to welcome us, before we were invited into the choir to say a few words about hope, about what we believe in… or don’t believe in… about the need to search for a God or something else… This other France has lost its Catholic faith, just as it has lost the ethics of dress. No one in the assembly deigned to wear a suit, if only out of respect for God or at least for the deceased. Sad France, which has lost its sense of the sacred, of beauty, of the grandeur of its land and its history.
So, in Bergerac, two Frances rub shoulders. How did we get to this point in just a few decades? I can think of several explanations, which I’m sure won’t be exhaustive, but which nonetheless seem essential to me. The first, the cause of all our ills, is a strong desire on the part of our successive leaders to wipe the slate clean and erase the Europe of nations. This globalist political class, trained in the Young Leaders sessions, sees France only as a global village that needs to be connected and merged with the rest of the world. For them, France is just an idea, bathed in a world where God is dead and only hedonism and consumerism matter. According to them, a foreigner can be French, because in any case they don’t believe in our country, its identity or its sovereignty. Nor do they believe in European civilization, in what has made its long memory and greatness, but rather in the European Union and its regional superclass. To make us citizens of the world, uprooted and replaced… that is the objective of this globalist caste, the better to enrich and enslave us. Cyrano’s courage, honor and panache have given way to the so-called humanist values of liberty, equality and fraternity.
Towards an Islamic Caliphate
The second explanation is the intersection of two currents that are gradually erasing our France, the one we cherish and the only one we believe in. The first is the forced Islamization of our country. Many French people still either don’t see it, or refuse to see it. Halal products are filling supermarket shelves, veiled women are increasingly numerous in our streets, and very few French towns of any size don’t have their own cathedral-mosque. Everything is being done to facilitate and accelerate the spread of Islam on European soil: ever-massive arrivals of mostly Muslim migrants, the collaboration of European institutions with Muslim Brotherhood networks, the compromise of elected politicians with Islamist movements.
France is sinking little by little into a veritable partition of its national soil, but this doesn’t seem to worry most French people, too busy at each presidential election with their purchasing power, lulled to sleep by the media and annihilated by a state that can no longer guarantee them any protection in their own country. Taking advantage of the weakness of part of the political class and the compromise of many elected representatives, Islamist networks have long had a clear and coherent strategy. One of the early thinkers of the Muslim Brotherhood wrote: “Islam will return to Europe as a victorious conqueror… This time it will not be a conquest by the sword, but by the preaching and dissemination of Islamic ideology… This expansion will be the beginning of the return of the Islamic Caliphate.” Bergerac is proof that this strategy is on the way to success.
This profound Islamization is catalyzed by the erasure of the figure of the white, French man, and more generally, of the European, through the increasingly strong influence of Woke ideology. This ideology claims to perceive “systemic” evil and to denounce the injustices suffered by minorities because of populations enjoying privileges due to their “whiteness” (i.e., their skin color) or their dominant sexual orientation (i.e., their heterosexuality). In reality, the sole aim is to deconstruct and destroy everything that is beautiful, good and great about our Europe and our country, by playing the indignation and victimization card. In short, to give power to minorities, no matter how degenerate their ideas.
The sources of influence are numerous, be they elected representatives, LGBT+ lobbies, the political and media class, or the global superclass of which the Soros family is the tutelary figure. Imbued with this cancel culture, today’s generations, fed on Netflix series, influenced by the effects of fashion and aggressive advertising that infuse the totality of their perceptions, will shape the future of our civilization and our country. France is gradually losing its soul, its identity, annihilated by domineering and destructive ideologies. Caught in a vice between Islamization and wokism, the French are losing their bearings, cowering and submitting.
From Gallic Village to Global Village
Finally, if this other France is gradually gaining the upper hand over the first, it’s because the French have lost all sense of the sacred and all spirit of resistance. The sacred, the elevation of souls, was the prerogative of the pre-Vatican II Catholic Church, where Corpus Christi was still the occasion for beautiful processions in small villages like Bergerac, and where people still respected religion and the dead enough to dress up for funeral masses. Unfortunately, the Council dragged the whole Church down the slope of modernism, so decried by Pope John XXIII’s predecessors. The Church had to adapt, whatever the cost, to societal progressivism and to the world’s evolutions, even the ugliest ones, stooping to every compromise rather than elevating itself and transcending souls. It has to be said that this vast enterprise to de-Christianize France has had the desired results. In 2023, the French no longer believe and have become nihilistic.
We can’t hold it against them; only reproach them for not having had the spirit of resistance. The French have indeed lost the flame of resistance, the same flame that inspired Charles Martel at Poitiers, Joan of Arc at Orléans, General de Vassoigne at Bazeilles and so many other illustrious Frenchmen. Today, France is dying, our European civilization is on the brink of the abyss. A few courageous people dare to revolt from time to time, as during the Manif pour tous to denounce the profound societal drifts of the political class, or during the Gilets jaunes riots, bloodily put down by the police. But this small resistance is very little, random, nipped in the bud by an implacable political machine that crushes brains and bodies and arbitrarily decides France’s future with the strength of 49.3. Without a charismatic leader, without solid organization and strategy, without a real mass awareness among the French of the fundamental importance of rising up at last and renewing with the spirit of resistance of our Fathers, the France we love will never rise again. Worse, it will be replaced by this other France, swept away by the waves of globalization and Islamization, drowned under the waves of the global village.
Reborn with Cyrano
Should we resign ourselves to this fate? No, of course not. This is not what our forefathers would have demanded of us, this is not what our children expect of us. Bergerac must remain Bergerac, France must remain the France we love and that so many French people have loved before us. As Jean Raspail so rightly wrote: “When you represent an almost lost cause, you have to sound the trumpet, jump on your horse and try the last exit, otherwise you die of sad old age at the bottom of the forgotten fortress that no one besieges anymore because life has gone elsewhere.” The Camp of the Saints is here, before our very eyes, and we need to react quickly if we want to change the end of History. This is our duty as French people. We must not be afraid to reclaim our sovereignty, our identity, our Christianity, our security, our culture, our traditions, our families. Let’s dare to raise our heads. Let’s stop being afraid and resigned. Life is a struggle, and we must accept this and commit to it without delay, each according to his or her qualities and skills.
There’s no shortage of opportunities to do so, whether in politics, in cultural life and associations, in identitarian or Catholic youth movements, or in institutes such as Iliade, which are committed to defending the long memory of our Europe and our country. Let’s not give in to the temptation to wait and see, to pessimism and cynicism. Let us be courageous. Let us have faith in our country, in its future and in its newfound freedom. Let’s be Cyranos in our turn, so that there is only one France, the one we have always cherished and that we must summon with all our strength and soul for our children.
Alix Le Kalonec writes from France. This article appears courtesy of Revue Éléments.