Failed integration: In next 10-20 years, France will be new Lebanon – writer

In just a few years, Islamic suburbs of Paris will obey their own set of rules, they will have their own laws, their own principles, maybe even their own police. It is already the case, Alexandre Mendel, author of the book ‘Partition’ told RT.

Europe has been facing a large number of migrants coming from the war-torn countries in Africa and the Middle East. Today many are concerned about the Islamization of Europe and the failure of Muslims assimilating into their new countries.

RT met with a writer Alexandre Mendel, whose new book “Partition” is devoted to the Muslims' failure to integrate in France, and discussed the current situation in that country.

RT:  Please start by describing for our readers your book.

Alexandre Mendel: My last book, 'Jihadist France,' was only about the French terrorists. ‘Partition’ is mainly about Islamization of France, about what’s going on in France, in schools, hospitals, at work, in sports clubs, etc. I am not talking this time about terrorism itself, but about the way France decided whether the French government - like it or not – collaborated and accepted some kind of arrangements with Islam. This is the main topic of the book.

There are at least two things that are important about the Islamization. The first one is that you cannot be always blind with this problem. For 20-30 years we let down our rules, our principals, our republican ideals; we negotiated with Islamists. We are totally blind to this kind of small signals that some parts of France were becoming Islamized. That can explain the terrorism today in France. If we didn’t accept these little arrangements with radical Islam, we probably wouldn’t have had so many attacks in France. That is why it is so important today not to be blind anymore in France and to tell the truth. 

My book is made of many, many reports in France. It is not a theoretical book – it is a book written by a reporter. We went there, we went to the schools, to the hospitals, to the cities where people and police never set foot to see the reality and just to talk about the reality. A lot of French people, especially a lot of French journalists and French politicians never go there. It is very important today to be a reporter in these areas where nobody sets foot anymore. This is a testimony of our modern time.

RT:  What should be done to integrate people into society? Is it only a Muslim thing, or other groups, as well?

AM: In my book, I say that there is no solution, because it is too late; there won’t be any solution. You can’t send them back to their country - they are French - the French cannot send them back. What France will become in the next 10 or 20 years will be a kind of new Lebanon in some places in France.

For example, take some suburbs in Paris: they will have their own set of rules, they will have their own laws, their own principals, maybe even their own police. It is already the case. The fact that in France right now in many places France has no control in these areas. We accepted it already and we won’t fight back to get these suburbs back to France. It is already done – we already lost the war against them.

So the rich people in France will be in the fancy neighborhoods of Paris, far from the problems, and then the poor people will have to deal with Islamism on a daily base. This is the way we accepted that already.

RT:  Why did integration fail in France, do you think?

AM: Integration has failed in France, but not only France – in many other countries, because we buried our republican principal to actually mimic what exists in Great Britain, in Canada, or in the US; accept that you could be French, get French citizenship without even speaking French, without even going to the Republican French School, get French citizenship, without living like the French. France is not a new country of immigration – it has a very long story of immigration. People in the 1920s came to France from all over Europe – from Poland, from Russia, from Armenia, Italy, and there was no problem to integrate them, not problem at all…