Malika Sorel is an engineer from the École Polytechnique in Algiers. She was an advisor to Prime Minister François Fillon on education and immigration during the 2017 presidential elections She also worked at the High Council for Integration, which deals with migration issues. The author of several books on the problems posed by immigration in Europe and the policies required to address these problems, Sorel was number two on the Rassemblement National list, headed by Jordan Bardella, and she was elected as a Member of the European Parliament on 9 June.
Rassemblement National’s victory in the European elections was entirely likely according to the polls, but did you expect such an overwhelming victory over Macron’s party?
Across the country, we could feel the anger rising, and at the same time we saw the hope raised by our list. At the root of the people’s anger, we find reasons that directly concern the rejection of the President’s personality and and record. But there are other reasons, particularly related to the candidate who steered his list to the Europeans, Valérie Hayer.
Hayer proved she was not up to the job. She lacked skills, knowledge, and mastery of the issues. This was to be expected from someone who had been a member of the European Parliament for five years and who had also led the Renew group. Some of her debates were catastrophic and surreal.
Regarding President Emmanuel Macron, the public has increasingly rejected his personality. Many French people see him as arrogant, narcissistic, and uninterested in his people’s cries of distress. On many occasions, he has said very hurtful things to the French people—words that a president should not utter because any president must show that he loves and respects his people.
What’s more, the president doesn’t seem to be listening to many people. This was demonstrated by his solitary, sudden decision to dissolve the National Assembly, without even giving the political parties enough time to organise themselves properly—especially on the eve of the Olympic games, which deserved and required the concentration of all the State’s resources.
In many areas, his record has been catastrophic. Insecurity is soaring in France, as is debt. The economy is not flourishing. Confidence in the future is falling. Young people feel relegated. Schools are in bad shape. In some areas, teachers are beginning to fear the pupils in their classrooms! The French hospital system, which used to be so renowned, is also in increasingly poor health. All this is fueling justified disappointment and anger among the people.
What were the keys to this victory?
Every day, a number of facts and events bear out everything that the Rassemblement National has been warning about for decades.
The French are now experiencing growing impoverishment and the devastating consequences of the mass immigration that the Rassemblement National has long denounced. It is no longer possible for certain elites to hide the seriousness of what is happening. No part of France has been spared from either insecurity or economic decline.
The globalisation that was sold as a good thing is, in fact, proving to be a bad thing. The French see their country changing, not for the better but for the worse. We increasingly have the feeling that we are living in a country on the road to underdevelopment.
Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen’s ability to bring together personalities from all walks of life has also had a major influence. This unity appealed greatly to the French. They know that to halt the decline and get France back on its feet, we need to unite all those who love the country and reject fatalism.
Can the good results achieved by ECR and ID form the basis for the formation of a large European right-wing group?
The union of all the right-wing parties has become a vital emergency to preserve the peoples who make up the European Union. The passage of time increases the danger of the erasure of Western civilization in Europe and with it all the progress that has been made, including the protection of individual rights. Freedom is at stake, yes, but so is women’s safety and the future of hard-won equality between men and women, which is increasingly being called into question by a section of the non-European immigrant population. This is the real challenge to which the institutions of the European Union have been worse than blind, because they have often taken decisions that run counter to the interests of the people of Europe.
We need to change course, and that is why it is vital that we join forces to address the seriousness of what is happening in all the countries of the European Union, whether it be on immigration issues or the indoctrination of very young children with gender theories that disturb them, destabilise them, and cause them great anxiety.
We are at an historic moment when the opportunity to turn Europe around, to save it, is within our grasp. So, I don’t understand why some of our partners, even though they share our concerns and worries, want to join the EPP, which has demonstrated that its positions and attitudes on key issues are extremely damaging to the future of the people of Europe!
As a child of immigration, I will never understand how European political leaders have been able to turn a blind eye to what is happening, not to mention the fact that some have gone so far as to collaborate in the disaster. To have inherited countries that have brought so much progress to humanity should be a source of pride and a sense of responsibility, if only to their descendants!
Unless there is a saving grace, I believe that Europe’s contemporary political class will bear a crushing responsibility to history. I have no doubt about that. So, I very much hope that there will be such an awakening and that we will be able to build the strongest possible alliance that will enable us to save Europe from the threats it faces, and thus succeed in ensuring its historical continuity.
What do you think of Macron’s decision to dissolve the National Assembly? Is it a trap?
Journalists from a major daily newspaper claim that President Macron said, “I threw my grenade with the pin pulled into their legs. Now we’ll see how they get on.” He even said that he was “delighted!” If this is true, then it is profoundly irresponsible! How can he play with the peace of his own country like that? The uncertainty created by this sudden dissolution had immediate repercussions on the financial markets, which hate instability. The economic world itself is now anxious because an operation to manipulate public opinion has been launched in an attempt to discredit the Rassemblement National and denigrate the French people who voted for it. This is not democratic.
With these legislative elections, of course, Emmanuel Macron is hoping to reverse the result of the European elections. His decision to dissolve also shows that he behaved like an offended child, when he should simply have taken note of the people’s decision, and respected it, as the spirit of democracy demands.
The danger now hanging over France is that it could tip over into a political crisis linked to the impossibility of forming a majority within the National Assembly. If this were the case, France would run the risk of becoming ungovernable, and any government would live under the threat of a vote of no confidence that could topple it at any moment.
France had experienced such political instability in the past, and it was for this reason that General de Gaulle wanted the Fifth Republic to bring a degree of stability to political life.
Could there be a new French revolution in July, or at least an unprecedented situation of insurrection and public disorder?
The State has all the resources it needs to ensure order and security. In my view, it is simply a question of political will.
I sincerely hope that all the political forces involved will respect the results of the elections. If not, they would disqualify themselves and leave the “republican arc,” which would require strong political decisions. If a democracy is to survive, it cannot allow factional or seditious movements to flourish.
You have written extensively on immigration and integration. What immigration policy should France follow to correct the current situation?
I’ve studied the situation in France, but also in other European countries and in Canada, where selective immigration is a failure, as Canadian officials confirmed when I worked for the High Council on Integration (an institution attached to the Prime Minister).
Everywhere in Europe, including countries with no colonial past, the same problems are being encountered. The spirit of reason should have led to drastic restrictions on migratory flows from lands where cultural integration is struggling. Who would not consider as irresponsible those parents who continue to adopt children when they find themselves unable, for whatever reason, to create normal living conditions for all their current children, whether conceived by them or already adopted? What we have here, then, is a case of profound political irresponsibility, with terrible consequences.
All the countries of the European Union must work together to stop encouraging mass immigration; because, yes, it is indeed the political decisions to welcome immigrants that are now encouraging a level of immigration that has become difficult to integrate culturally. As I explain in my books, what happened on New Year’s Eve 2016 in Cologne was no accident.
In France, as early as 1981, Georges Marchais, then secretary general of the French Communist Party, wrote that, “Official and illegal immigration must be stopped.” He referred to the problems and clashes that arose on the ground between immigrants and French people because of their different customs. No one listened to him! Today, the forces of the French left are campaigning for more immigration because immigrants vote for them. It’s all electoral cynicism now.
It is crucial that Westerners realise that the current situation is fed by their individualism and materialism. In Democracy in America, particularly Volume II, Alexis de Tocqueville perfectly identified the Achilles’ heel of democracies. Here is what he had to say about it:
I see an innumerable crowd of similar and equal men who revolve restlessly around themselves to procure small and vulgar pleasures, with which they fill their souls. As for the rest of his fellow citizens, he is beside them, but he does not see them; he touches them and does not feel them; he exists in himself and for himself alone, and, if he still has a family, it can at least be said that he no longer has a homeland.
If we are to find a way out of the current situation, citizens must rediscover their solidarity with each other and their concern for their homeland. This is a vital imperative.
In one of your books, you talk about the decomposition of France. How can this process be halted? Around what idea(s) can France come together again?
By “decomposition” I mean the fact that France is no longer united and that the French people are no longer united. This is what leads to the loss of political sovereignty. The fact that French nationality is granted—and therefore the right to vote, even when the person has not become French in heart and mind—has led to community voting. What I have called “French decomposition,”—i.e., the subdivision of the nation into groups, into rival factions—is what President François Hollande has called “partition” and Emmanuel Macron has called “separatism.” It is really the same concept.
This is what has led to the fact that we are living in an era of unbridled electoralism on the part of the French political class. In order to be elected or re-elected, politicians eventually compromise the fundamental principles that nevertheless structure the identity of their own peoples.
We are seeing the same phenomenon in other countries. Some are in an even more advanced state of decomposition, as shown by the situation in Great Britain, where there are pro-Sharia courts, or in Belgium, where a municipality is refusing to host the match between the Belgian and Israeli teams. It’s a sign of a total loss of sovereignty. Sport has always been an opportunity for people to meet, just like Eurovision. Everything has been perverted by politico-religious battles, including the Olympic games, where the charter was clear: no politics or religion on the field!
In my books, I give numerous political measures to adopt. I’m simply going to reiterate here how urgent it is, first and foremost, to reduce immigration drastically, because the creation of diasporas ruins any hope of cultural integration and therefore of living together in peace over the long term.
We also need to bear in mind that many of the problems actually arise within families, because it is within families that values that are not compatible with the Western civilization of our time are passed on. This is why action needs to be taken with parents, and even sanctions taken, to encourage them not to hinder the acculturation process of their children. Numerous studies have been carried out that shed light on all these phenomena. I cite them in my publications so that readers can understand the issues and challenges. I also list the policies that should be applied and those that should be abandoned.
But nothing will be possible unless Westerners themselves realise that the future of their civilization and the destiny of their own children are at stake. I would like to end with words often attributed to Mahatma Gandhi: “He who sees a problem and does nothing is part of the problem.”
