The worse things get for France, as their experiment in importing recalcitrant, non-western populations has failed, the more the French elite, led by Emmanuel Macron, blame “American-style free speech” as the real villain.

Nothing quite says “We have to protect our phony-baloney jobs!” as entrenched authoritarians like Macron go full Orwell.

While long the darling of Western media, Macron has been one of the most anti-free-speech leaders in the world. On Sept. 29, he declared that “The so-called American ‘free speech’ today, which some people have promoted, is the opposite of free speech.” Having Emmanuel Macron holding forth on free speech is akin to Joey Chestnut proselytizing on veganism.

France has been in a headlong plunge into censorship and speech criminalization. These laws criminalize speech under vague standards referring to “inciting” or “intimidating” others based on race or religion.

We’ve seen those laws in action — it is less about inciting (which actually has a legal definition; e.g. Brandenburg v. Ohio) — and it is more about those in power using the law to shut down any criticism that gets under their very thin skins.

The hypocrisy is pretty blatant, too. Remember Bridget Bardot?

Many of us were disgusted recently when Macron celebrated Brigitte Bardot’s life as someone who “embodied a life of freedom.” As I discussed, the French government repeatedly prosecuted Bardot for speaking about her views.

Macron’s praise for Bardot’s “life of freedom” is reminiscent of the reaction of French officials to the massacre of editors at Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine. After hounding the victims for years with criminal investigations, the French government organized a march for free speech. As predicted, it then used the killing by Islamic extremists to further crack down on free speech.

Let’s also recall none other than John Kerry said that the Islamic terrorist who murdered those at Charlie Hebdo had “a rationale” for doing so.

Large-scale, mass migration from non-Western cultures into France and the UK has been going on for some time and has reached critical mass. The local, ethnic English and French are noticing their countries have changed. Changed for the worse. And their leaders’ response? A hard push to authoritarianism.

This is why we now see the political leadership of western countries making hard turns toward authoritarianism, and especially against free speech. Freedom of expression is the one thing you cannot tolerate if the state is going to enforce multiculturalism and impose a large foreign population on a native one. (snip)

(I)t means the liberal leaders of France and Britain are openly arguing that their societies must become less free, more controlled, more monitored. Recently French President Emmanuel Macron said the American idea of free speech is “the opposite of free speech,” and that freedom can only exist within a “common framework” created and managed by the state. In his view, freedom is a privilege granted to individuals by the state, which defines the range of acceptable discourse in accordance with “public order.” He compared limits on speech to prohibitions on assault or the destruction of public property — essentially declaring that speech is violence and must be suppressed by the state, if necessary.

“Speech is violence” … now where have we heard that expression before? Could it be from the Left, in places where Antifa operates to “bash the Fash”? Or in the celebrations online of the assassination of Charlie Kirk?

Cities across France burn, but it’s ethnic French and English people who dare express displeasure at losing their culture who are the real problem. They don’t even know they don’t really exist …

Indeed, (Jean-Luc) Mélenchon, who is running for president in next year’s national election, has been rather explicit in his desire to erase the French people and replace them with foreigners. On a recent panel, echoing remarks from Britain’s Jacob Rees-Mogg on how the English are a “mongrel people,” he derided the very concept of “native French people,” declaring that a “process of creolization has already taken place” in France, and that those wanting a “static world” are dreaming of something that is gone for good.

These Euro-dictators are particularly upset with America — here Biden was fulfilling the transmogrification with unchecked illegal migration of third-worlders up to 11,000 per month while also using government pressure on social media platforms (Google, Twitter, Facebook) to suppress unwelcome speech and outright ban discussion topics but then those pesky Americans in fly-over country elected Trump and Elon Musk bought Twitter.

HOW DARE THEY???

Instead of, say, trying to stop rioters from burning schools, the French government is focused on censoring its citizens by labeling them as part of "foreign interference." Censors are a real class act. https://t.co/fBMXJnwAax

— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) October 8, 2026

France may be burning now, but take it as a prescient warning of what lies ahead for America if Democrats regain one bit of power.

featured image, original graphic by Darleen Click