First, some words from France’s resident tough guy, Nicolas Sarkozy:

I would like to say one thing, in what is my conception of the Republic, security is the responsibility of the State, I am against militias, I am against the private ownership of firearms, and I????????m trying to make you think about that. If you are assaulted by an armed burglar, he????????ll use his weapon more effectively than you anyway so you????????re risking your life. If the criminal is not armed and you are and you shoot, your life will be ruined, because killing someone over a theft is not in line with the republican values that are mine. The private ownership of firearms is dangerous. I understand your exasperation for having been burglarized two times, I understand the fear that your wife and daughter may have but the answer is in the efficiency of the police and the efficiency of the judiciary process, the answer is not in having guns at home.

I lived in New York City and San Francisco in the early 1990s and I remember hearing this kind of talk from city leaders like Art Agnos and David Dinkins all the time. I felt like I was suffocating and all I ever thought of was getting a gun, all I ever dreamed of was taking out a mugger, all I ever wanted was one month to go by without a trip to the police station to file yet another report.

No, Sarkozy doesn’t “understand,” not in the slightest. I went from liking him to wanting to kick him front and center after reading that. He just doesn’t get it. And to make matters worse, he’s supposed to be the tough one over there in a sea of soggy socialist apologists. This is downright scary. And decadent.

It took Rudolph Giuliani to change the world, through his advanced police science and his political will to take a mop and broom to all the thugs on the streets, ending the horror of massive crime for all of us. Great revolutionary, that Giuliani.

France has no such leader, anywhere. Instead, they have Sarkozy, who expressed that statement above.

Not surprisingly, thugs read this message from what passes for ‘hardliner’ in France and they draw their own conclusions: the system in France and perhaps Europe as a whole is weak and vacillating, with no will to defend itself, either individually or especially through the state.

Just check out the public attitudes described here, regarding the face-covering veil – people wearing them actually expect to be hired as a matter of right, on their terms and feel quite free to blame the society if they aren’t successful. And they also feel confident enough to challenge society when they don’t get their way because they will get a sympathetic establishment to see things their way – the judges, the media, the polticians. As for the consensus in the rest of the society, the very culture, well, too bad, forget it.

That’s why France is now on the verge of civil war, according to the estimable Paul Belien of Brussels Journal, who’s been persecuted by the eurotrash Clousseaus for his bloggings. Pajamas Media has an exclusive interview with him here. Belien writes that 50,000 riot police are getting ready to do battle – with no will to win. It’s well worth reading and pondering here.