Daniel Pipes: British Weakness, French Strength

FrontPage Magazine has an article by Daniel Pipes contrasting the attitudes of the British and the French when it comes to the War on Terror and their response to radical Islamism:

France is the most stalwart nation in the West, even more so than the United States, while Great Britain is the very most hapless. Consider:

U.K.-based terrorists have carried out operations in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kenya, Tanzania, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Israel, Morocco, Russia, Spain, and the United States. Many governments – Jordanian, Egyptian, Moroccan, Spanish, French, and American – have protested London’s refusal to shut down its Islamist terrorist infrastructure or extradite wanted operatives. In frustration, Egyptian president Husni Mubarak publicly denounced Britain for “protecting killers.” One American security group has called for Britain to be listed as a terrorism-sponsoring state.

More broadly, President Jacques Chirac instructed French intelligence agencies just days after 9/11 to share terrorism data with their U.S. counterparts “as if they were your own service.” This cooperation is working: former acting CIA director John E. McLaughlin calls this bilateral intelligence tie “one of the best in the world.” The British may have a “special relationship” with Washington in Iraq, but the French have one in the war on terror.

France accords terrorist suspects fewer rights than any other Western state, permitting interrogation without a lawyer, lengthy pre-trial incarcerations, and evidence acquired under dubious circumstances. Were he a terrorism suspect, says Evan Kohlmann, author of Al-Qaida’s Jihad in Europe, he “would least like to be held under” the French system.

The myriad French-British differences in this arena can be summarized by the example of what Muslim girls may wear to state-funded schools.

Pipes' conclusion?

The British have seemingly lost interest in their heritage while the French hold on to theirs; even as the British ban fox hunting, the French ban hijabs. The former embraced multiculturalism, the latter retain a pride in their historic culture. This contrast in matters of identity makes Great Britain the Western country most vulnerable to the ravages of radical Islam whereas France, for all its political failings, has retained a sense of self that may yet see it through.

That is not to say that France does not have enormous problems with its citizens of the Mohammedan faith, particularly in its public housing estates and prisons. However, the fundamental difference is one of attitude. To a believer in individual rights and freedoms, particularly one of anglo-saxon descent, the French criminal justice system will often seem too little concerned with the civil rights of the individual citizen.

However, the French ought to be congratulated for their understanding that the appropriate response to Islamism in the Mosques is not multiculturalist pandering and "Islam is Peace - Let's all celebrate Eid" Outreach, but vigorous prosecution, lengthy gaol sentences and deportation.