The Suicide of France
A Nation Must Believe It Has the Right to Remain Itself
Hi friends,
This essay is inspired by Eric Zemmour’s The Suicide of France, but the broader concern is not his alone. France itself has debated “separatism,” assimilation, public order, and whether republican law can hold against parallel societies. Pew, OECD, and French government sources all show that immigration, integration, schools, and national identity are not abstract issues. They are now central questions for every Western nation.
The point is not that every immigrant fails to integrate. Many do integrate. The concern is what happens when a country loses the confidence to require assimilation as a condition of long-term national unity.
The Lesson from France: A Nation Must Believe It Has the Right to Remain Itself
France is giving the West a warning.
Not because France is weak. Not because the French people lack history, culture, courage, or intelligence. Quite the opposite. France is one of the great civilizations of the world. It gave us cathedrals, philosophers, artists, military heroes, political revolutions, great literature, and a deep national identity rooted in language, place, memory, and pride.
That is exactly why its current struggle matters.
The warning from France is not simply about immigration. It is not simply about Islam. It is not about saying every immigrant is a threat or every Muslim is an enemy. That would be unfair and untrue.
The deeper issue is this: Can a nation survive if its own institutions stop believing it has the right to remain itself?
That is the question France has been forced to face.
For decades, many French leaders and cultural elites treated national pride as outdated, borders as embarrassing, assimilation as intolerant, and traditional values as something to apologize for. Schools softened the teaching of national memory. Courts and bureaucracies often seemed more concerned with avoiding offense than enforcing order. Political leaders talked about tolerance but often failed to require loyalty to France’s laws, language, customs, and civic expectations.
The result has not been compassion. It has been confusion.
When a country stops teaching newcomers what it means to belong, it does not create unity. It creates separation. When a country stops expecting assimilation, it does not create peace. It creates parallel societies. When schools stop transmitting history and civic memory, children do not become more enlightened. They become easier to detach from the nation that raised them.
And when leaders become more afraid of defending the country than of losing it, the people eventually notice.
That is the lesson America — and Texas — must take seriously.
We do not need to become fearful, hateful, or extreme. But we do need to be honest. A nation is not just an economy. It is not just a labor market. It is not just roads, stores, technology, and tax revenue.
A nation is a people bound by shared laws, shared memory, shared language, shared duties, and a shared understanding of right and wrong.
If those things are not taught, defended, and passed on, they do not magically preserve themselves.
America has its own version of this challenge. We see it in open-border policies that overwhelm communities. We see it in schools that sometimes teach children more about America’s sins than America’s founding principles. We see it when law enforcement is undermined, when citizenship is treated as a technicality, and when civic unity is replaced with grievance categories.
We see it when ordinary citizens are told that defending borders, election integrity, parental rights, local control, or constitutional government is somehow “extreme.”
It is not extreme to want a country with borders. It is not extreme to expect children to learn American history. It is not extreme to believe newcomers should embrace our Constitution, our laws, and our civic culture. It is not extreme to insist that local communities have a say in what happens to their schools, neighborhoods, land, and way of life.
That is not hatred. That is stewardship.
Texas has a special responsibility here. We are a border state. We are a growth state. We are a state people move to because they still believe there is something freer, stronger, and more grounded here.
But Texas will not remain Texas by accident. Freedom requires memory. Local control requires participation. Safe communities require law and order. Constitutional government requires citizens who understand it well enough to defend it.
France reminds us that cultural decline does not usually happen overnight. It happens gradually, through a thousand small surrenders. A softened curriculum. A silent parent. A city council nobody watches. A school board race nobody votes in. A law not enforced. A word redefined. A tradition mocked. A border ignored. A people told, year after year, that loving their country is something to be ashamed of.
The good news is that decline is not inevitable.
Citizens can still show up. Parents can still ask questions. Voters can still pay attention to local races. Churches, civic groups, families, and neighborhoods can still teach what schools neglect. Communities can still insist on safety, order, honesty, and self-government.
The lesson from France is not despair.
The lesson is urgency.
A country can survive hardship, enemies, recessions, wars, and mistakes. What it cannot survive is the loss of belief in itself.
America is worth preserving. Texas is worth preserving. Our Constitution is worth preserving. But preservation is not passive. It is the work of citizens.
So let France be a warning — not because we are doomed to follow, but because we still have time not to.
Wake up. Pay attention. Speak up. Show up.
A free country remains free only when its people decide it is worth the effort.
Note:
Pew Research Center’s newer data helps keep this discussion factual. Europe has not been “taken over” demographically: Pew estimated Muslims were about 6% of Europe’s population in 2020. But Pew also found that Muslims were 18% of migrants living in Europe, and that Muslim population growth in several European countries has been tied to immigration and higher-than-average fertility. In other words, the question is not panic; it is assimilation. Can Western nations absorb large-scale migration while still preserving a shared civic culture, rule of law, language, and national memory?
Sources:
“The Suicide of France” by Eric Zammour
https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2023/06/indicators-of-immigrant-integration-2023_70d202c4.html
As always, do your own research and make up your own mind.
White paper on land and water rights: Property Rights and Freedom: A White Paper on America’s Disappearing Land (8/13/2025)
United we stand. Divided we fall. We must not let America fall.
VoteTexas.gov, https://www.votetexas.gov/get-involved/index.html
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