Steven Plaut's French Solution

The French Solution

By Steven Plaut

FrontPageMagazine.com | November 7, 2005

There are very few things as amusing these days as watching the French grapple with their backyard intifada. The suburbs of Paris are now more dangerous than Jenin, and the French are getting their comeuppance for decades of snootiness, anti-American and anti-Israel agitprop, and decades of cowardice.

Paris is now being targeted by violent rioting hordes. For years the French accused American racism of having produced the race riots of the 60s and 70s in the US, as well as the Los Angeles riots after the Rodney King business. And the French are sure that only Jewish cussedness and just plain Israeli evil lie behind the behavior of the Palestinian pogromchiki. The Gall of Dem Gauls!

Well, now that the French are experiencing their own intifada, we suggest that they resolve the problem using the very same plan that they have been trying for decades to impose upon Israel.

Yes, comrades, it is time to implement the Land for Peace Plan, Paris style. Here it is:

The French Solution: Land for Peace

So after leading the Solidarity-with-the-Baathists movement in Europe during the recent Gulf War, France now enjoys its own intifada by urban Moslem resistance fighters in suburban Paris! Of course, this is all on top of France's long history of supporting Islamist fascism and Palestinian terrorism.

A few years back during a trip to Israel, French prime minister Lionel Jospin urged Israel to make concessions for peace. More interesting yet, in documents relating to his visit, Jerusalem was called the ''capital of the Palestinian Authority.'' And what do the French consider to be the capital of Israel? Tel Aviv, of course. A few years later, French President Jacques Chirac used the occasion of his visit in 1996 to announce that ''Syria has a moral right to demand return of the Golan Heights.''

These French politicians may be on to something important. Never one to back down from a challenge, I have prepared a set of proposals for consideration by the French people, so that they not only can preserve peace in Parisian suburbia, but also can achieve a full, lasting, and just peace with their urban resistance opponents.

First, until this plan is implemented in full, we must insist that the French government acknowledge that there is no military or police solution to the problems of violence in its suburbs and only through recognizing the legitimacy of the demands of the murderers and rioters outside Paris can the problems be resolved.

Second, we all agree that territory must not be annexed by force. Therefore, we can also agree that Germany has a moral right to demand the return of Alsace-Lorraine, for the French aggression in 1945 and its consequent occupation must not be rewarded. ''A full withdrawal for full peace'' should operate here. Further, France must agree to the return and rehabilitation of all ethnic Germans expelled from Alsace-Lorraine after World Wars I and II, as well as all those they define as their descendents.

But this, of course, is just the first step toward a solution, as no aggression can be rewarded and France has much other stolen territory to return. It took Corsica from Genoa, Nice and Savoy from Piedmont; as the successor state, Italy must get back all these lands. By similar token, territories grabbed from the Habsburgs go back to Austria, including Franche-Comte, Artois, and historical Burgundy. The Roussillon area (along the Pyrenees) must be returned to Spain, its rightful owner. And Normandy, Anjou, Aquitaine, and Gascony must be returned to their rightful owners, the British royal family.

Not even this is enough for the sake of peace. Brittany and Languedoc must be granted autonomy at once, recognizing the Breton and Occitan Liberation organizations as their legal rulers. This leaves the French government in control over the Ile de France (the area around Paris).

That, however, still does not solve the problem of the Holy City of Paris, sacred to artists, gourmets, and adulterers. The Corsicans obviously have a historical claim to the Tomb of the Emperor Napoleon, their famed son, as well as the Invalides complex and beyond. For the sake of peace, is it not too much to ask that Paris be the capital for two peoples? The French authorities must agree to prevent French Parisians from even entering the sacred tomb area, lest this upset the Corsicans.

The Saint Chapelle and the Church of Notre Dame, of course, will be internationalized, under joint Vatican-art historical auspices. Indeed, the French should consider it a compliment of the highest order that so many people see Paris as an international city.

The French have nothing to complain about. They will enjoy the benefits of peace and retain control of the Champs Elysees.

Actually, come to think of it, even the Champs Elysees may be too much. Recalling the French position that Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel, perhaps the true French capital is not Paris at all, but Vichy.