France

I suppose everybody has feelings about France. I know I do. Maybe you resent the French or maybe you admire them ... or can't quite figure out what is happening to them and their country. Maybe it's a mixture of all three of these sentiments.

We at The New Republic, whatever our individual feelings, actually believe that the Muslim riots in France constitute a historic turning point for all of Western Europe, like the late sixties in America. But that is a summation of emotions--not genuine illumination. And illumination, steeped in history, is our true vocation.

I want to call your attention to five particular articles in the last two weeks that you may have missed. If so, tiens! Still, you can go back and read them--in hard copy and online.

The first of these is a long piece (with a dejected Napoleon on the cover) by Paul Berman, the author of Terror and Liberalism, the prize-winning book of two years ago, relating France's xenophobia towards America to its historic arrogance about France as the perfect model for everyone, including its Arab and African immigrants.

The second is by David Bell, historian at Johns Hopkins University and author of The Cult of the Nation in France, who explains why assimilation has been an abysmal failure with the country's Muslim immigrants.

The third is by Keelin McDonell, who knows France very well and wrote in our columns about the country's historic habits of violence.

Just as the riots erupted, we published a short essay by the French novelist and thinker Pascal Bruckner arguing that France's masochism will simply prevent it from dealing with its minority problem at all, a very grim prospect indeed.

And, online, James Forsyth, an editor at Foreign Affairs, argued that "It's not just France. It's Europe."

Marty Peretz, Editor-in-Chief