Ethnic Purity

The French seem to be having a problem with what Jimmy Carter used to call "ethnic purity."  They should remember that the Corsican Napoleon Bonaparte grew up speaking Italian.  And he was short.

Who is French?  Only Gallo-Romans?  Or maybe we should add the Normans?  The Bretons?  The Alsatians?  (Dear me, I think they drink beer.)

What would Asterix the Gaul say about the current ethnic hodgepodge in France?

There's a new novel out called Submission, by Michel Houellebecq, which imagines France in 2022 with a Muslim president.

Well, let's think about this.  France has a lot of Muslims -- a little more or less than 10 percent of the population.  (The government is not allowed to ask people their religion, so all estimates are just that -- estimates.)

So where do all these Muslims come from?  Well, most of them come from North Africa -- 82 percent from Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia.  43 percent from Algeria alone.  (Again, these are estimates.)  Morocco was a protectorate of France, as was Tunisia.  Algeria was actually a part of Metropolitan France, just like Mr. Napoleon's Corsica and the same way Texas is a part of the United States.

My thought is, if you didn't want Muslims -- or Basques or Bretons -- why did you take these places over?  Who knows, one day the United States may have a Hmong president.  From Minnesota.  I look forward to it.