"France is Dying, France is Dying..."

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Gen. Piquemal

Yesterday, A PEGIDA demonstration went ahead in Calais, even though it had been previously banned by the Interior Minister. It was small--perhaps no more than one-hundred people--but the featured speaker was a retired four-star general, General Christian Piquemal, the former commander of the Foreign Legion in the 1990's.

From the looks of it, there were hundreds of police from different branches, almost certainly outnumbering the demonstrators. (And there now seems to be some sort of legal challenge occurring due to the alleged illegality of the presence of Municipal Police.) The police acted quite aggressively and arrested twenty people including the General. See below for a short video of Piquemal being forcibly half-marched and half-dragged away, his senior-citizen figure soon barely visible at the center of a large scrum of shouting riot-gear clad officers.

Immediately before his arrest, General Piquemal gave an interview to “Boulevard Voltaire”, a French online journal. Gates of Vienna ran a translated and subtitled version by Oz-Rita and Vlad Tepes. They also published a transcript, which I touched up and put into paragraph form.

GalliaWatch has also been reporting this story (the title picture and video were taken from that site) and writes that the presence of the high-ranking general "has got to be a first for anti-Islam demonstrations."

One wonders what role (if any) the French military will play in the coming political conflagration. Only two generations ago, the Fifth Republic was created through a half-completed military coup. 

Today we have come as patriotic citizens to defend the grandeur and identity of France, because we consider her, especially in Calais, threatened. And our presence here as patriotic citizens is perfectly justified. 

The ban issued by the State is perfectly scandalous because we had given a guaranty, we are men of honour, that there would be no provocation, no disorder nor any troublemakers. So, the ban, with gendarmes with whom I have served during 40 years who are willing to hit patriotic citizens, even with the ban, and this ban has been issued for fallacious, unacceptable reasons, and today we are treated like cannibals, that they can send in police, and what’s more military, among the gendarmes who treat French citizens like that —it’s really something absolutely unacceptable. 

And that’s just a start, because “France Debout” will stand up, she will stand up. Things will happen in the coming months, because one cannot accept the treatment of honorable citizens, of people who over many years have served France with honor and fidelity, and who are treated in this manner, it’s absolutely unacceptable. 

And when I see police who hear the National Anthem and remain “au repos” when they should have taken the position of “guard à vous” and sung with us, it’s really... 

France is dying, France is dying...  

This is scandalous. And we will do everything for France to be reborn. because Eternal France has been a beacon to the world, and so she must remain. So, today it’s only the start. 

They are in the majority now, but they don’t even know what they are defending. If I were in their ranks, I would be ashamed to do what they are doing, because they are soldiers supposed to serve the Republic, and they do this work, hit citizens who came to defend the grandeur of their country, to forbid more than two with our three-colour flag, a flag which has known blood, tears, heroism...  

That was a free France. Today it’s practical...we can say it...scandalously...it’s a dictatorship. That is a dictatorship and that is not acceptable. So, the people are sovereign in a democracy and the power of the people is more important than political power. And the decision which has been taken is unjust, scandalous...