As rioting and arson sweep French cities, Europe’s governing classes are reaping the harvest of a fatal delusion that mistook the dismantling of inherited identity for moral progress. The Arson at Limoges Town Hall. In the 1975 thriller Peur sur la ville (Fear Over the City), French cinematic icon Jean-Paul Belmondo hurtles across the rooftops of Paris in pursuit of a twisted serial killer terrorising the capital. In the film - one of Belmondo’s umpteen policiers of the perio

France’s surprise veto with Russia and China exposes a fraying Western consensus, raising awkward questions about NATO’s future. For seven decades, the choreography of great-power diplomacy has been comfortingly predictable: when push came to shove at the United Nations, France stood with the United States and United Kingdom, balancing the habitual dissent of Russia and China. That symmetry has now been disrupted. In a jarring diplomatic turn, France recently joined Russia an