Of European cities which have been irrevocably transformed by mass migration from the Muslim world, Paris does not rank at the top of the list. A quarter of its population isn’t Muslim, like the gang-infested, crime-ridden former port city of Marseille, nor a fifth, like the jihadist hotbed of Roubaix. However, the outraged reaction of Francois Hollande, the lame duck prime minister of France, to President Trump’s remarks at CPAC is laughable when you consider the fact that officials in Paris have had to erect an 8 ft. wall of reinforced glass in order to protect that city’s most recognizable symbol. Leaving aside the fact that Parisiens have to endure a police state that has no parallels in post-war France, a situation prompted by the threat posed by the 6 million Muslims who reside in that country-as well as the millions more who live in neighboring nations like Belgium and Germany-there is the inescapable difference between the Paris of today and the Paris of only a few decades ago.

Why would an ordinary American want to visit a city, however beautiful certain parts may be, where hundreds of Muslims are able to shut down entire blocks of pedestrian traffic-as well as local businesses-while they publicly pray? As gauche as this may be to say in the current year, people visit European capitals to discover the roots of Western civilization, not witness inter-tribal warfare or the Islamic conquest of a once great civilization. The fact that over three-quarters of the victims of terrorist attacks in France have fallen in the 21st century should give astute observers a clue as to the trajectory of that country’s future. Whatever you may think of President Trump, or the reliability of unsourced anecdotes, the notion that the Paris of today is the jewel of Europe, that the decades of unstinting Muslim migration from the third world haven’t permanently transformed France from the nation it once was, beggars belief. Perhaps undiluted multiculturalism, open borders in perpetuity, and the gradual erosion of natural rights in the name of accommodating the world’s “fastest-growing religion” is something that you favor, but don’t try to pretend that this is not what we’re witnessing.