Mosques taking over churches in France

The mosque invasion of churches in France has been going on for decades, but with the recent election of pro-Islam French President Emmanuel Macron and the attitude of entitlement of new Muslim immigrants, the tide is surging like never before.

“Many Muslim immigrants express a sentiment of entitlement, believing they – one day – will replace the natives and the land in which they are strangers will come under the authority of Islamic law,” WND reported.

In fact, Il Folgio Cultural Editor Giuliu Meotti stressed that mosques are going up in record numbers while Christian churches are being bulldozed to the ground on a regular basis.

“[Over the past 30 years, more mosques and Muslim prayer centers] have been built in France than all the Catholic churches built in the last century,” Meotti informed in a report published by the Gatestone Institute, which noted that French officials are now in the habit of demolishing old churches after the government appropriated all church property – as well as the maintenance cost – back in 1907. “[France has laws protecting old trees, but] the state is free to flatten old Christian churches [and] the vacuums created in the French landscape are already being filled by the booming mosques.”

Kicking out Christianity, inviting Islam

The Christian heritage of France is being swept away and replaced by facilities serving secular and Islamic interests.

“But local officials are reluctant to spend money on the buildings, so they are being turned in[to] activity centers, offices, apartments and even mosques – or, they simply are being demolished,” WND’s Amanda Poe reported. “France could lose 5,000 to 10,000 religious buildings by 2030, according to a report from the Observatory of Religious Heritage. Seven churches were demolished in France in 2016 alone.”

And the hostility toward Christian worship has been demonstrated by both Islamic terrorists and the French government.

“The same year, Father Jacques Hamel died at the hands of ISIS-allied terrorists at the foot of the altar while celebrating morning Mass in Normandy, France, [after serving] as a priest for almost six decades,” Poe recounted. “But just weeks after Hamel’s death, French police interrupted a Mass at the Church of Santa Rita, dragging priests out of the cathedral by their legs, to prepare for the church’s demolishment. It’s now a parking lot.”

The razing of Christian churches is a continuing process working toward the ultimate eradication of Christianity in France altogether.

“Last month, a wrecking crew bulldozed the Saint-Nicaise Church’s presbytery after the local authorities claimed the weight of its bells were a safety hazard,” Poe added. “A few days later, the Chapel of Saint Martin in Sablé-sur-Sarthe, the famed cathedral that was built in 1880–1886, was replaced with a parking lot.”

In France, financial gain is being put before citizens’ spiritual benefits from churches, as Meotti relayed from a report that more than 20 churches in France are annually sold and converted for other uses. Poe noted from a website that updates an inventory of demolished churches – the Patrimoine-en-blog – that 12 churches were put on the selling block in 2015, with more than twice (26) going up the following year.

Islamic invasion

While churches are being leveled, mosques are being built with virtually no restrictions – with many being subsidized by the French government.

“The municipality of Evreux voted for the provision of 5,000 square meters of land, for one symbolic euro, for the project of the Union of the Muslim faith,” one report announced, according to WND.

Poe pointed out that mayors in France have been called “builders of mosques” by journalist Elizabeth Schemia, who described them as going through great lengths to freely build the Islamic worship centers nationwide.

Recounting a recent jihadist attack, Meotti described when a militant Muslim was shot by police after the terrorist attempted to bludgeon them with a hammer … as well as another time when a French terror cell’s attack on Notre Dame was thwarted.

“France’s most famous Catholic house of worship is a prime target for the jihadists,” Meotti stressed. “At the same time, France has been dismissing the religious and cultural heritage of France’s Catholic patrimony, which – in a time of religious clashes and revival – should instead be protected as treasures and sources of strength.”

Muslim sprawl

France is only topped by Germany when it comes to the largest Muslim population in Europe.

“Germany and France have the largest Muslim populations among European Union member countries,” Pew Research reported. “As of 2010, there were 4.8 million Muslims in Germany (5.8 percent of the country’s population) and 4.7 million Muslims in France (7.5 percent). In Europe overall, however, Russia’s population of 14 million Muslims (10 percent) is the largest on the continent.”

It was also noted that the number of Muslims will swell to become 10.3 percent of France’s population by 2030, with Great Britain’s increasing to 8.2 percent at that time.

This phenomenon is not only being witnessed in Western Europe.

“In recent decades, the Muslim share of the population throughout Europe grew about 1 percentage point a decade – from 4 percent in 1990 to 6 percent in 2010,” Pew’s Conrad Hackett informed. “This pattern is expected to continue through 2030 – when Muslims are projected to make up 8 percent of Europe’s population.”

It is further indicated that Muslims are much younger than the average native European, meaning that their population will increase as longstanding Europeans numbers will continue to plummet.

“In 2010, the median age of Muslims throughout Europe was 32 – eight years younger than the median for all Europeans (40),” Hackett pointed out. “By contrast, the median age of religiously unaffiliated people in Europe, including atheists, agnostics and those with no religion in particular, was 37. The median age of European Christians was 42.”

When sharing their views about Muslim immigrants, Europeans differ greatly, according to their geographic region.

A Pew Research Center survey conducted [during Spring 2016] in 10 nations found that in eastern and southern Europe, negative views prevailed,” Hackett continued. “However, the majority of respondents in the U.K., Germany, France, Sweden and the Netherlands gave Muslims a favorable rating. Views about Muslims are tied to ideology. While 47 percent of Germans on the political Right give Muslims an unfavorable rating, just 17 percent on the Left do so. The gap between Left and Right is also roughly 30 percentage points in Italy and Greece.”

Seven years ago, in 2010, 13 million Muslim immigrants inhabited the European Union, with many living in Germany and France coming from several predominantly Islamic regions.

“The foreign-born Muslim population in Germany is primarily made up of Turkish immigrants, but also includes many born in Kosovo, Iraq, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Morocco,” Hackett divulged. “The roughly 3 million foreign-born Muslims in France are largely from France’s former colonies of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.”

France becoming a western Mecca?

The leaps and bounds the Muslim population is making in France over native Europeans was emphasized by the statistic that every week, nearly two new mosques are erected.

“Nearly 2,400 mosques today, compared to 1,500 in 2003, is the most visible sign of the rapid growth of Islam in France – a consequence of a population of immigrant origin and the process of strong re-Islamization,” the French magazine Valeurs Actuelles reported in a piece alerting the French about the Islamic “invasion.”

A warning about France’s exploding Muslim population was also issued by France’s archbishop of Strasbourg this month, as he stressed that the increase – combined with Muslim’s high birth rate and immigration numbers – will result in the nations’ imminent cultural demise.

“Muslim believers know very well that their birth rate is such that today, they call it … the Great Replacement,” the archbishop revealed to the French publication. “They tell you in a very calm, very positive way that, ‘One day, all this, it will be ours.’”

The ultimate blame for the Islamization of France was paced on the French government, currently headed by Macron, who beat out his conservative opponent, Marine Le Pen – who promised to be tough on Islam in the recent French elections.

“Cowardly French authorities would never treat Islam as they are now treating Christianity,” Meotti concluded. “Marine Le Pen pointedly asked: ‘What if we built parking lots on top of Salafist mosques, instead of our churches?’

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