Macron was right, and the scapegoats were chosen

Emmanuel Macron’s phrase landed like a cracked whip in the stale air of Western politics. “As unacceptable as they are stupid.” The target was not immigration policy, but a lie — the claim, amplified by Donald Trump and a chorus of right-wing figures, that Muslim migrants had set France alight. The protests that swept Paris, Lyon and Marseille were not a civilisational invasion.  They were a cry about grocery bills, overcrowded classrooms and a state that had cut 4,000 teaching posts while fuel prices climbed. Macron’s fury was therefore more than a defence of immigrants. It was a rejection of the most durable political technology of the age: the conversion of economic failure into cultural panic. The mechanics are almost […]