French President Emmanuel Macron went full Orwell this week. While long the darling of Western media, Macron has been one of the most anti-free-speech leaders in the world. This week, he declared that “The so-called American ‘free speech’ today, which some people have promoted, is the opposite of free speech.” Having Emmanuel Macron holding forth on free speech is akin to Joey Chestnut proselytizing on veganism.
France has been in a headlong plunge into censorship and speech criminalization. These laws criminalize speech under vague standards referring to “inciting” or “intimidating” others based on race or religion.
For example, fashion designer John Galliano has been found guilty in a French court on charges of making anti-Semitic comments in a Paris bar.
In another case, the father of French conservative presidential candidate Marine Le Pen was fined because he had called people from the Roma minority “smelly.” A French teenager was charged for criticizing Islam as a “religion of hate.”
Many of us were disgusted recently when Macron celebrated Brigitte Bardot’s life as someone who “embodied a life of freedom.” As discussed on this blog, the French government repeatedly prosecuted Bardot for speaking about her views.
Macron’s praise for Bardot’s “life of freedom” is reminiscent of the reaction of French officials to the massacre of editors at Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine. After hounding the victims for years with criminal investigations, the French government organized a march for free speech. As predicted, it then used the killing by Islamic extremists to further crack down on free speech.
In my book The Indispensable Right, I discuss how France has careened down the slippery slope of censorship for decades, and the desire to silence others has now become an insatiable appetite.
Macron has supported figures like his anti-free-speech ally Thierry Breton in globalizing the reach of the infamous Digital Services Act (DSA) to curtail speech, including Americans and American companies.
In his latest pitch for censorship, Macron pulls out an old saw that if everyone can speak freely, no one can speak freely.
Macron declared that “There is no freedom if there is no limit to my freedom, which begins with the freedom of others and respect for a common framework. I know this when I walk down the street: my freedom cannot mean hitting you, insulting you or trashing the public space we all share.”
That line is remarkably telling. It captures how even “insulting” language is treated as a crime in France.
Since then, France has been a leader in the rollback of free speech in the West, with ever-widening laws curtailing free speech. France regularly charges people for political and religious speech, including comedians and those criticizing the police.
Macron’s visceral reaction to free speech is shared by many in the European Union.
I spoke in Berlin at the World Forum, which boasted the slogan, “A New World Order with European Values.” Bill and Hillary Clinton and other Americans cheered on the European efforts.
The Digital Services Act bars speech that is viewed as “disinformation” or “incitement.” When it was passed over the condemnations of many of us in the free speech community, European Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager celebrated by declaring that it is “not a slogan anymore — that what is illegal offline should also be seen and dealt with as illegal online. Now it is a real thing. Democracy’s back.”
Despite his unpopularity in France, Macron remains a favorite of the establishment and the media in the United States. I was appalled years ago when he came to Congress to spread his anti-free speech gospel. Macron called for a joint war against “fake news” and declared, “Democracy is about true choices and rational decisions. The corruption of information is an attempt to corrode the very spirit of our democracies.”
Our representatives applauded like seals with little recognition that he was referencing censorship. Macron believes that he should be able to dictate which views are “corrosive” to the spirit of democracy.
The claim that more speech means less speech is an oxymoronic talking point of the anti-free speech movement. As I discussed in my book, there has not been a single censorship system in history that has worked to kill a single idea or movement. Instead, it has given more power to politicians like Macron to silence critics and intimidate opponents.
In the end, the only true solution to bad speech is better speech. The public can sort out their own values and weigh opposing views without the strict guidance of the government. Free speech serves as its own disinfectant.
Ultimately, allowing people not just free inquiry but free expression bends the arch of humanity toward truth. Hate and prejudice are inherently flawed values that tend to collapse when exposed to full, robust debate.
That does not mean that it will eliminate racism, sexism, or other forms of hate. Neither censorship nor free speech can make everyone better people. However, what Macron is peddling is the same tired, dishonest claim that free speech is harmful and the government must control what people see and say in public discourse.
This is a nation that still echoes the cry of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity (“liberté, égalité, fraternité”). However, in today’s France, “liberté” remains a declining value. Individual rights of religion and speech are routinely sacrificed in the name of “equity” and “fraternity.”
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.
George Washington
Great essay and you state the current WWIII very succinctly; 5th generation warfare between Sovereigntists versus Globalists. You can’t defeat an enemy that you can’t identify. A primary strategy of the globalists — the UN, WEF, WHO etc. — has been going on for decades.
=====
Gen Blaine Holt: Humanity’s 2,000-Year War
IF YOU CAN’T EVEN NAME WHAT THE DAMN WAR IS, YOU’RE PROBABLY IN A 5TH GENERATION WARFARE ENVIRONMENT
Forbidden.News Sep 12, 2026
https://forbiddennews.substack.com/p/gen-blaine-holt-humanitys-2000-year
=====
The strategy is to foment social division by bringing millions of immigrants, mainly Muslim, who will never truly assimilate to Western Culture: the US Constitution and Judeo-Christian social morays. Perhaps the primary purpose of this mass migration is to soften up the host countries to accept a Technocratic future where we become nothing more than slaves on a Digital Globalist Plantation.
A secondary strategy is to control free speech — that is speech that challenges Globalist Policies. We saw that throughout the Plandemic and it has only expanded, especially in France and Great Britain where people are actually going to jail for saying “hurty words.” Anyone that has studied the 1st Amendment knows well that even hate speech is protected. But the Globalists continue to insist they have the duty to define and control hate speech: again any speech that questions the Globalist agenda.
You see the culmination of this strategy in Great Britain and France where they continue to import more immigrants against the wishes of their sovereign indigenous populations. Meanwhile the infrastructure for a Global Technocratic State go on unabated: Smart Meters, 5G, iPhones, the Plandemic, Digital Currency, the Tokenization of all assets. At some point the Hegelian Dialectic kicks in. Problem: Mass Immigration. Reaction: the people rise up against the invaders. Solution: the Globalist will defuse the problem through Digital ID, Mass AI Surveillance, Flock cameras etc. At that point the game is over. The Globalist will have total Orwellian Control over the masses.
Yes I have been thinking about this problem as well, which is why I wrote a 450 page series of essays: The Urgent Need for Global De-Islamification. If we can’t deport them we must force their assimilation to Western Law and morays.
Here’s my latest essay:
=====
The Globalists — the UN, WHO, WEF etc. — have been pushing Muslim immigration for decades in order to destabilize Western nations and soften them up to pave the way for a Technocratic Dystopia where every human will be nothing more that a slave on a Digitally Controlled Globalist Plantation.
Is it time to liquidate the Open Border Elites of the EU for Treason
The Great Replacement by Muslim Immigrants must be reversed
https://brucecain.substack.com/p/is-it-time-to-liquidate-the-open
=====
There is an alternative to assimilate or deport.
What is going on in France? I think Macron has spent way too much time reading 1984. Double speak, double think, what’s the difference.
What goes in France is none of your business. Apart from the fact that you are an wholly ignorant American who has no understanding of France or its politics let alone speak French.
Ignorant I may be and American I certainly am. Yet the fact you can insult me and not be arrested says tons about our ignorant American values and not so much for the refined French values you defend.
Good, you admit to being ignorant. I can’t. Further since you’re not a Frenchman, or I, but I have one thing you don’t, or your fellow ignorant commenters, I actually lived and worked in France. I did not imply or state anything about “refined French values”, a very nebulous concept indeed, but it indicates your crude and ignorant perception of foreigners. Why you chose to attack Macron/France is unclear. Why harbor ill feelings towards the French or Macron when you obviously can’t understand him/they. I guess for no other reason you did is because you stupidly and blindly follow the commenters here, responded blindly to Turley’s wholly ignorant commentary.
Anonymous, I was impressed with The Quiet Man’s response to your not-so-quiet and cowardly anonymous response. You may have lived in France and be an American, but you do not hold American values.
I will repeat the important part of what The Quiet Man said:
“Yet the fact you can insult me and not be arrested says tons about our ignorant American values and not so much for the refined French values you defend.”
“What goes in France is none of your business.”
You have no say in what an American considers “his business”
Macron is a POS
Yes it is my business.
My guess is that the video linked below would not pass muster:
https://youtu.be/OIrTTv_Isho?is=hZ55jYJlb1KX5Hvv
Macron: “I know this when I walk down the street: my freedom cannot mean hitting you, insulting you or trashing the public space we all share.”
How is that “trashing the public space” working out for you now, Macron?
Paris is the Beirut of the West…and it is burning.
Professor Turley writes, “Individual rights of religion and speech are routinely sacrificed in the name of ‘equity’ and ‘fraternity.’”
Professor, you’re giving them too much credit. When the communists and no-go zones are running France, equity and fraternity will be the first things delivered to the guillotine.
We continue to cherish the foolish fantasy that the French are one of the “good guys”. They are not. They are not even our friends.
See Prof. David Betz of University College, London. We have the phenomenon of elite hostility to their own publics and elite incompetence. Hence, we have escalating attacks on dissent. Dr. Betz is predicting a civil war in at least one major European country within five years.
Everyone should honor the old adage, Don’t believe anything you hear, and only half of what you see.
How old is that adage?
What Adolf failed to do it seems the Europeans with the help of illegal migration are doing it to themselves?
Multiculturalism and wokeness are Adolf Hitler’s posthumous revenge.
antonio
What a beautifully ignorant comemnt.
who will be the first politician that endorses a law that any and all government employees including politicians can be investigated and sued for making false, misleading, incendiary, insulting, the list of adjectives goes on..as a usa president once stated “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is,”.
Well what do you expect old Dandy Macron to do when his country is burning and his economy is collapsing as the Unwashed want more Welfare? He needs a distraction and this American Free Speech issue is the perfect shiny object for his rabid protestors. The French are more cooked than the UK.
Dandy? Because he wears a suit and tie and is married to the oldest and ugliest female the world has ever encountered. yeah, definitely a dandy.
The French are more cooked…? Julia Child has something to say about that. Bon appétit !
Prof. Turley seems to want a free society to accept brazen attempts to dupe it for political advantage on the part of professional infowarriors. Going back to the Hunter Biden laptop whopper, recall that it was synthesized by Mike Morrell in collaboration with Joe Biden and Antony Blinken. Recall that it was intended to swing a Presidential election — and it worked. Recall that Morrell had extensive training in PsyOps paid for by us taxpayers — training that was NEVER to be used in domestic politics. Recall that the truth about his involvement spilled out after 10 weeks, just long enough to work its temporary magic.
That 10 week delay getting to the truth exposes a major flaw in Turley’s “good info is the antidote to bad info” (which traces back to Justice Brandeis). Skilled infowarriors are laughing to themselves at the naivite — the cleverly-hatched whopper only needs legs temporarily pending the public decision intending to be nudged. After that, it doesn’t matter if the truth is known.
James Madison would cringe at such a villainous, manipulative conspiracy to obtain “the consent of the governed”. He would look to civil torts law as the deterrent. Macron’s error is using criminal law, which makes the state the exclusive judge of what can be expressed in public. Madison would distribute that power broadly among The People where it belongs in a free democracy — but give it teeth through civil torts.
I maintain that had a Public Frauds lawsuit been filed on the heels of the laptop newsflash and the Biden camp’s devious counter-narrative, with immediate subpoenas and compelled depositions, pro-Biden media would have not have hopped on-board to the deception campaign. I believe the truth at that early time-point would have wounded Biden’s credibility. Consider how history might well have taken a better course.
This is what is at stake in tolerating fraud as protected free speech.
What does all that have to do with French law?
What does US law have to do with French law?
Absolutely nothing.
So what is Turley’s point?
He has no point. US law is irrelevant in France. Turley is simply rage baiting the MAGA morons here.
And he succeeded.
“What does all that have to do with French law?”
3rd paragraph. The difference between Macron and a Madisonian approach. Both are on moral solid ground to disallow intentional political fraud-campaigns. The difference is “Who decides what constitutes fraud?”. In France, it’s some unaccountable bureaucrat. If the US had Public Frauds lawsuits, it would be a jury of 12 Americans after lifting the infowarrior’s veil of secrecy with subpoenas and depositions. Which would you rather have deciding truth v. falsehood?
What makes you think juries are accountable?
The French do things their way. Whether or not you or Turley, or anyone else agrees with them is completely irrelevant.
Turley is simply rage baiting to stoke the rage he so hypocritically condemns.
In France, a cour d’assises, or Court of Assizes or Assize Court, is a criminal trial court with original and appellate limited jurisdiction to hear cases involving defendants accused of felonies, meaning crimes as defined in French law. It is the only French court that uses a jury trial.
pbinca– thanks for your comment. Very thoughtful. We have a candidate for Senate in Texas whose commercials are blatant lies, directly at odds with positions he took for some years in the Texas legislature– he now is opposed to defunding police, boys in girls sports, “gender affirming care” with drugs and surgery, open borders, etc. Given the short attention span of the electorate and a compliant media, such deception works well and there is no real antidote. Tort liability has been used to stop many bad practices. Interesting thought, to say the least.
Pbinca, agree. ChatGPT is the purveyor of psyops. Personally I identify ChatGPT if the speaker uses “America” instead of the United States. It also indicates foreign origin. The inflections and cadences of the English spoken says foreign origin. Radio is especially bad bad with chat usage.
Free speech for the machine!
“Public Frauds lawsuit “
Pbinca, you have discussed this before, and if I understand your definition correctly, I could support it. How would you bring it to life?
I would think the only way to bring it to life would entail considerably limiting official immunity from government officials across all three branches at the federal level and similarly at state and local levels. I would not go so far as to suggest removing qualified immunity from law enforcement officers acting in the heat of the moment, but it may be require removing virtually all immunity for anything else. As for individuals who are not in government, it would likely mean overturning New York Times vs Sullivan (removal of the ‘actual malice’ standard), and opening up defamation suits or creating a new kind of civil suit to cover a wider range of false statements. Needless to say, this would stimulate a substantial public debate before any of this could be passed. And during that debate we would get quite an education in what “false statements” really can rise to, or shall I say, what they can really descend to.
It would turn into a permanent lawfare operation financed by Soros against decent people.
the LEFT hate Western Society
The Left are fascists
The Left want to stop you from voting!
Ungrateful Frogs
Nobody does Fascism like far left ideologues like Macron. They impose their Fascist ideas while the leftwing press acts as cheerleaders.
Western Europe is finished. With leaders like Macron and Starmer they have no future. I wonder which will fall to Islam first?
Starmer is gone, hasn’t been PM since almost 3 months. One can see you’re up-to-date on world politics. Now that islam thing, wanna rethink that a bit?
#. It is hoped the UK and France have dismantled their nuclear programs beforehand. Speech and all else falls in the face of such an imprudent condition of foreign takeover in arms and locations.
How is an elected president a fascist in a democratic country? Cause he speaks frog?
Idea: Write a piece on the hundred year history of The National Enquirer and its place in American society as “misinformation.” People do not need overlords curating what they may see, hear, or read. People sorted the infamous “bat boy” out for themselves.
If you think that we don’t have Thought Police here in the United States, try expressing yourself openly on a sensitive topic. Our Thought Police don’t wear uniforms or carry badges. They sit in corporate boardrooms, behind media microphones and hold positions of influence and authority from which they can destroy those who dare to speak too freely. Once they gain the power they seek, the uniforms and badges will follow.
Our Creator endowed us (every human being in the world) with unalienable rights, including freedom of speech. Forces in America think otherwise, and gave us Joe Biden and his Disinformation Governance Board. Forces in Great Britain think otherwise, and incarcerate willy nilly for whatever speech annoys people in power. Forces in France and Macron are the topic of the day, well explained by Professor Turley. But if we try to see the forest instead of the trees, as did our Founding Fathers, we might see what cries out to be seen. We might see the global revolution against the values expressed in our Bill Of Rights. It seeks to replace limited government with Big Brother. In America, we have a choice next month … “the midterms”. We can choose to detach from the global revolution and seek limited government by voting for Republicans. Or we can vote for the values of Macron and Starmer, here and now, in America. It’s our choice.
Turley’s counterargument: it makes strong points about the dangers of censorship, but it doesn’t fully settle the other side of the equation—where society draws reasonable lines when speech becomes threatening, deliberately harmful, or destructive.
You don’t dress like a sissy anymore. Is that “threatening, deliberately harmful, or destructive?”
Deliberatively harmful? Lots of speech is deliberately harmful. Do you want laws to prevent speech from (1) harming a politician’s chances of winning an election? (2) harming a racist by pointing out the racism? (3) harming a person’s chances of getting a job by truthfully pointing out that the person is a convicted felon?
Society should be free to make the choice. Granting the authority to government abridges that freedom. As one freedom goes away others will surely follow.
Our creator? … then this … “every human being in the world” obviously you are willingly oblivious that 6.9 billion people do not share your perspective.
You should run for king of Antarctica or some such desolate and barren geographical appendage.
Anonymous,
You might want to consider the fact that our ”Creator” is the language of our Founding Fathers in our Declaration of Independence … i.e. foundational principle of our United States of America.
Considered and rejected. You did reference “every human being in the world”. The constitution doesn’t apply to them, does it?
Anonymous,
I think I was clear, but apparently I was not clear enough for you. Please allow me to try again. Our Declaration Of Independence speaks of our Creator and human beings. Our Constitution speaks of our government and its power over human beings. Our Declaration Of Independence is not our Constitution. Our Declaration Of Independence preceded our Constitution by more than a decade.
I agree that our Constitution only has power in the USA. However, the Founders recognized the rights they referenced as from God and for all, not just Americans
Anon would recognize the nuance if he/she/they wasn’t trying so hard to be combative.
Sure it does as we extend freedom to speak to all.
“Our Creator endowed us (every human being in the world) with unalienable rights . . .”
Do you consider that an *argument* for individual rights? If so, what is the argument?
Sam, are rights opinions? Do rights come from the government? Are rights inalienable or temporary?
Your questions are not answers to my questions.
Sam, these are related questions that get to the crux of the debate that ensues if the discussion continues. There are no wrong answers.
Nothing is “free”. Like freedom itself, free speech has a cost, especially if not used responsibly.
I get the gist of today’s column but is was somewhat disjointed and repetitive. The proofreader or AI must of had hiccups. Macron is a classic Frenchman with all their contradictions and half measures. Just like the French Revolution and its Liberty, Equality and Fraternity led to the Guillotine and 20 years of the Napoleonic Wars and simply a new emperor for France. The aspire for much but then all they do is get a new republic where they preach the same platitudes and then you move on to a newer republic.
The Clintons, well what can you say about them that has not already been said multiple times. The also aspired for much and came up very short.
I get the gist of your comment but is was [sic] somewhat disjointed and repetitive. Especially like the guillotine analogy and the Clintons.
Memo to Macron: Tu bête.