Paris, the city that usually rings in the New Year with champagne, crowds and unapologetic joie de vivre, is hitting the mute button. This time, there will be no roaring masses on the Champs-Élysées — just a pre-recorded celebration playing on TV screens at home, a telling sign of how security fears have dimmed even the brightest Parisian traditions.Paris officials announced that, on Dec. 31, the massive midnight concert that drew a jubilant crowd of a million people last year — with festivities having drawn throngs to the “most beautiful avenue in the world” for six decades — would be cancelled. Instead, a video of the celebration will be broadcast for viewers to watch in the safety and comfort of their homes.Fireworks will still illuminate the Arc de Triomphe when the clock strikes 12, but officials urged revelers to watch on television rather than attend in person, warning that the revised plans would be a far cry from the famed French joie de vivre of years past.The decision followed recent outbreaks of violence on the avenue, where throngs of young, mostly Muslim migrants streaming in from Paris’ suburbs at night have been accused of looting luxury stores and brawling with Parisians and police.Paris police pressed the mayor to scrap the concert, citing security concerns such as “unpredictable crowd movements” without providing further details. Critics, however, blamed France’s open-door immigration policies. “It’s obvious that this is the result of massive unvetted Muslim immigration into Europe,” said Daniel Di Martino, an immigration fellow at the Manhattan Institute. “Western Europe has had a terrorism problem for many years now, and that has been exacerbated because of unvetted Islamic immigration as a result of the refugee crisis of over a decade ago.”Even open-air Christmas markets are being treated as high-risk targets by France’s interior minister. In an urgent letter to state officials, he warned of a “very high terror threat” — citing groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS — and ordered beefed-up police presence at Christmas markets, restricted vehicle access and mobilised intelligence agencies.“Christmas markets are popular and symbolic gathering places that are likely to be targeted by violent or politically motivated attacks,” said Laurent Nuñez.He cited the 2018 Strasbourg Christmas market attack, in which 29-year-old Cherif Chekatt, a French Moroccan “gangster-jihadist,” opened fire as he yelled “Allah Akbar,” killing five people and wounding 11. Police shot him down after a two-day manhunt.According to the interior minister, six terrorist plots have been thwarted to date in 2025 in France. “When you read the propaganda of terrorist groups, Christmas markets are targets as are law enforcement officers, as are places of worship of the Jewish community, as are a number of public institutions,” he said on French television.“Unfortunately, in France, there is such a turn toward savagery that everything becomes a pretext for violence,” said politician Bruno Retailleau, head of Les Républicains and former interior minister, slamming the scrapped New Year’s Eve plans as capitulation.Violence has been increasing in the City of Lights. “Last year, we had more scares in two hours of New Year’s Eve celebrations on the Champs-Élysées than in three weeks of the Olympic Games,” a police commissioner told France Info.On that Dec. 31, nearly 984 cars were torched and 420 people arrested in what police called “senseless and endemic violence.”“These acts of violence are the product of a descent into savagery,” the interior minister said at the time, denouncing what he called “cowards and thugs who attack the property of often modest French citizens.”Last month, Le Monde reported that France is dealing with a new generation of younger, less experienced and more unpredictable jihadists. The six thwarted attacks this year were plotted by terrorists who were between 17 and 22.“Europe simply welcomed millions of people who were Muslim, who were not highly educated, and who bought into terrorist ideology and are willing to commit terrorist acts and have a culture that is incompatible with Christianity,” Di Martino said. “And some of them actually hate Christianity, and that’s why they target Christmas markets.“They’re much less educated. They’re much more Islamic. The children of those immigrants are not integrated into the rest of society. They’re still living in ethnic enclaves there. They don’t have high employment rates. They’re actually much more likely to be out of a job. So, they’re much poorer.” Go to Source
