INSTAPUNDIT’S PARIS CORRESPONDENT IS NOW OUR LISBON CORRESPONDENT, because that’s where Nelson Ascher is emailing from today. He writes that there may be some changes in attitude going on in Europe. I hope he’s right:

Hello. It seems that the killing of at least 15 German tourists in the bombing of Jerbah’s synagogue in Tunisia may be begining to turn the pro-Islamic tide in France. Below I send you today’s Le Monde’s (not exactly a pro-American or pro-Israeli paper) editorial. And I’ve just seen on France 5 TV a discussion or talkshow with with sociologists or scholars (two of them being French-Arab Muslims) analysing and condemning in very strong words what they called the Islamist totalitarian international, even comparing it to nazism. Among the details discussed was that of the geo-strategic importance of the Islamic/Islamist conquest of part of the Balkans because of its proximity to Southern Italy and, as a consequence, the strenghtening of ties between Bosnian/Albanian mafias on one side, and the Ndrangheta, Camorra and the Sicilian mafia on the other, the effect of which, among other things, is to facilitate the smuggling of arms, money-laundering etc. One of the panelists referred to the way the islamists see Europe: as the weak link of the West. Another said that electoralism and populism have driven local politicians to opportunist and short-sighted alliances with the islamists because they can both deliver the votes and keep social peace in the banlieus. One thing I can tell you for sure: independently of the sides they take, Europeans have a much deeper (maybe even cynical) knowledge of the problem than one would think by merely reading the British press. After all, they do live with millions of Muslims and they really colonized their lands. Some Europeans may not have learned much lately, but neither have many others forgotten what they already knew.

Yes, I suppose that there are quite a few people with a clue, outside the chattering classes. Now that the idiocy of the chattering classes — and just as important, their impotence to affect events — has been demonstrated, perhaps the clueful will begin to exercise some sway.