“The cover of the most recent issue of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo — published just before two gunmen massacred 12 at its Paris headquarters this week — didn’t, as the publication often did, lampoon fundamentalist Islam. Instead, the target of Charlie’s satire was the novelist Michel Houellebecq, whose sixth novel, ‘Submission,’ was published on Wednesday, the day of the massacre.” —The Atlantic, Jan. 10, 2015.

“Submission” is a novel set in 2022. It chronicles an election battle between a real life Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s far-right National Front, and a fictional Mohammed Ben Abbes, the head of the Islamic Party. After cutting a side deal with France’s left-wing party, Abbes is elected president. Shortly thereafter, France is placed under Sharia law. Amazon characterizes the book as “satirical and melancholic, but it is also hilarious, a comic masterpiece by one of France’s great novelists.”

Hilarious? Satirical? Comedic? Last Sunday French Prime Minister Manuel Valls revealed there are a staggering 15,000 people French police and intelligence services believe are in the process of being radicalized. That’s an army of would-be Islamic jihadists. An army forcing French security officials to deal with Islamic plots and networks “every day,” Valls adds.

Nonetheless, the ideologically inspired insanity continues. More than 300,000 “migrants” have entered the EU this year, on top of the one million that came last year. And in France the so-called “Jungle Camp” in Calais, with a population that has swelled to nearly 10,000 has become a “no-go zone” according to police. One where hundreds of people try to sneak into the UK on a daily basis. The problem has become so onerous the UK government announced plans to build a 13-foot concrete roadside barrier (sound familiar?) to prevent it from happening.

As for France, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve has vowed to destroy the Calais camp with “utmost determination” — even as Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced that two more refugee camps will be opened France’s capital city, ready to be occupied by the end of this month.

In the meantime, the terrorist beat goes on. After discovering a car filled with gas canisters parked outside of France’s iconic Notre Dame Cathedral, police arrested 29-year-old “Ornella G.” whose fingerprints were found in the vehicle, along with a blanket containing traces of hydrocarbons and a partially smoked cigarette. Three other women, “guided by the Islamic state” according to French prosecutors, were also arrested after violent clash during which two police officers were stabbed.

The most important part of the story? “It was only by chance that French authorities disrupted the alleged car-bomb plot,” reported the Wall Street Journal.

A week later, a 15-year-old boy police described as planning an “imminent” terror attack was also arrested. His arrest came after another car packed with gas cylinders was discovered outside the Bar Yohaye synagogue in Marseilles. Police were quick to point out that no detonators were found in the car, and insisted it was too early to make a connection between that incident and the one at Notre Dame.

No doubt, because the alternative would be deemed politically incorrect by the ruling class, for whom any effort to “connect the dots” constitutes Islamophobia.

“Every Frenchman suspected of being linked to terrorism, because he regularly consults a jihadist website, or his behavior shows signs of radicalization or because is in close contact with radicalized people, must by preventively placed in a detention center,” said former French President Nicolas Sarkozy in an interview with French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche. “And don’t tell me it would be Guantanamo,” he added. “In France, any administrative confinement is subject to subsequent control by a judge.”

Naturally, both Valls and President Francois Hollande were against the measure. “Freedom is not a handicap, it’s our strength,” the socialist Hollande said in a Paris speech. “We must assure security but without giving up living how we want. The terrorists have launched not one challenge but two: to defeat them, and to remain ourselves.”

One is left to wonder how Hollande squares remaining ourselves with the reality that his nation still remains in a state of emergency imposed in November 2015 when an Islamic State attack killed 130 people. An attack after which Hollande promised that “30,000 refugees will be welcomed over the next two years,” because France “has the duty to respect this commitment.” Or the reality that between 6,000 and 7,000 soldiers are currently protecting schools, synagogues, department stores and other sensitive sites, effectively turning France into a police state. Or that authorities had previously identified “only” 10,000 people as high-risk, not the 15,000 referred to by Valls, who now insists the current threat “is at a maximum, and we are a target.”

France is not the only target. “A new report from the Justice Department and the Police Foundation reveal many new, disturbing and dramatic details about the San Bernardino terror attack last December,” reported CBS Los Angeles.

Police and federal agents described what they saw at the scene. “It was the worst thing imaginable — some people were quiet, hiding, others were screaming or dying, grabbing at your legs because they wanted us to get them out, but our job at the moment was to keep going,” an officer revealed. “That was the hardest part, stepping over them.”

In their despicable rush to embrace unlimited immigration and multiculturalist dogma, the elitist class in France — and America — is stepping over inconvenient reality. Instead they embrace moral bankruptcy that submits to continuing and inevitable carnage wrought by Islamists.

And while they themselves remain immune, they brand those who seek nothing more than a right to survive as bigoted and xenophobic.

It may be too late for France and the rest of Europe, but it’s time Americans asked themselves if they wish to continue abiding their submission to the same ideological bankruptcy. It’s been two years since Barack Obama promised to “degrade and destroy” the Islamic State and they remain as viable as ever. Hillary Clinton promises more of the same “no boots on the ground” failure. Both approve of the “streamlined” vetting process that has brought 11,491 Syrian “refugees” into America — with a promise of more to come.

And both countenance a porous border and hackneyed visa system that makes a mockery of national sovereignty — and national security.

“One day the last portrait of Rembrandt and the last bar of Mozart will have ceased to be — though possibly a colored canvas and a sheet of notes will remain — because the last eye and the last ear accessible to their message will have gone,” stated German philosopher Oswald Spengler.

France is the proverbial canary in the coal mine of elitist-driven cultural surrender. “There will be new attacks, there will be innocent victims,” Valls stated. “This is also my role to tell this truth to the French people.”