Uploaded April 2024 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
Europe, says Zemmour, has a long and great history, and like all long and great histories which extend across such vast spaces and so many centuries, it has been marked by great drama: war, natural disaster, famine, economic crisis, invasion, civil war. She always got over it, more or less rapidly, but always with courage and talent. We can speak of a kind of European resilience, of the capacity of our civilisation to learn from its errors in order to progress, ever and again. Europe is a miracle. She doesn’t look like much: the smallest continent, wedged between Asia and the sea, with neither the vast expanses of America nor Asia’s teeming masses. Yet Europe is the beating heart of the human adventure. In a few centuries, Europe invented so much: the monastery, the gothic style, Gregorian chant, the bill of exchange, feudalism, canon law, the printing press, musical symphonies, the steam engine, electricity, the internal combustion engine, the railways, cinema, aircraft. It was Europe, first with its ships, then with its railways, cars, planes, that discovered and connected so much of the world. Europe, with its rules of hygiene, its vaccines and medicines, cared for humanity. Europe was able to think separately about the temporal and the spiritual. Europe invented the individual, emancipating him from the law of the clan and the tribe. In Europe was born the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution. Each time an intellectual, technical, artistic, scientific, or political novelty came in any corner of Europe, the entire continent, within a few years, made it its own. Europe is not a country, not a people, but it is one and the same civilisation, forged by Judæo-Christianity and the Græco-Roman spirit. This ‘European Union’ is not even a century old, but our Europe is more than two millennia old. They are Europeans who recognise themselves in this heritage and want to perpetuate it. Those who do not recognise themselves there are from another place. Our continent is very old. Its philosophical, political, legal, religious roots go back to antiquity, but they still seem young. Of Cleopatra’s Egypt, only ruins remain. But from Cæsar’s Rome, there remains a vision of the world which is relevant today. We continue to be nourished by the thought of Seneca, of Marcus Aurelius, of Cicero, even more so of Heraclitus, of Socrates, of Plato. Despite all its trials, all its suffering, despite the many times we thought it was lost, European civilisation seems to have something immortal about it.
Europe, says Zemmour, has a long and great history, and like all long and great histories which extend across such vast spaces and so many centuries, it has been marked by great drama: war, natural disaster, famine, economic crisis, invasion, civil war. She always got over it, more or less rapidly, but always with courage and talent. We can speak of a kind of European resilience, of the capacity of our civilisation to learn from its errors in order to progress, ever and again. Europe is a miracle. She doesn’t look like much: the smallest continent, wedged between Asia and the sea, with neither the vast expanses of America nor Asia’s teeming masses. Yet Europe is the beating heart of the human adventure. In a few centuries, Europe invented so much: the monastery, the gothic style, Gregorian chant, the bill of exchange, feudalism, canon law, the printing press, musical symphonies, the steam engine, electricity, the internal combustion engine, the railways, cinema, aircraft. It was Europe, first with its ships, then with its railways, cars, planes, that discovered and connected so much of the world. Europe, with its rules of hygiene, its vaccines and medicines, cared for humanity. Europe was able to think separately about the temporal and the spiritual. Europe invented the individual, emancipating him from the law of the clan and the tribe. In Europe was born the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution. Each time an intellectual, technical, artistic, scientific, or political novelty came in any corner of Europe, the entire continent, within a few years, made it its own. Europe is not a country, not a people, but it is one and the same civilisation, forged by Judæo-Christianity and the Græco-Roman spirit. This ‘European Union’ is not even a century old, but our Europe is more than two millennia old. They are Europeans who recognise themselves in this heritage and want to perpetuate it. Those who do not recognise themselves there are from another place. Our continent is very old. Its philosophical, political, legal, religious roots go back to antiquity, but they still seem young. Of Cleopatra’s Egypt, only ruins remain. But from Cæsar’s Rome, there remains a vision of the world which is relevant today. We continue to be nourished by the thought of Seneca, of Marcus Aurelius, of Cicero, even more so of Heraclitus, of Socrates, of Plato. Despite all its trials, all its suffering, despite the many times we thought it was lost, European civilisation seems to have something immortal about it.
