THE FRENCH are refusing to see things as they are at their peril, writes Juan Hervada:

[T]he evaluation by the French politicians of the terrorist threat has more often been tainted by self-delusion than impregnated by their presumed famous Cartesian rationality. They are like the man who in face of an impending catastrophe pinches himself while saying “I’m dreaming! I’m dreaming! I’m dreaming! This is not for real.” They just don’t want this war to be real. Until now, somehow, many of them expected the al Qaeda threat to fade away into oblivion or, at least, to become a distant scourge, something that concerned others.
After 10 years living in France, I can flat out certify that “naïve” isn’t the adjective that befits best the average French politician; try guileful, canny or perhaps even oversubtle. So, they must have some sort of blinders on.

What sort of blinders? Barring sheer dishonesty, blind wishful thinking seems the most at hand explanation for much of the French elite refusing to look reality into the eye and trying to nitpicker away the notion of being at war. One can understand that: it’s a matter of statistics.

Read the rest.