In the annals of the republic’s short history, the storming of the Capitol would probably rank as one of its most egregious episodes. In his inaugural address President Joe Biden promised to heal the country and defeat ‘white supremacy,’ yet nativism remains a potent force that can still destabilize the republic.

The ‘separatism’ Bill announced by Emmanuel Macron on the 2nd October is currently working its way through the institutions of the French executive. The proposed law is called the “Bill to Reinforce Secularism and Republican Principles”, the term ‘separatism’, once considered, has been removed. The Bill looks to update the 1905 law that officially separated church from state.

Liberalism, as Douglas Murray rightly points out in his Spectator piece, is in the dock and subject to a new “cultural revolution.” Murray’s piece reflects an ever-growing pessimism across western societies that the edifice upon which liberalism was built is giving way to a “woke” progressivism concerned with curtailing free speech and toppling statues. In this new world, young people exhibit an illiberalism that would, in Murray’s mind, not be out of place in a “Talibanised” society.