Gordon Adams, in France Has Been No Friend to Muslims manages to make sound the 732 battle of Poitiers as only the first of many acts of aggression against Islam:
“Indeed, France has been a central arena for the confrontation between Islam and political-religious Christian Europe for 1,300 years…It was in the Battle of Poitiers (also known as the Battle of Tours) in A.D. 732 that Charles Martel, the Frankish military leader (and Charlemagne’s grandfather) defeated the Umayyad Caliphate and its leader, Abd-ar-Rahman, who ruled the Iberian Peninsula, and part of what today is southern France. This victory permanently halted the expansion of Islam into Europe and began the expulsion of Islam from the continent.”
Somehow he manages to forget to mention that muslim warriors had invaded the Iberian peninsula and were pushing their way north, trying to occupy the rest of Europe. He then goes on to list other confrontations between France and muslim countries, neglecting to inform us that Islam has not only been on the receiving end of western aggression: large territories in Europe have been dominated by muslim warriors at different times, covering the Iberian peninsula, Sicily, Bulgaria, Greece, most of the Balkans – going as far as to besiege Vienna in 1683, which was saved by Polish king Jan Sobieski. And the fact that millions of muslims live in France, is testimony to the fact that they needed the jobs and safety offered by France, but also that, somehow, they preferred the horrors of the French state (free healthcare, decent housing, public schools, etc), to the delights of their home countries, where they would have had no jobs, no future and no welfare state. And, definitely, no religious and political freedom. But then, you don’t get punished for criticising the rotten west, but you do risk your life criticising the other side.
