WASHINGTON – Many Muslim immigrants express a sentiment of entitlement, believing they one day will replace the natives and the land in which they are strangers will come under the authority of Islamic law.
It's already happening in France, according to a report published by the Gatestone Institute by Giuliu Meotti, cultural editor for Il Folgio.
He says, in the last 30 years, more mosques and Muslim prayer centers "have been built in France than all the Catholic churches built in the last century."
At the same time, Christian churches are being bulldozed.
Meotti notes that France has laws protecting old trees, but "the state is free to flatten old Christian churches" and "the vacuums created in the French landscape are already being filled by the booming mosques."
France is able to demolish old churches because the government appropriated all church property and the cost of maintaining them in 1907, the Gatestone Institute report said.
But local officials are reluctant to spend money on the buildings, so they are being turned in activity centers, offices, apartments and even mosques. Or, they simply are being demolished.
France could lose 5,000 to 10,000 religious buildings by 2030, according to a report from the Observatory of Religious Heritage.
Seven churches were demolished in France in 2016 alone.
The same year, Father Jacques Hamel died at the hands of ISIS-allied terrorists at the foot of the altar while celebrating morning Mass in Normandy, France. He had served as a priest for almost six decades.
But just weeks after Hamel's death, French police interrupted a Mass at the Church of Santa Rita, dragging priests out of the cathedral by their legs, to prepare for the church's demolishment.
It's now a parking lot.
See an example of the destruction of a church:
Last month, a wrecking crew bulldozed the Saint-Nicaise Church's presbytery after the local authorities claimed the weight of its bells were a safety hazard.
A few days later, the Chapel of Saint Martin in Sablé-sur-Sarthe, the famed cathedral that was built in 1880-1886, was replaced with a parking lot.
Some 20 churches are reportedly sold and converted in France every year, the report said.
And according to Patrimoine-en-blog, a website that provides regular inventory of demolished churches, 26 churches were put up for sale in 2016 and 12 churches in 2015.
Meanwhile, nearly indiscriminate construction of mosques is being allowed, the report said, even subsidized.
"The municipality of Evreux voted for the provision of 5,000 square meters of land, for one symbolic euro, for the project of the Union of the Muslim faith," a report said.
In fact, journalist Elizabeth Schemia details how French mayors have now become "builders of mosques."
Meotti said that recently police shot a Muslim outside a cathedral after he tried to attack them with a hammer. And there was another terror cell that was foiled in a planned attack on Notre Dame.
"France's most famous Catholic house of worship is a prime target for the jihadists. At the same time, France has been dismissing the religious and cultural heritage of France's Catholic patrimony, which, in a time of religious clashes and revival, should instead be protected as treasures and sources of strength," he said.
Officials note France has the second largest Muslim population in Europe after Germany. Pew Research estimated in 2016 that France had a Muslim population of 4.71 million, comprising 7.5 percent of the French population.
In 2030, the Muslim population of France will be 10.3 percent and in Britain 8.2 percent, according to Pew.
Citing a report by the magazine Valeurs Actuelles, Meotti pointed out that nearly two new mosques are developed per week as the Muslim population rapidly grows in France.
"Nearly 2,400 mosques today, compared to 1,500 in 2003, is the most visible sign of the rapid growth of Islam in France, a consequence of a population of immigrant origin and the process of strong re-Islamization," Valeurs Actuelles noted in an article warning about Islamic "invasion."
Earlier this month, the archbishop of Strasbourg warned that France's large Muslim population combined with its high birth rate and migration will soon lead to the country's cultural demise.
"Muslim believers know very well that their birth rate is such that today, they call it ... the Great Replacement," the archbishop told Valeurs Actuelles. "They tell you in a very calm, very positive way that, 'One day, all this, it will be ours.'"
Concluded Meotti: "Cowardly French authorities would never treat Islam as they are now treating Christianity. Marine Le Pen pointedly asked: 'What if we built parking lots on top of Salafist mosques, instead of our churches?'"