For as world leaders and press descended upon Paris to commemorate the end of World War I, one could see that desire for appeasement take a new form. Last week, a middle-aged Pakistani Christian woman, a farm worker named Asia Bibi, was freed after eight years on death row for the charge of “blasphemy.” Her conviction was overturned by Pakistan’s supreme court, a decision that immediately provoked mass demonstrations by fundamentalist Muslims demanding her death. Her attorney fled the country for his safety. Her family requested asylum in Britain, a request that was reportedly denied because the British government feared it would provoke “unrest” among Muslims.

Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, those wordy celebrants of Europe’s asylum generosity, have uttered not a word in support of Bibi, even as both (particularly Merkel) have facilitated entry into Europe of millions of young Muslim men as “refugees.” In contrast to them, Italy’s interior minister Matteo Salvini has said that Italy would welcome Bibi and her family—who at this writing are still unable to leave Pakistan.

It’s a telling moment—the government indirectly accused by Macron of harkening back the dark days of the 1930s is ready to open its arms to a genuine political refugee, while the governments of Theresa May, Macron, and Merkel opt for social peace–a “paix bien Munichoise” as a writer for the French journal Causeur aptly describes the establishment’s accommodating stance towards fundamentalist Islam on European soil.