Lance Armstrong is one of the most extraordinary athletes of our generation. He's winning the the Tour - and French egos are apparently so bruised, they've resorted to spitting on him.
"The Wildest Anti-Semitism":
That's Ariel Sharon, Israeli PM, depiction of the plight of French Jews.
Mr. Sharon went on to say:
"Altogether I have to advocate to our brothers in France: move to Israel as early as possible.""That's what I say to Jews all around the world but there (France) I think it's a must. They have to move immediately."
The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs sputtered its pro forma indignation and muddle.
Chirac's office issued a statement Monday night seeking "an explanation":
"(France) has let it be known that from today an eventual visit by the Israeli prime minister to Paris, for which no date had been set, would not be considered until such an explanation is forthcoming," it said.Jack, who has no problem chowing down with the likes of Robert Mugabe, announces that the hypothesis of a hypothetical French trip by Mr. Sharon will not even be hypothesized by France till she has her "explanation".French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, who had earlier described the comments as "unacceptable and intolerable", said Tuesday that he was still awaiting an explanation. "As I speak, we have received no reply to our request for an explanation," he told Europe 1 radio.
Describing the row with Israel as a "very serious misunderstanding," he said that it was "a matter of honour for our republic ... that each citizen is guaranteed the same protections, the same freedoms, whatever their religious belief."
Just what sort of explanation could enlarge Mr. Sharon's plain-spoken words?
As Jack regularly peeks in on the Pave community, let me offer the bated explanation:
The current French government treats anti-Semitism as a public relations problem. It has staged repeated public hand-wringings yet with each call to apply "the greatest severity and the greatest exemplarity", French anti-Semitic acts increase.
French anti-Semitism stories are stock in trade here at Pave, but whether France is irredeemably anti-Semitic or just snotty and xenophobic, France holds little allure and less security for her Jews. While France spins, Jack pouting and M. Barnier huffing over French "honor" are equal parts pathetic and derelict and laughable. French honor should reside in good deeds not good publicity.
[All emphases added.]
UPDATE 07.20.04: Malcolm Hoenlein, director of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said in an interview with The Associated Press that Chirac overreacted and caused an "artificial crisis" and his comments Monday could actually lead to more anti-Semitism.
"I think perhaps Mr. Chirac is attempting to divert attention from their failure to address the anti-Semitism, to apprehend those responsible," Hoenlein said. "They have made steps that I think are important but they certainly have not dealt seriously enough with the issue of anti-Semitism.""I don't doubt that Mr. Chirac and the people in his government are concerned about the rise in anti-Semitism, but they shouldn't blame the victims," Hoenlein said. "It's time for them to admit who's responsible and to go after the countries that aid and abet those who continue to perpetrate this hatred, incitement and violence." He did not identify the countries.
[Emphasis added.]
Bastille Day, We Just Don't Get It:
The French Fête Nationale commemorates the storming of the Bastille, a defense fortress built in 1382. After 7 seiges and 6 surrenders it had lost any pretense as a mighty bulwark, and by 1789 served as a prison and magazine. In this most feared prison:
...[a]ll of the rooms until the year 1701 were left unfurnished. Wealthy political prisoners were allowed to bring in their own furniture, many even brought their own servants with them. Meals were of generous proportions, and more luxurious meals could be bought if the prisoner was wealthy enough. Most prisoners were docile. They were allowed to walk freely around the fortress, talk with officers and other prisoners and play games. Many had their own personal hobbies, and a few were even allowed to visit the city of Paris on parole. The Bastille was much more comfortable, even homelike, than the horrific rumors that circled around France proclaimed.
Several histories describe the storming of this fortress-qua-prison as an assualt on the absolutism of the monarchy, e.g., Wikipedia:
[T]he Bastille was a symbol of the absolutism of the monarchy. ... Many historians believe that the storming of the Bastille was more important as a rallying point and symbolic act of rebellion than any practical act of defiance.
Well, symbolism is about all that's left when busting the boogeyman of political oppression nets only 7 prisoners: four forgers, two lunatics, and a young noble. And symbolism puts a nice historical guaziness over the mob's gratuitous beheading of the jail's governor, Bernard-René de Launay, and parading his head about Paris on a pike, what a nice story:
[T]he gouvernor de Launay had to be protected by two guards from the furor of the people and was escorted to the City Hall, but there he was lynched and stabbed to death. Three other officers and three soldiers were lynched as well, and the president of the city comittee at the City Hall, Flesselles, who had sent a letter to de Launay to endure, was shot with a pistol. Their heads were cut off, spitted on pikes, and carried around in triumph.
Monarchal absolutism was also far from absolute. Les lois fondamentales du royaume had long curbed even the mightest king. The summons in May 1789 of the États-Généraux was the first such since 1614 and granted the third estate equal representation to the first two estates combined, "and on June 17, 1789 [the tiers] arrived at the celebrated decision by which it affirmed the principle of the national supremacy residing in the mass of the nation; the deputies, without any distinction of order, constituted a National Assembly, which assembly was called upon to regenerate France by giving her a constitution, while the royal power (which in reality became provisional) could not veto its decisions." Louis XVI, the "absolute" monarch, failed to maintain the quarreling estates structure and royalist deputies who had stood apart joined the National Assembly at the request of the king. None of this sounds like pantocratic absolutism.
So why the big fuss over the Bastille? It established no principles. It manifested no republican virtues. It did not materially advance the French political experiment. It only announced the bloodlust that came to characterize the French revolution. Its savagery aside, in the scheme of French history it seems a trifle compared to, say, the earlier and more politically momentous serment du jeu de paume.
Here is an invitation to our French correspondents to set Pave straight. Just what do Frenchies find so glorious about this murderous mob action -- other than its kicking off the French vacation season?
Egads! We missed Bastille Day!:
Dan Flynn over at Flynn Files has graciously offered to stand in this particular gap, and lend us his Bastille Day post.
Happy Bastille Day?And a hearty welcome to Dan, as our newest Pave author!Two-hundred and fifteen years ago, the French performed a dress rehearsal for the twentieth century. Like the Communists, the French Jacobins engaged in class warfare, attacked Christianity, and violently exported their revolutionary ambitions to neighboring countries. Thinking people don't celebrate Bastille Day. They mourn it. What started out as "liberty, equality, and fraternity," recognized Nicolas de Chamfort, quickly transformed into "Be my brother or I will kill you."
I need to retire:
775 entries. More than 8,000 comments. PaveFrance has, and continues to be a great rollercoaster of beating up on the froggies.
That said, I'm now involved with no less than 6 websites, some that demand more of my attention than Pave deserves.
So I have two invitations: if you'd like to become an author and help not only shoulder the load, but tote a bigger megaphone than your friends in the comment threads - email me. If you think you've got the stones or passion to take over the site, email me.
I'll continue to cover the costs of the hosting for at least a year. Any takers?
Jack, Same-Old Same-Old:
Apparently the A-plan to quell French racism and anti-Semitism by sending students to the movies has proved, well, woefully lame.
The number of racist and anti-Jewish acts in France is rising sharply, with more recorded so far this year than for all of 2003, the government announced Friday.According to interior ministry statistics reported in Le Figaro newspaper, 95 physical acts and 161 threats of a racist nature have been recorded in the first half of 2004.
There were 135 physical acts and 375 threats of an anti-Jewish nature.
Jack did what politicians of failed policies everywhere do, he put on a little show and talked his way around it:
In a skilful piece of media management, the backdrop of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon was chosen to remind the country of France's shameful record on anti-semitism, while simultaneously evoking the memory of the few thousand villagers who resisted the climate of hatred."Discrimination, anti-semitism, racism - all kinds of racism are spreading insidiously," Mr Chirac said. ...Mr Chirac called for urgent action to stem a rise in the "despicable and odious acts of hatred soiling our nation".
The setting for this keynote speech was selected to add greater resonance to the president's words.Mr Chirac was accompanied by the former cabinet minister Simone Veil, an Auschwitz survivor.
Some in the French media have a less charitable take on Jack's hand-wringing in the province:
The timing of Mr Chirac's longest speech on internal affairs in recent months was met with cynicism by some commentators, who argued that the president had seized on an uncontentious [sic] and popular theme as part of his latest attempt to boost his crumbling popularity.One recent poll showed that his rating had dropped 20 percentage points in 15 months - down from 65% last April (when it peaked after his opposition to the war in Iraq) to 45% in June.
"This has been Chirac's strategy for the past nine years," Le Parisien wrote yesterday. "Whenever his popularity drops, he tries to stop the decline with a sudden trip to the provinces."
Then this:
In a further indication of the government's determination to be seen to be taking action, the interior minister, Dominique de Villepin, said earlier this week that "anti- semitic and racist acts are on the increase" and that the situation had become very serious. He promised that there would be heavy penalties in the event of future attacks.
Glad to see Dom noticed. We wonder how French anti-Semitism escaped official notice prior to this? Oh, but it didn't, February 16, 2004:
But French leaders reject suggestions from leading Israelis that anti-Semitic attacks are on the rise in France.Mr Chirac told a news conference: "I repeated to [Israeli President Moshe Katsav] my determination without fail to fight all forms of racism and anti-Semitism.
"We are, and we will be, uncompromising on this question. That is why we do not accept groundless accusations [scil., anti-Semitic attacks are on the rise in France, huh?] that are sometimes made against us and which are an attack on France's honour."
Why does the above sound so familiar? Oh, November 17, 2003:
Seeking to reassure France's Jewish community, Chirac vowed "the greatest vigilance in the prevention, the greatest firmness in the pursuit, the greatest severity and the greatest swiftness in the sanctioning of anti-Semitic acts."Chirac, speaking at a news conference, said a plan of action had been laid out that included extra security at Jewish places of worship and schools, "exemplary sanctions" against anyone found guilty of anti-Semitic acts and reinforced civics courses in French schools "to educate each child on the respect of others, on dialogue and tolerance."
Now what action is being taken? (Pause.) Apparently that's it. Venting the same old ineffectual threats to apply the same old ineffectual penalties to those they manage to catch. Here's one they slapped. Here's one they celebrated as a gifted talent. Hhmmm, seems a little shy of applying "the greatest severity and the greatest exemplarity" that Jack has called for.
Jack is big on huffing and puffing, short on results. So much for spiffing up France's honor.
[All emphases added.]
A gang of young men attacked a woman riding a suburban train with her infant, cutting her hair and drawing swastikas on her stomach. Other passengers watched but did nothing, police reported. ... [The] gang of six set upon the 23-year-old woman...and grabbed her backpack where they found identity papers that showed an address in the capital's well-to-do 16th district. "There are only Jews in the 16th," one of the group of attackers said.Chirac denounced Friday's "shameful act" and Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin ordered police to find the culprits "as quickly as possible."
Ouais, ouais, Jack.
UPDATE 07.14.04: The above 07.11.04 story is a hoax.
The woman's tale was headline news across Europe, but by yesterday it had taken a remarkable twist. ... The young woman confessed to having made it all up, authorities said.The government yesterday justified its precipitate response. A spokesman, Jean-François Copé, said that for all the credibility problems with the story, "the reality is that there has been an explosion of racist and anti-semitic acts which we need to combat".
Members of France's Jewish community said the familiarity of the claim had triggered the outrage. Menahem Gourary, director of the Jewish Agency in Europe, said: "The government had to speak out quickly, because they so often in the past they've made the mistake of trying to calm the situation by not reacting at all. They responded like this because the story was eminently plausible." He cited eight incidents on Paris public transport over 10 months.
Pave regrets believing the worst about France in this instance. The story had been carried by all the major wire services, not that that's much surety for truth. We were suckered along with Le Monde and Le Figaro. However, we are happy to be wrong as France already has its hands full dealing with the real thing.
"As Matters Stand":
The [European Court of Human Rights] said foetuses [i.e., unborn babies] could not be legally considered human beings with a corresponding right to life by rejecting a Frenchwoman's claim a hospital committed involuntary homicide in carrying out an [unwanted therapeutic] abortion six months into her pregnancy following a medical error.The ruling, however, stopped short of determining whether a foetus was a person or not, saying such a distinction was impossible to make.
"The court is convinced that it is neither desirable, nor even possible as matters stand, to answer in the abstract the question whether the unborn child is a person for the purposes of Article 2" of the European convention on human rights, it said.
Well, this is a pretty piece of sophistry. When a court consents to review a case several things are implicit: the case has merit; the court has standing; a ruling will be forthcoming; the ruling will proceed from established legal principles, law, and precedent and the judgment will resolve the points in dispute; the court's legal methods and thinking will be transparent. If a court feels itself incompetent to so rule, the court declines the pleasure.
In this case, the European Court of Human Rights rules that the base legal principle is indeterminate and beggars its competency but were it competent to determine the base principle such a determination would be "undesirable". The court here openly flouts its competence in favor of dereliction. Why?
A contrary judgement could have opened the door to abortions becoming illegal in Europe.
Too bad for Mdm. Vo, whose measure of justice before the law might upset all the clever European thinking around abortion.
Mdm. Thi-Nho Vo, the plaintiff, a French citizen of Vietnamese origin, was six months pregnant when she lost her healthy baby. Mdm. Vo had gone to the Hotel-Dieu hospital in Lyons for a regular pre-natal check-up where Dr. Francois Golfier, an appointments-challenged gynecologist, performed a procedure scheduled for another patient on Mdm. Vo resulting in the termination of her pregnancy:
Following a criminal complaint lodged by Vo in 1991, Dr. Golfier was charged with causing unintentional injury. The charge was subsequently increased to one of unintentional homicide. On June 3, 1996, Lyons Criminal Court acquitted Golfier. Vo appealed and, on March 13, 1997, Lyons Court of Appeal overturned the criminal court's judgment, convicted the doctor of unintentional homicide and sentenced him to six-months' imprisonment, suspended, and a fine of 10,000 French francs. On June 30, 1999, following an appeal on points of law, the Court of Cessation [scil., court of cassation - France's highest court] reversed the Court of Appeal's judgment, holding that the facts of the case did not constitute the offense of involuntary homicide since the court refused to consider the unborn child a human being entitled to the protection of the criminal law.Vo applied to the European Court of Human Rights on December 20, 1999 [based on Article 2 (right to life) of the European Convention on Human Right]. On May 22, 2003, the Chamber of the Court decided that the case was of such serious significance it would be heard by the Grand Chamber* of 17 judges rather than the normal 7 judge chamber.
On November 25, 2003, the President of the Grand Chamber granted the two pro-abortion groups [i.e., Family Planning Association (London) and the Center for Reproductive Rights (New York), both pro-abortion activist organizations] leave to intervene as third parties in the proceedings.
* Grand Chamber judgments are final (Article 44 of the Convention).
So progressive Europe has agreed on a right to life, but can't agree amongst its member states -- not who, but when -- a person qualifies for this nice protection. A feckless European Court of Human Rights, instituted to rule exclusively on such a right, declares itself incompetent and derelict.
France in this case leads European opinion. A French Europe clearly prefers an inviolate political right to abortion over a universal human right to life. But any rights that do not proceed from the primacy of a right to life cannot be secure. A French Europe would rather have dodgy rights than principled law.
That is as matters stand.
Required Reading (Friend or Foe - France):
Pennsylvania Congressman Curt Weldon has a fantastic piece in today's Washington Times. Go. Read it.
Despite impassioned pleas from Afghan President Hamid Karzai for additional troops to provide security against continuing violence by Islamist fundamentalists that threatens critical national elections, Mr. Chirac blocked the U.S.-backed plan, claiming such forces "shouldn't be used in any old manner." Mr. Chirac's actions and anti-American rhetoric only serve to underscore the depths to which this once great nation has sunk.What? that's not enough? Wait, there's more!
The time has come to end France's continued economic gain paid for with the blood of U.S. and coalition soldiers. America cannot continue its efforts to improve relations with France, if France is only willing to reciprocate when it is convenient for her to do so.I *heart* Curt Weldon.
No Real Enemies And No Real Friends:
¡No Pasaran! clued us to this gem by M. Dominique Dhombres in his 06.25.04 Le Monde column:
Europe could finally come into existence if it agreed to have enemies. It would cease to be boring and colorless if it were to oppose someone.
M. Dhombres is not talking about Islamism nor rogue nuclear states as Europe's candidate enemies. What M. Dhombres has in mind is all of Europe joining France in its war of snits, snubs, and scathing down-the-nose insults against America. For Le Monde, as for Jack and his minions at the Quai d'Orsay, as for much of France, there is only one great bug-a-boo, scil., America. If only Europe would provide France sufficient heft, then France could settle America's hash.
But to have heft requires friends, not doormats. (Hat tip: E-nough!):
Britain has concluded that its three-nation alliance with France and Germany is in effect over after a series of rows between Tony Blair and the French President, Jacques Chirac.The Prime Minister's change of tack emerged as he accused France and Germany of watering down moves to ensure stability in Iraq and Afghanistan and warned that this week's Nato summit had not faced up to the threat of global terrorism.
The end of trilateralism will come as a relief to many smaller European nations, which feared the three most powerful countries in the EU would set up a directoire.
Jack is fearless when it comes to alienating any who miss their opportunities to shut up. When EU candidates Bulgaria and Romania signed the Vilnius Group letter supporting the American-led liberation of Iraq, Jack was all over that: "If they wanted to lessen their chances of joining Europe, then they could not have found a better way."
But France can also be accomodating. For instance, the apparent warning below is for a threat that does not yet materially exist, i.e., Iran going nuclear:
France could use its nuclear capability to defend its neighbours, French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said in an interview Monday, while also urging European Union states to increase military spending.She said ethnic conflict and terrorism were making the world increasingly more unstable...that rogue states "could one day point their missiles toward France and its neighbours. We could say to those countries: 'Watch out, if you try to carry out your threats we will destroy you before you know what's hit you.'"
That's pretty fancy talk when France insists America act like the Duke of Sung. Imagine for a moment were Donald Rumsfeld to talk so loosely about pre-emptively -- as Mdm. Alliot-Marie here suggests -- flinging around a few nukes, imagine the placid French reaction.
But this is no warning. What France is up to here is signaling that France has decided Europe can live with a nuclear Iran -- taking some of the polish off Israel, America's staunch ally -- oh, but don't point those missles at anything near France.
Mdm. Alliot-Marie, perhaps the dimmest bulb in the dark Chirac marquee, is pretty sure France would bail out Germany and she's pretty sure that France has a good army, though not quite how good:
"If Germany asked us for help, it is probable that European solidarity would come into play," she told the Berliner Zeitung newspaper, and added: "For us, nuclear weapons are the ultimate protection against a threat from abroad."She said that France has a mobile, flexible and highly-motivated military and that it was the second or third best in the world.
[All emphases added.]
Bear in mind up to the outbreak of World War II, the French army was assessed as the best in the world. And Poland was assured France would honor her treaty obligations.
Anybody notice that Chirac is crazy?:
And dumb.
He went bonkers when President Bush dared challenge France's notion of empire - by supporting Turkey's bid to join the EU.
Stung by Mr Bush's call for the EU to give Turkey a firm date for accession, Mr Chirac responded: "He not only went too far but he has gone into a domain which is not his own.No, jackass - it's not. We'd at least thank them for their input. And since when is the EU just part of French "domain"?"He has nothing to say on this subject. It is as if I were to tell the United States how it should conduct its relations with Mexico."
Way to go, Jock. True colors, all of them yellow.
Google: not French:
I have one Gmail invite left, friends - and it's open for bidding. Post in the comments why you deserve it.
Absent Good Manners, Bad Law:
France is not alone in celebrating herself for passing progressive junk law.
Modern democracies are replete with progressive laws that contravene fundamental liberties (e.g., the curtailment of religious expression), that are based on nonfactual notions (e.g., the Kyoto Treaty), or that do not express the will of the majority but the pet biases of minorities of betters (e.g., campaign finance reform).
But France is our topic and comes to our attention because of her latest pretensions. There is this gem, item one:
International experts met Wednesday in Paris to tackle the tricky task of fighting anti-Semitic, racist and xenophobic propaganda on the Internet -- seen as a chief factor in a rise in hate crime.And yet it is in France where anti-Semitism egregiously manifests itself in the West."Our responsibility is to underline that by its own characteristics -- notably, immediacy and anonymity -- the Internet has seduced the networks of intolerance," French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said in opening remarks at the two-day conference.
France, which is spearheading the effort, has faced a surge in anti-Semitic violence in the last two years. Some fault the growth of Internet use among hate groups.
Robert Badinter, a former French justice minister, said that of 4,000 "racist sites" counted worldwide in 2002, some 2,500 were based in the United States
M. Badinter’s selective statistic is rather meaningless as two years ago server capacity made America the majority provider for almost every site category.
Of course no one has a clue what thin air M. Badinter has pulled his funny numbers from, nor exactly what qualifies a site for censure as “racist” by M. Badinter. No doubt he included this one. And this one. And of course this one, too. Because political thought that is not M. Badinter’s political thought is racist thought.
Progressives believe they have only to knock together fabulous legislation and -- poof! -- no more racism, no more anti-Semitism. But laws are no protection against thoughts, they can only proscribe and penalize acts.
Which brings us to item two another presumptuous French project. Jack, in the person of his Minister of Justice, Dominique Perben, has announced his government’s intention to criminalize homophobic and sexist speech. Well, France will certainly be a quieter place the day after this law is passed. If not for the inviolable freedom to calumniate America, France might go dead quiet.
First in the docket for hate crimes? It’s Jack & co.:
The bill enters the process of ratification just after the centre-right government took steps to punish a mayor - the Green party politician Noel Mamere - who earlier this month performed France's first ever gay marriage ceremony.
That seems to fall within the law’s discrimination provision:
The bill, which will go before parliament next month, will make "incitement to discrimination, hatred or violence against a person on the basis of gender or sexual orientation" punishable by a year in prison and a EUR 45,000 (USD 54,000) fine. [Emphasis added.]It puts sexist and homophobic remarks on the same criminal level as words encouraging racism or anti-Semitism.
Ah, but not all hate speech is equal and France’s feminists are now squabbling over insult primacy. Why they ask should "tarlouze" trump “salope” in criminal penalties? Why indeed.
At the weekly cabinet meeting, President Jacques Chirac said he hoped the law would "bring to an abrupt end these very serious acts," his spokesman said.
Oh yes, that should do it. Why, this 1990 law has made racism and ant-Semitism nonexistent in France.
The question to our French correspondents is this: How defective is French law that the dignity of the human person does not obtain for all classes of people without minorities seeking remedies in special legislation?
06.25.04 UPDATE: We note that in France hate speech is prosecuted and fined but not commercially enjoined. If you are willing to pay the state for your opinions then you are free to peddle them about.
Earlier this month, viz. infra, Mdm. Bardot was fined ?5,000 for inciting racial hatred in her book, Un cri dans le silence, a sort of Dr. Doolittle meets Jean-Marie Le Pen worldview. Jack's new expanded hate speech law will have la BB back in the docket for referring to homosexuals as "phénomènes de foire" in her book. Apparently strong meat in France. Elsewhere la BB laments the many "filthy, badly dressed and badly shaven" people cluttering up France. No doubt, offended bums will now petition the state for redress.
The book remains available at Amazon.fr. Certainly this is odd. If the court has found that la BB's book incites racial hatred in some real and concrete way, shouldn't there be an injunction against its dissemination because of the dangers of its real and concrete powers? Or perhaps in truth la BB's book is factually flimsy and insulting but is not inciting anyone to anything. What France looks to want to prohibit is insulting speech, not some dark notion of hate speech. It is hard to determine which of the two is the greater folly.
CIA Fact Book and France:
The CIA World Factbook for 2004 just came out today, so here's a little side-by-side comparison of us and France:
Population: 293,027,571 v. 60,424,213 [Ok, we're bigger. Duh.]
Age structure:
0-14 years: 20.8%
15-64 years: 66.9%
65 years and over: 12.4%
v.
0-14 years: 18.5%
15-64 years: 65.1%
65 years and over: 16.4% [We're proportionately younger.]
Population growth rate: 0.92% v. 0.39% [We're also growing a lot faster.]
Death rate: 8.34 deaths/1,000 population v. 9.06 deaths/1,000 population [And dying more slowly. What was that about obese Americans killing themselves with fatty foods?]
Sex ratio (total population): 0.97 male(s)/female v. 0.95 male(s)/female [We're more manly too.]
Infant mortality rate: 6.63 deaths/1,000 live births v. 4.31 deaths/1,000 live births [Ah, but sadly their infants are more likely to live.]
Total fertility rate: 2.07 children born/woman v. 1.85 children born/woman [But then we have more kids.]
Life expectancy at birth: 77.43 years v. 79.44 years [They live longer.]
GDP - real growth rate: 3.1% v. 0.1% [Snarf! Bwahahahaha!]
GDP - per capita: $37,800 v. $27,500 [Oh, and we continue to be the most productive nation in the world per capita.]
Inflation rate (consumer prices): 2.1% v. 2% [We have slightly higher inflation.]
Population below poverty line: 12% v. 6.5% [But those numbers are from 2003 in the U.S. and 2000 in France. That throws things off in light of...]
Unemployment rate: 6.2% v. 9.6% [France's 2003 unemployment rate, which is not only higher than ours but also higher than their percentage below the poverty line.]
Industrial production growth rate: -1% v. 1.1% [France has a higher industrial growth rate, but this squares with the relatively low percentage of our economy that relies on manufacturing anymore.]
Economic aid - donor: $6.9 billion v. $5.4 billion [We give more to other nations. And those are 1997 numbers for us while France's numbers are from 2002.]
Military expenditures - percent of GDP: 3.9% v. 2.6% [We spend more defending ourselves and our allies.]
And screw you too, Chirac:
I would be remiss if I failed to point out that French President Chirac has chosen not to attend Ronald Wilson Reagan's funeral in Washington.
Before I say, "dirtbag," I'm sure it's just trouble getting a flight across the pond, right? Too difficult to fit it into his busy schedule. After all, he's a head of state, no?
Um. No.
He's in Atlanta, GA for the G8 summit. Leave it to the Frog to enjoy our hospitality when it comes to financial gain for his country - while giving the middle finger to a popular US President while he's lying in state.
Dirtbag.
France fines for "hate speech":
The "freedom loving" French have convicted Bridgette Bardot of "hate speech" for saying not nice things about muslims in her book. So much for Liberte.
