In the War on Terror, most Americans (56%) believe that the United Nations is somewhere between an enemy and an ally.A Rasmussen Reports survey of 2,500 Adults found that just 21% view the international agency as our ally while 16% believe the UN is an enemy of the U.S.
Assessments of France are even bleaker. Twenty-seven percent (27%) view France as an enemy in the War on Terror. Just 18% view that nation as an ally. Forty-eight percent (48%) say it is somewhere in between.
When it comes to the UN, Investor views are little different from non-Investors. However, on France, there is a significant gap. For every Investor who says France is our ally, there are two who say France is our enemy. Non-Investors are relatively evenly divided between those two positions.
Tu vois ?
War And Peace Purée:
The French believe their national character possesses a natural and profound endowment for philosophy. If philosophy were nothing more than bathetic clichés thrown into the cerebral blender and poured out the nose, well, we'd have to give the point to the French.
Nowhere is this pretentious French notion of Frenchness more richly, more risibly in evidence than in official French pronouncements on war and peace.
1. "...France has convictions. She considers that war is always the worst solution..."Jack Chirac, Paris, 16 March 2003
This is the sort of pretentious hooey dished up on afternoon television. They ought to turn off Oprah at the Quai d'Orsay and read some French history.
2. "I wish to reiterate here that for France war can only be the last resort, and collective responsibility, the rule."Dom de Villepin (French Foreign Minister at the time), New York, March 19, 2003
But French rules for everyone else don't apply to big French mistakes.
3. [Prompted by what he had just heard, a reporter asked whether the Foreign Minister hoped American and British forces would win the military campaign to remove Saddam Hussein.] "I'm not going to answer. You have not been listening carefully to what I said before. You already have the answer."q.v. No.5, also this.Dom de Villepin (French Foreign Minister at the time), London, March 28, 2003
4. "France, like all the democracies, welcomes the collapse of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship and is hoping for a swift and effective end to the fighting."q.v. No.3Communique from the Presidency of the Republic, Paris, 10 April 2003
5. "We consider that all military action not endorsed by the international community, through, in particular, the Security Council, was both illegitimate and illegal, is illegitimate and illegal. And we have not changed our view on that."q.v. No.8Jack Chirac, Évian-les-Bains, 3 June 2003
How's this for international unanimity: in recognition of the "illegitimacy" and "illegality" of the liberation of Iraq not one nation declared itself for Saddam's Iraq. Not one nation marshalled forces for the defense of Saddam's Iraq. France stood by watching what she understood to be illegitimate and illegal acts and did nothing. Showy French hand-wringing is the joke that the French just don't get.
6. "I would say if you look at the United States on one side, the Europeans on the other side, there are two important differences. The first one is the word "war" against terrorism -- because of course America is at war, and really at war. In Europe, there was solidarity -- there still is solidarity -- but we don't use the word "war." We most of the time say it's a fight -- a fight not against "terrorism" with an "m," but against "terrorists." It is more than a nuance. The choice of words is never meaningless. Living in the United States I see that the people of America is really at war. When you travel in Europe, you don't have the same feeling. And it explains a lot when you consider Iraq."Jean-David Levitte (French ambassador to the United States), Washington, 10 October 2003
M. Levitte is the honorable French plenipotentiary and crybaby to the United States of America. His above twaddle reveals an unintended truth: The French are clueless.
7. "It's on the really strong orders of the president of the republic (Jacques Chirac) that the government declares war on racism, on all racism."q.v. No.1Justice Minister Dominique Perben, Paris, 23 August 2004
Always a bad sign when Jack escalates his tough talk. As we've detailed elsewhere (here for instance), Jack huffs and puffs and things just get worse.
And finally this:
8. "For how long will the world accept this tragedy that is crushing lives and peoples, that does damage to the development and stability of a region that is essential for the security of all, that is creating a gulf of resentment and lack of understanding between cultures, civilizations, religions? ... It is essential that the international community assume its responsibilities... [must] take stock of the disastrous results of its inaction and free itself of its false caution. ... We must encourage, maybe even impose the resumption of a negotiations process between the parties. .... Now we must move forward, as peace is possible. The world can no longer wait for goodwill on one side or the other."Jack Chirac, Paris, 27 August 2004
Having declared war on racism, Jack now declares the imposition of peace in the Middle East. But Jack isn't here addressing the UN, he's addressing a gaggle of French envoys. Where is Jack's UN resolution? Where is Jack's fulsome UN coalition for what is nothing less than the occupation of the sovereign democratic state of Israel? Sounds both illegal and illegitimate to us, q.v. No.5.
French Physical Culture:
Should you paddle about Masion de la France, the official Tourist Office Web site for France, you will learn that France is officially gay friendly, that she is "the gay-friendly destination par excellence." [Emphasis in original.] And to show her gay-friendliness, the government has retooled those Republican chestnuts "liberté, égalité, fraternité" to read: liberté, égalité, diversité.
All this will be big news in the Sarcelles.
But wait! France is also gay-unfriendly. So if you are gay, you may or may not want to visit France.
France is also officially, naked friendly. France invites uptight Americans to contemplate the soft doughy silhouettes of naked French people in nature:
Without their clothes, people no longer look at one another critically and social barriers are no longer relevant!
The government here suggests a buck naked France will remedy the sociopathies coincident with French attire. However, we remain unconvinced this will much advance France's war on anti-Semitism.
Elsewhere Virginie Dedieu and Laure Thibaud showed French physical culture to good advantage in the duet event this week in Olympic synchronized swimming. Unfortunately a vertical error and a strong field put them out of medal contention. The ladies glittery swimsuits of red, white, and blue (reading top to bottom) -- instead of the usual Republican order of blue, white, and red -- no doubt paid a tribute that is in all French hearts to American generosity and sacrifice in the life of their nation.
Or perhaps the ladies put their suits on upside down.
Finally, only the French can displace the seat of the intellect with the seat of the pants, transforming an evening of theater into a test of physical endurance:
With a performance time of 11 hours, about as long as a London-Tokyo flight, ["Le Soulier de Satin" (The Satin Slipper)] by Paul Claudel is the Mount Everest of French theatre. Few directors have the courage to attempt it, and it is staged once in a generation.Written in the 1920s, Claudel's epic poem was first staged in Paris in a shortened version in 1943 by the legendary Jean-Louis Barrault, but had to wait until 1987 to be staged in full by Antoine Vitez at the Avignon Festival.
Now the young director Olivier Py has staked his claim to a place in stage history by bringing his complete version of the play to the Edinburgh International Festival for its first outing before a non-Francophone audience.
Py is a man with a self-proclaimed taste for creating theatrical monsters. He made his reputation by staging his own play "La Servante" (The Servant) over 24 hours at the Avignon Festival 10 years ago.
For the first of two all-day performances at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre, less than half the 1,350 seats were filled, and most of the audience slipped away before the end.
Applause was muted, and despite the use of English subtitles many of the audience who staggered out punch-drunk at the end said they were baffled.
The French On France: C'est Un Navet:
Le Figaro commissioned some 40 philosophers, politicians, academics and writers to expatiate on the theme, "Qu'est-ce qu'être français en 2004" (the haecceity of Frenchness being somewhat wispy, apparently something different year to year with no perduring qualities nor quickened by enduring principles). Here's what the French have to say about France and being French:
"How is it that such a brilliant nation has become such a mediocre power, so out of breath, so indebted, so closed in its own prejudices ... To be French today is to mourn for what we no longer are."
-- Chantal Delsol, philosophy professor (Professor Delsol elsewhere remarks that France has "a distrust of anything that claims to teach, to form, to guide, in short, to contain "doctrine". Well, unless the anything is French.)"Those French who doubt that they have an identity need only listen to those who hate them to convince themselves that it exists."
-- Roland Hureaux, author of Le temps des derniers hommes"The decline of the French language is inseparable from the decline of the French nation."
-- Claude Hagège, linguist at the prestigious Collège de France"The economy is suffocating. Big industrial groups are investing elsewhere. The best-off are fleeing, the most talented are leaving. Even the middle classes are demoralised by the taxation levels."
-- Jean de Belot, the editorial director at Le Figaro who conceived the series
The anguished fairy tale that is French identity is informed as much by what the French suppress (also this and this and this and quite a bit of their own invention) as by what they advertise.
But at last the French as whole appear to be in general agreement with the Pave community: France is a flop.
Another Victory For Secular France:
No new saint for France to queer her ginned up secular tradition:
A campaign to sanctify the European Union through the beatification of its founding father, Robert Schuman, has run into stiff resistance from the Vatican and now appears likely to fail.Schuman was born in Luxembourg and raised as a German in Prussian-controlled Metz. He served in the Kaiser's army during the First World War, switching citizenship automatically as France regained Alsace-Lorraine. As French prime minister in 1947, he still spoke with a guttural Germanic accent.
A gangly ascetic, he lived on eggs and lettuce, taking the Eucharist each morning at the chapel of Servants of Sacred Heart near his home. He never married. Konrad Adenauer, the late German chancellor, dubbed him "a saint in a business suit".
Schuman, the French foreign minister who in May 1950 unveiled plans to pool western Europe's coal and steel production, died quietly in bed in Scy-Chazelles near Metz, in 1963, aged 77.
The Schuman Plan, the basis of the European Coal and Steel Community, was the precursor to the European Community seven years later. It was intended to lead to full economic union and ultimately a European federation.
"We need a miracle and we haven't been able to find one," [Jean Moes, a former professor of German history and the leader of the inquiry] said. "All we have is the construction of Europe after the war and Rome does not accept that as a real miracle." [Crummy American dollars don't register on the French miracle meter.]
The drive for his beatification and eventual canonisation was launched by a private group in Metz, the St Benoit Institute, but has acquired powerful backers, including President Jacques Chirac. [French rayonnement must be pretty dim if Secular Jack is slumming at the Vatican for a trophy saint.]
Fifty years later, the EU appears to have turned its back on the deeply Catholic inspiration of its founding statesmen, dropping all reference to God in the draft constitution.
"Schuman would have turned in his grave," said Jacques Paragon, his sponsor for sainthood at the St Benoit Institute.
The sad truth is that France today would have no place for the likes of the saintly M. Schuman.
By The Numbers:
France, a nation of...well, sleepy heads, male layabouts, and distant parents. Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities, recently released the results of its four-year survey (1998-2002) of the everyday lives of women and men aged from 20 to 74 in nine EU Member States (Belgium, Germany, Estonia, France, Hungary, Slovenia, Finland, Sweden, the United Kingdom) and Norway. Here are the Frenchie highlights:
French women top all Europeans in sleep (8:38/day). French men come in a close third in all classes (8:24/day).French women come in fourth overall in doing tidy-up (3:40/d), French men are next to last (1:53/d) among all classes.
Of all Europeans, French men (2:58/d) and women (2:57/d) are the most epicurean in chow-downs and grooming.
Among women, the French spend 47% of their free time watching TV or videos; among men, 45%.
French mamas and papas only manage 10% and 6%, respectively, of their home lives for baby Pierre. That ties French mommys for 12th overall; French daddys dead last in all classes.
Elsewhere Eurostat cheerily announces:
Euro-zone unemployment stable at 9.0% (the larger EU25 itself is 9.1% and for France alone an average-fattening 9.5%)
Now contrast that with this dreary end-of-time headline from the AFP:
US generates meagre 32,000 jobs in July, markets in shock
The story goes on:
Employment in June, too, was weaker than previously reported, the Labor Department said, with net jobs up just 78,000, far lower than the modest 112,000 initially estimated.
AFP dishes up "it's all bad news in Mr. Bush's America" handwringing when unemployment here is 5.5% down from 5.6% in June, the July unemployment duration fell 1.3 weeks from the June number, and the July numbers are the 11th straight month of job gains during which time 1.5 million jobs have been created.
But while America goes down the sinkhole of steady economic recovery, everything's bright and happy over at the "American counterweight™", EU25, with its stable -- i.e., persistent -- 9.1% unemployment.
UPDATE 08.09.04: The stress of living in a socialist paradise by the numbers:
One of every four French women regularly downs a prescription pill to calm her nerves or lift her spirits.[A] French government report estimated last [January] that painkillers, antidepressants and tranquilizers cost the country's medical-insurance system more than ?16 billion ($20.09 billion) a year, contributing to a widening deficit in the country's social-security system, now ?13.6 billion. "Nothing justifies" prescribing those drugs two to four times as often as doctors in neighboring countries, the report concluded.
Almost half of French residents who take antidepressant drugs haven't even been diagnosed with depression, says Alain Weill, author of a CNAM [France's health-insurance fund] study on drug consumption. ... About a third of people taking so-called psychotropic drugs, a category that includes tranquilizers, sleeping pills and antidepressants, tend to ignore the dosage instructions, Mr. Weill estimates. Drowsiness and other side effects of such drugs are responsible for as much as 30% of accidental falls by the elderly.
Why is France so heavily and dangerously medicated? Depends who you ask. Here is Philippe Labro, a prominent French author, slicing the baloney pretty thick:
Mr, Labro thinks the French might be more dependent on antidepressants because of the country's character. "We're a cerebral nation, we split hairs, and we have a more intense faculty of introspection than other people," he says.
An overly medicated nation of Zoloft zombies hardly seems to constitute a "cerebral nation". If you have any idea what Mr. Labro is talking about, please pay us a visit in the thread.
Martin Winkler, a doctor in Le Mans, claims the diagnosis isn't so complicated. "French people aren't more depressed than anyone else," he says, blaming bad medical policy and poor training for doctors.
My money's on Dr. Winkler. (Hat tip: E-Nough!)
[All emphases added.]
Yet More French Weirdness:
A French seaweed fisherman retained one of the world's lesser-known sporting titles at the weekend - that of champion snail spitter, propelling the tiny creature a total of 9.38 metres (31 feet).Alain Jourden, 43, beat back the challenge posed by 110 pretenders from 14 countries including Belgium, Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden, but failed to surpass his own world distance record of 10.4 metres.
Competitors roll the live snail in their mouths to be sure it is propelled at precisely the correct angle, take a running start along a sandy 20-metre track and expectorate. A maximum of three attempts is allowed.
Jourden told AFP he had trained hard for a week before the competition, carrying out "several spits a day".
An antidote to the recent rash of US-import, career-enhancing self-help books by business management gurus, [Hello Laziness - The Art and the Importance of Doing the Least Possible at the Workplace by French authoress, Corinne Maier, a senior economist at Electricité de France] rails against corporate culture and preaches a philosophy of active disengagement.It is an elegantly written call to arms to the "neo-slaves" of middle management and the "damned of the service industry", condemned to dress up as clowns all week and waste their lives in pointless meetings.
Maier cites the recent wave of financial scandals in French business, and argues that since careers are at risk and pensions under threat, employees should shake off their shackles of loyalty and start "footling around" during office hours.
Amid growing concern over obesity in children, all vending-machines that sell sweets and soft drinks in French schools are to be banned under a public health law voted through by parliament Friday.French health officials have warned that obesity has increased by 17 percent in 20 years to the point where one child in 10 is overweight. A recent report by the health and education ministries said that 20 percent of 10-11 year-olds are afflicted.
Taking a little break from hard blogging. Just laughs while our Frenchies are on holiday.
French Weirdness:
Every country from time to time finds itself an incidental host of the weird. Here's a little weirdness from France:
Merhan Karimi Nasseri is not sure whether he will manage to attend the Paris premiere of Steven Spielberg's latest film, The Terminal, which was inspired by his life. If he abandons the corner of Charles de Gaulle airport where he has lived for the past 16 years for long enough to travel into the capital for the ceremony, airport security will blow up his belongings.The precise details of his life remain unclear: even his age, believed to be 59, is not confirmed, and as he becomes more mentally frail, his version of the facts has shifted dramatically. Probably born in 1945 in Iran, Mr Nasseri was educated at Bradford University, and participated in protests against the shah in the 1970s, which led to his expulsion from Iran when he returned in 1976.
It seems Britain refused him political asylum; the fact that his mother was Scottish made no difference to his case. He was imprisoned in Belgium for four months in 1988 as an illegal immigrant after his refugee papers were stolen, before being taken to the Paris airport for expulsion to Iran. Fearing possible persecution, he declared himself stateless, and has remained in the terminal ever since.
[Emphasis added.]
Weird.
Six ?...Pfft:
The Franchouille cannot abide excellence in the person of an indomitable American (Hat tip: ¡No Pasaran!):
After Lance Armstrong's 6th record Tour de France victory yesterday, France2 TV (State television and keeper of the State Party Line©®™) presented a poll which ranked Lance as France's 3rd most hated sports personality. The main reason given? 'Because he is American'.
Read more cross-eyed French here.
And while Frenchies promote fairy tales about Mr. Armstrong as a dope fiend:
[France's Richard] Virenque, who has won the climbers' polka-dot jersey for a record seventh time, led the Festina team which was kicked off the 1998 Tour for systematic doping but is still hailed as a star by the French."[The French] don't know what they want," said Armstrong (US Postal). "What kind of champion do they want? A champion who doesn't work hard and doesn't love his sport?
"But don't boo me and cheer for someone else involved in the biggest doping crisis in the history of sport. That doesn't make sense."
Armstrong, subjected to abuse, spitting and angry gestures throughout the Tour that ended in Paris overnight, said he accepted sledging was a star's lot.
(Hat tip: E-Nough!)
Over at sports.fr they have been serving up reams of Gallic pique. They support poor little Pipo's (scil., Filippo Simeoni) contention that whistleblowing celebrity -- not pedaling -- should guarantee a guy a win. Boo hoo hoo Hoo. And when Mr. Armstrong handily beat the field to win the Tour, oh, sports.fr suggests he did little more than come up from behind his US Postal teammates.
This sourness is not new to Frenchies. French interest in the Tour has steadily waned since 1985, the last time a native son, Bernard Hinault, took the win. But who's to blame? Le Ricain, Armstrong. Last year's complaint:
Armstrong is blamed by many French for sucking the life out of the Tour. Though admired for his strength and stamina, he is resented for his stern professionalism. The French would rather he was a little more playful, like their housewives' favourite, Richard Virenque, who barely has time to pedal between his winks and asides. The fact that Armstrong is not only American, but Texan like the loathed President George W Bush, does not help him.
And if Mr. Armstrong were to wink and win, why, then he would be undeserving because he is frivolous. Well there's no pleasing the French -- as if that was everyone's number one priority.
Not every Frenchman must diminish Mr. Armstrong to enlarge himself or France:
Henri Leconte, a retired French tennis great, wrote a glowing tribute in the daily, "Le Monde," calling Armstrong’s image of being distant and prickly a fabrication of the media.“He is, above all, absolutely normal,” he wrote. “He is very kind, generous and respectful of others. ... He has his heart in his hand, and his fight against cancer proves it.”
And, Leconte added, “He had the decency to learn French. He loves France.”
The precipitate drop-off in news interest in Mr. Armstrong following his world-class historic win suggests that the only news the press wanted to report was Mr. Armstrong losing. Looks like it's back to calumniating America in the abstract.
[All emphases added.]
French. Scumbags. But I repeat myself:
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.
