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The Fall of France and the Multicultural World War
Ambiorix:
Poller: Halimi murder update
http://israpundit.com/2006/?p=344
by Nidra Poller, American ex-pat writer and translator in Paris
Jihad Watch
March 6, 2006
Youssouf Fofana has been extradited from the Ivory Coast. His return to France was the opening subject on prime time news. We saw him led to the plane in Abidjan under heavy escort, taken from the plane in Paris under even heavier escort, brought from the airport to Paris in a convey with motorcycle cops and screaming sirens, and delivered to the main courthouse on a cold blustery night. He appeared before the judge, heard charges, more-or-less explained himself and was tightly locked up in a French prison.
I don’t agree with Hannah Arendt’s concept of the banality of evil. It’s more like the deflation of evil under pressure of the law. Taking the life of a human being is immense, it’s limitless, it’s the size of divinity and the depth of iniquity. When Fofana was the Barbarian’s Brain, pushing people around, packing a rod, inflicting torture, dehumanizing Ilan Halimi, slitting the throat of all that was left of him after three and a half weeks of torture, he was a big operator. Now he’s a punk. He’s helpless, useless, worthless. But we want justice. We want him to account for his evil deeds and be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
Ilan Halimi was lured lured into the death trap on the 20th of January. He died shortly after he was discovered on the 13th of February in a condition that we wish we could not imagine. The extent and the brutality of the tortures inflicted on him have not been described and will never be fully revealed. One haunting detail torments the mind: not content to blindfold their victim, the Gang of Barbarians covered his eyes with tape, in fact his whole face was wrapped in tape…from the very beginning…from the first days when, in the words of the arch coward Fofana, the kidnapping was undertaken for the purpose of financial gains.
Though there were some attempts by mainstream media to let the story fade out, it kept coming back to assume its rightful place. We are getting an exceptional quantity of investigative reporting. And English-speaking media are slowly awaking to the importance of this case for all it reveals and all that remains hidden in French society.
Twenty-one people have already been arrested, nineteen are behind bars, several big goons are still on the run. Police think that an even wider circle of people knew about the hostage and the torture, and kept silent. Some may be charged with “non-assistance to an endangered person.”
Youssouf Fofana will be charged with other extortion attempts, going back to 2002, targeting prominent personalities and general practitioners, many of them Jewish. Which raises metaphysical questions about antisemitism. Though one or two of the barbarians accuse fellow gang members of antisemitism, none of them admit to it for themselves, least of all Fofana. He lost miserably on his first line of defense, opposing extradition on that grounds that he was Ivoirian because his parents were born in the Ivory Coast. The court ruled that he is French, and got him out of there as fast as the Airbus could carry him. Now Fofana is camping on a new bargain: he admits he masterminded the abduction but denies he killed the hostage; he admits he specifically chose a Jew, but denies that he was motivated by antisemitism. His choice of a Jew was pragmatic. As he repeatedly explained to the victim’s family and even to his rabbi, if the family doesn’t have money, they can get it at the synagogue.
Some analysts put two and two together, and come up with a clear case of antisemitism. Others subtract two from two and the antisemitism disappears. The guys in the ‘hood, as we will see below, put two and two and two and another two together, and when it adds up to deep seated widespread dangerous antisemitism, they rub out the figures and get aggressively defensive.
You get the impression that for many people antisemitism is not an attitude, a mindset, an emotion, an explosive combination of ideas and passions, it’s a concrete object, a thing at least twice as big as an SUV, and when someone has it you can see it with your own two eyes, and if you don’t see it parked there in front of his nose, he doesn’t have it.
The newspaper of record, Le Monde, had tried to shy away from the murder case but finally decided to swim with the current. Suddenly we get a flood of information, including names of some of the gang members and details about their roles in the hostage operation. To wit: Giri N’Gazi, 19, jailer. Christophe Martin Vallet, 22, works in a school canteen, chauffeured one of the baiting chicks and gave Fofana advanced IT training. Samir Aït Abdelmalek, 27, liaison between jailers and kidnappers, got the keys to the apartment where Ilan was held before being transferred to the boiler room. Gilles Serrurier (“serrurier” is French for locksmith), building custodian, gave the keys to Samir. Jerome Ribeiro, 30, quit the gang at the end of January because things were getting too violent. Jean-Christophe G., 17, one of the most violent torturers. Yahia Touré Kaba, 19, acted as guard for 2 ½ weeks. Another jailer, pizza delivery boy Nabil Moustafa, 18, brought in Cédric Birot Saint-Yves, 28, to help. Fabrice Polygone, 19, vocational school student, jailer for the whole 3 ½ weeks (played hooky?).
This thug admits to a slash, another to a cigarette burn, a third to shaving Ilan’s head, but nothing that measures up to the wounds found on his wretched, wrecked body. Le Monde apparently obtained this information from lawyers involved in the case. Their identities are not officially announced, their faces re not shown. Innocent until proven guilty, until their trial two or three years from now. According to French law they cannot be sentenced en masse for what they did all together. Each individual criminal act must be attributed to its rightful author.
But they’ve already been doused with a splash of victimhood: their families are stigmatized, terrorized, forced to move away or living behind closed shutters, harassed and targeted with “disguised threats.” Norbert Goutmann, who has been defending Fofana since 1999 gave up. Too much pressure…from Jews, one must assume, who don’t understand how a Jewish lawyer can defend a vicious Jew killer.
Maître Goutmann tried to explain, on a Jewish radio station and on national television, that he was only doing his job, that Madame Fofana was terrorized, that it remained to be seen if the accusations made against his client are founded. As it turns out several members of the Barbarians’ gang have Jewish lawyers. Doesn’t that prove they are not antisemitic?
Ever since the November riots, “positive discrimination” has been in the air. So it is no surprise to find Moustapha Kessous reporting from the ‘hood for Le Monde: “Bagneux: “You don’t dare say the word ‘Jew.’” What with the pressure exerted on the lawyers, the families of the Barbarian gang, and their nice neighbors, you understand that the Jews are making it tough for everyone.
Djibril Issaka lives a few doors away from Youssouf Fofana, and works for a cultural association a few steps from where Ilan Halimi was tortured. Djibril and the brothas, who have to put up with stupid stereotypes about Blacks, are insulted by insinuations of wholesale antisemitism in the projects. He actually joined the March in memory of Ilan, but stepped out after 6 minutes when he heard people saying Ilan Halimi was killed because he was Jewish. Too much.
Abou Decore, 24, monitor in a social club, complains that you can’t even pronounce the word “Jew” without being accused of antisemitism. It’s okay to say Muslims are terrorists but you can’t say Jews have money.
A 19 year-old neighbor chimes in: “Jews are always playing victim…. This affair is going to create antisemitism.”
Daoud Ouatara, 23, says the French have a moral debt because they sold out the Jews during the war, but it’s nothing to do with us, we’re sons of immigrants, we’re racaille.
And another brotha adds that the Jews stick together. The least little thing and they’ve got the CRIF, the Licra, they don’t let you get away with anything.
When Bernard Abouaf of Radio Shalom checked out the ‘hood he didn’t get a warm welcome like Moustapha Kessous. One teenager unashamedly admitted that he didn’t know they were torturing a guy, but if he did, he wouldn’t have squealed on the gang, “because they live around here.”
Four Jewish men were attacked in separate incidents in the Sarcelles banlieue this weekend. Nicolas Sarkozy received the victims and their families in his gilded offices. But one local official declared that four individuals were attacked by delinquents; we have not established that this was a case of inter-communitarian violence. Unless you see the double SUV it’s best to be cautious, n’est-ce pas?
Posted by Jerry Gordon @ 12:35 am |
Ambiorix:
“We must burn France, as Hamas will burn Israel.”
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/005367.html
Judith, VFR’s French translator, writes that a Christian Police Organization (the CFTC) announced before the Parisian riots (on March 28) that the word had gone out in the suburban ghettoes to burn France as Hamas burns Israel:
Les casseurs des ghettos, qui sont les mêmes émeutiers de novembre 2005, s’organisent entre eux aux travers des blogs internet pour appeler à l’insurrection lors de la manifestation anti-CEP (contrat première embauche) prévue mardi après-midi au départ de la Place d’Italie à Paris,” alerte Action Police CFTC. (Guysen.Israël.News)
Ces même blogs appellent à casser du “Juif, du Blanc et du Bourge.” On peut encore y lire: “Il faut brûler la France, comme le Hamas brûlera Israël.” Il est évident que les violences à caractère ethnico-religieuses vont franchir une étape tout à l’heure. L’ordre public sera très dur à maintenir étant donné les très graves disfonctionnement constatés dans les précédents dispositifs de la préfecture de police et les divergences de concept en matière de maintien de l’ordre entre les différents protagonistes. Nous recommandons aux plus vulnérables de ne pas se rendre à cette manifestation et aux manifestants de rester en groupe compact.
She provides a quick rendition:
The vandals from the ghettoes, the same ones as last November, are organizing via the blogs of the internet to stage an insurrection during the anti-CPE demonstrations set for Tuesday afternoon, starting at the Place d’Italie,” warns the Policie Action of the CFTC. (Guysen.Israel.News)
These same blogs are calling for violence to the Jews, the whites and the well-to-do. They say, “We must burn France, as Hamas will burn Israel.” It is obvious that violence of an ethnic-religious nature is about to erupt. Public order will be very hard to maintain considering the serious inability of the police to function properly as we witnessed previously, and the differences of opinion about how best to maintain order... We advise those who are most vulnerable not to go to the rally and those who do march to stay together in a compact group.
Judith adds: “As you said: The anti-national mega-state, where national means white, Jewish, and civilized.”
Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 03, 2006 10:32 AM |
Sunday, June 19, 2005
70 percent of French prisoners are Muslims
http://fjordman.blogspot.com/2005/06/70-percent-of-french-prisoners-are.html
French prisons are teeming with Muslims, a phenomenon chaplains and sociologists blame on marginalization and towering poverty and unemployment rates among the Muslim minority. “It really harms the image of Islam and Muslims in France that prisons are teeming with Muslims,” Mamdo Sango, a Muslim chaplain, told IslamOnline.net. Iranian-French researcher Farhad Khosrokhavar said in his recently published book Islam in Prisons that Muslims make up some 70 percent of a total of 60,775 prisoners in France. As ethnicity-based censuses are banned in France, he said complexion, names and religious traditions like prohibition of pork indicate that Muslims constitute an overwhelming majority in prisons. French analysts further warned that prisons might be a breeding ground for extremists. Prison authorities have even become phobic about rising fanaticism in prisons to the extent that they sometimes deny Muslim prisoners the right to have prayer rugs.
posted by Fjordman @ 11:38 PM
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Second night of rioting in Paris
http://fjordman.blogspot.com/2005/10/second-night-of-rioting-in-paris.html
Silent march follows Paris riots
Hundreds of people have taken part in a silent march through a suburb of Paris in memory of two teenage boys whose deaths sparked two nights of violence. Angry crowds clashed with police on Thursday and Friday nights, throwing stones and setting cars alight in the suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. The crowds blamed police for the deaths of the two boys, electrocuted when they climbed into an electrical station. Reports said the boys had been trying to evade police - who deny this. The authorities in Paris say no officers were chasing them at the time of their deaths. Police detained 14 people after Friday night's clashes, which officials said saw 15 police officers and one journalist injured, and a shot fired at a police van. Thursday's violence broke out after youths attacked firefighters who had been called in to help the two victims, who were aged 15 and 17, and a third youth who received serious burns.
Second night of rioting in Paris
Hundreds of French youths fought with police and set cars ablaze in a suburb of Paris early Saturday in a second night of rioting which media said was triggered when two teenagers died fleeing police. Firefighters intervened around 40 times on Friday night in the northeastern suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois where many of the 28,000 residents are immigrants, mainly from Africa, police and fire officers said. Unidentified youths fired a shot at police but no one was hurt, police said. A police trade union called for help from the army to support police officers. "There's a civil war underway in Clichy-Sous-Bois at the moment," Michel Thooris, an official of police trade union Action Police CFTC, said. "We can no longer withstand this situation on our own. My colleagues neither have the equipment nor the practical or theoretical training for street fighting," he said.
September Diary
In Le Figaro daily dated Feb 1, 2002, Lucienne Bui Trong, a criminologist working for the French government's Renseignements Generaux (General Intelligence — a mix of FBI and secret service), complains that the survey system she had created for accurately denumbering the Muslim no-go zones was dismantled by the government. She wrote: 'From 106 hot points in 1991, we went to 818 sensitive areas in 1999. That's for the whole country. These data were not politically correct.' Since she comes from a Vietnamese background, Ms. Bui Trong cannot be suspected of racism, of course, otherwise she wouldn't have been able to start this survey in the first place. The term she uses, 'sensitive area,' is the PC euphemism for these places where anything representing a Western institution (post office truck, firemen, even mail order delivery firms, and of course cops) is routinely ambushed with Molotov cocktails, and where war weapons imported from the Muslim part of Yugoslavia are routinely found. The number 818 is from 2002. I'd go out on a limb and venture that it hasn't decreased in two years. Note the French govt's response to these unpleasant statistics — they stopped collecting the statistics!
The unreported race riot in France
Fredric Encel, Professor of international relations at the prestigious Ecole Nationale d'Administration in Paris and a man not known for crying wolf, recently stated that France is becoming a new Lebanon. The implication, far-fetched though it may seem, was that civil upheaval might be no more than a few years off, sparked by growing ethnic and religious polarization. In recent weeks, a series of events has underlined this ominous trend. On March 8, tens of thousands of high school students marched through central Paris to protest education reforms announced by the government. Repeatedly, peaceful demonstrators were attacked by bands of black and Arab youths--about 1,000 in all, according to police estimates. The eyewitness accounts of victims, teachers, and most interestingly the attackers themselves gathered by the left-wing daily Le Monde confirm the motivation: racism. Some of the attackers openly expressed their hatred of "little French people." One 18-year-old named Heikel, a dual citizen of France and Tunisia, was proud of his actions. He explained that he had joined in just to "beat people up," especially "little Frenchmen who look like victims." He added with a satisfied smile that he had "a pleasant memory" of repeatedly kicking a student, already defenseless on the ground. Another attacker explained the violence by saying that "little whites" don't know how to fight and "are afraid because they are cowards." Rachid, an Arab attacker, added that even an Arab can be considered a "little white" if he "has a French mindset." The general sentiment was a desire to "take revenge on whites."
Stoning in France
The alleged murderer of a 23-year-old Tunisian woman, whose stoned body was discovered on October 20, has been placed in police custody. The suspect, 18, arrested Sunday at his home, is an old acquaintance of the victim. He will be presented before the examining magistrate today.
Is France on the way to becoming an Islamic state?
France is facing the problem that dare not speak its name. Though French law prohibits the census from any reference to ethnic background or religion, many demographers estimate that as much as 20-30 per cent of the population under 25 is now Muslim. The streets, the traditional haunt of younger people, now belong to Muslim youths. In France, the phrase "les jeunes" is a politically correct way of referring to young Muslims. Given current birth rates, it is not impossible that in 25 years France will have a Muslim majority. The consequences are dynamic: is it possible that secular France might become an Islamic state?
Holocaust lessons meet Muslim rebuff in France
"Filthy Jew!" schoolchildren howl at a classmate. "Jews only want money and power," they tell their teachers. "Death to the Jews" graffiti appear on school walls outside Paris and other French cities. These are not scenes from the wartime Nazi occupation or a fictional France where the far-right has taken control. Outright anti-Semitism like this is a fact of life these days in the poor suburbs where much of France's Muslim minority lives. The outspoken book "The Lost Territories of the Republic" opened France's eyes to classrooms where some Muslim pupils openly denounced Jews, praised Hitler and refused to listen to any non-Muslim teacher talking about the history of Islam.
Will Muslim Immigration Trigger Wars in Europe?
Yes, I’m pretty sure this immigration will trigger wars in Europe. This continent has simply lost control over its own borders, and the native population is being replaced at an astonishing rate in many of its major cities. Europe has a rather violent history, and migrations of this magnitude have usually triggered wars between the original population and the newcomers. The situation becomes even worse when we enter another factor: Islam. The Islamic world is at war with pretty much everybody, everywhere. Both Thailand and the Philippines, countries where the Muslim population is not much larger than it is in some Western European countries, are facing war.
posted by Fjordman @ 7:04 PM
Ambiorix:
French Army to Appoint Muslim Chaplains
Meskine welcomed the decision as tantamount to an official recognition of Islam in the French army.
http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2005-01/22/article04.shtml
By Hadi Yahmid, IOL Correspondent
PARIS, January 22 (IslamOnline.net) – The French Defense Ministry has assigned a Muslim army colonel to study the possibility of setting up a department for Muslim chaplains to meet the spiritual needs of Muslims serving in the republic’s army.
Appointing Ayyat Hussein for the job, French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie asked the colonel to hold talks with representatives of the French Council for the Muslim Religion (CFCM) and the French council for imams and report back by the end of June.
Alliot-Marie also held a one-on-one with Dalil Boubakeur, CFCM chairman, on Wednesday, January 19, to discuss the same issue, IslamOnline.net has learnt.
Unlike their Christian and Jewish fellow soldiers, Muslims serving in the French army do not have chaplains catering for their religious needs.
There are 218 Catholic, 55 Protestant and 30 Jewish army clergymen currently serving in the French army.
France is home to around six million Muslims, the biggest Muslim community in Europe.
Official Recognition
Daw Meskine, Secretary General of the council for imams, welcomed the decision as tantamount to an official recognition of Islam in the French army.
“This would likely encourage more French Muslims to serve in the army,” he told IOL.
“The increasing number of Muslims joining the army over the past years has pushed the issue of chaplains to the surface.”
Elaborating on the assignments of the Muslim chaplains, Meskine said they would acquaint the Muslim soldiers with their holy feasts, provide them with halal meat and copies of the Noble Qur’an and lead prayers.
The French council for imams, the biggest umbrella body for Muslim imams in France, was established in April 1992 with the ultimate goal of closing Muslim ranks. It groups some 475 of France’s 1200 imams.
Orientation Sessions
Meanwhile, the French national center for police rehabilitation and studies organized on Friday, January 21, a 90-minute orientation session about Islam and Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
The session, part of an intended series of presentations, was attended by 1300 policemen, according to Liberation.
The program aims at familiarizing policemen with the faith to be better able to deal with members of the Muslim minority, said the French daily.
The center’s administration gave the attendees copies of a 250-page file about major issues concerning Islam.
A perusal of the annals of 2004 in France makes it indeed the “year of Islam” with all its pluses and minuses for the sizable Muslim community.
Ambiorix:
The Collapse of France: Grab What You Can Get
From the desk of Paul Belien on Wed, 2006-03-29 21:31
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/940
France has 60 million inhabitants. Yesterday between one million (police figure) and three million (trade union figure) of them took to the streets in protest marches against the government’s youth employment bill (CPE). The bill, which was approved by a large parliamentary majority, allows small companies to fire workers under 26 without cause during the first two years on the job while paying them only 8% of their salary in damages. The bill applies only to young people in their first job. Nevertheless, the French trade unions joined the student protests out of principle. In France a job is virtually owned by the employee and cannot be taken from him unless the employer pays heavy damages.
Yesterday’s demonstrations were the biggest in 30 years. The current wave of student protests is often compared to the May 1968 student rebellion. The difference between then and now, however, is that then the economy was growing, while today it is contracting. Then the students were baby-boomers, who had had it better than any previous generation in Europe’s history, and who were demanding to be liberated from society’s moral constraints. Today the students are an amoral generation unwilling to make sacrifices to help the economy to grow again.
In yesterday’s article on this website Fjordman reported on the violence of immigrant thugs against native Swedes. He pointed out that this violence results from a breakdown of the welfare state system. With the money lacking to “grease” the increasing tensions between immigrants and native Europeans, the immigrants have started to grab what they consider they are entitled to.
The same thing is happening in France. Groups of immigrant youths – so-called casseurs – mugged demonstrators on the edges of the marches and stole their cash, mobile phones and other valuables. Their mentality does not differ much from that of the student protestors, who went on a rampage themselves last week. An American reader described the mentality of the French students in an email as that of serfs:
“The new serfs have sold their freedom and futures for a guaranteed bowl of porridge from the State. This is how far these young intellectuals can see – to the end of their spoons and no farther. They will take their paychecks by force, even if their economy dies.”
Today’s French (as well as Swedes and other West Europeans for that matter) feel entitled to secure 35 hour working week jobs until their retirement at age 55. In fact those retiring at 55 today were the rioting students of 1968. They set their children the bad example of egotism and of grabbing whatever you can, even to the detriment of the next generation. This brings us to another difference between then and now. Then, the older generation looked scornfully upon the rioting students. Following the May 1968 revolt, Charles De Gaulle won the French elections with the Right’s largest election victory ever. Today, it is doubtful whether this will happen again.
The French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin told his party, the UMP, that there is “no question of withdrawing” the CPE bill. However, Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister and UMP party president, at once undermined Villepin’s statement by suggesting that the recently approved bill should be put on hold.
Villepin and Sarkozy are political rivals. Both men hope to become the candidate of the Right in next year’s presidential elections. Villepin is a man of the establishment, Sarkozy is an outsider. Last year President Jacques Chirac appointed Villepin as Prime Minister in order to thwart Sarkozy’s presidential ambitions. Now, however, Sarkozy is behaving just like Villepin did last November: During the November riots, when immigrant youths went on the rampage for several weeks in the French suburbs, Sarkozy proposed a hardline “law and order” approach, while Villepin took the position of trying to “appease” the thugs. This time the two antagonists have switched roles.
Then as now, however, French president Jack Chirac was nowhere to be seen. Today there was an announcement that he will speak about the CPE “in the next few days.” If France has not imploded by then…
Ambiorix:
The French Europe
http://www.eursoc.com/news/fullstory.php/aid/760
If France approves the EU constitution, French Yes campaigners will have provided British Eurosceptics with plenty of ammunition for the UK's poll next year.
Britain's Vote No campaign has kindly rounded up some choice quotes from French ministers:
* "[The EU Constitution] embodies the French vision of Europe. A 'yes' vote will reinforce the French model in Europe, a 'no' vote will weaken it." - Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin (AP, 29 and 30 March)
* "We have finally obtained this 'Europe à la française' that we have awaited for so long. This constitutional treaty is an enlarged France. It is a Europe written in French." - Justice Minister Dominique Perben (Times and AFP, 4 April)
* "A 'no' vote is an open door to an Anglo-Saxon Europe. A 'yes' vote is the advent of a Europe à la française! The constitutional treaty is inspired by our model." - Minister for Transport and Tourism Giles de Robien (Le Figaro, 6 April)
* "To vote 'yes' is to show one's attachment to the French model and one's refusal of the Anglo-Saxon or Polish model." - Budget Minister and government spokesperson Jean-François Copé (Le Monde, 30 March)
* "The European Constitution consecrates the French vision of Europe. This Constitution marks the coming of the "political Europe" that France has always wanted." - Europe Minister Claudie Haigner=E9 (Le Figaro, 6 April)
* "This treaty carries the French hallmark. [it has] all the elements to allow us to defend, in the years to come, our vision of society, our vision of Europe." - Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin (Nouvel Observateur, 22 March)
* "This Constitution allows the French ambition to assert itself in the big Europe that General de Gaulle hoped and prayed for." - Education Minister François Fillon (Le Figaro, 7 April)
* "Saying 'no' to the treaty today would be saying 'no' to French Europe, and therefore, in a way, saying 'yes' to a Europe that we don't like - to an ultraliberal Europe." - Education Minister Fran=E7ois Fillon (AP, 25 March)
* "This treaty is everything except a liberal treaty." - Employment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo (Le Figaro, 31 March)
*(The EU Constitution is)"the crowning of what one could call the French vision for Europe, against the Anglo-Saxon vision." - UMP party website
Fortress Europe
Much of the quotes above stem from France's government's fear that voters will oppose the constitution. Unlike in Britain, where much opposition to the constitution comes from the centre and right, in France the most vociferous opponents of the treaty are left-leaning. The Parti Communiste, and associated extremist leftist groups are campaigning for a no, as are many unions. A large number of centre-left Socialist Party members have defied party policy and are campaigning against the treaty.
Opinion polls show that the No camp has a narrow lead.
While the desire to give the government a sound kicking motivates many no campaigners, the illusion that the EU constitution will herald the end of France's social model and the beginning of a Europe-wide Anglo-Saxon market economy has provided the main focus for the treaty's opponents. The government has been desperate to play down these claims, even to the extent of dumping its own reform policies in order to allay anti-liberal fears.
There is definitely a feeling in France that the EU's role should be to shelter Europe's citizens from the big bad world outside - and even within the 25 member states.
Foreign minister Michel Barnier admitted that in France, there is "a feeling that Europe is not providing enough protection against the risks of globalisation."
This concern prompted President Chirac to obstruct the progress of the EU's services directive, designed to open European services to competition. The directive, known in France as the "Bolkenstein Directive" after the commissioner behind it, provoked an hysterical reaction in France, despite the fact that French representatives - including Barnier himself - had been among the commissioners who approved it unanimously.
Barnier also attacked Britain's EU rebate - a recurrent theme in Paris' statements on the EU these days - while refusing to accept criticism of the crooked, illiberal and grotesque Common Agricultural Policy, of which France is the major beneficiary.
Ugly Academics
In Britain, the Association of University Teachers is considering a ban on working with Israeli academics who refuse to denounce their nation.
Melanie Phillips gives this totalitarian outrage the treatment it deserves.
Incidentally, EURSOC is no expert on this issue but aren't British university teachers state employees? And surely there is something in British law to prevent state employees from behaving in such a discriminatory manner? Correct us if we're wrong - usual address above.
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