How to Lead the French

This conversation between Claude Reichman and Philippe de Villiers goes back three months to February, when the two men spoke on Radio Courtoisie. It hasn't lost its liveliness or timeliness: it has only gained in relevance. The comments of PDV are in italics for clarity. The photo is from Villiers' website. The sheep's political plans were not clear.

CR - You're in the midst of a campaign. You've been using very strong language. Do the French you meet approve of this?

PDV - I've been very surprised. As the political class allows rampant Islamization to take hold in French society, I hear no voice, not one, trying to stop this phenomenon. Because politicians are afraid. On the other hand, wherever I travel, each day in a different region, I'm greeted with enthusiasm, mixed of course with fear of Islamization, considering what's going on now with the Mohammed cartoons, but enthusiasm in any case, for the few courageous positions that men in politics can take. Every day Frenchmen thank me for telling the truth.

CR - Is the political class - to which you belong despite what they say...even if you are making a break - capable of evolving, or have you deliberately chosen to break away from it because it is frozen into a position it can never abandon?

PDV - I'm going to answer frankly and in all humility. For years I believed that on the essential things, such as the liberating of our country's vital forces: fewer taxes, less regulation, fewer fiscal burdens, and the issues of identity and sovereignty, the UMP (Chirac's party) could evolve, and I believed that individuals could also evolve in this direction. When I look at the evolution of someone like Nicolas Sarkozy, he's going in the opposite direction. He's the one who implanted Islam as a state religion, and now he proposes selective immigration, that is, a policy of work immigration to add to the existing social immigration, he proposes the right to vote for foreigners, affirmative action, tax-payer funded mosques. So I reached a simple conclusion, that for me was difficult - that only a rupture with the system will permit the formation of a popular movement through which our ideas can prevail. Not power without our ideas, not our ideas without power, because then all kinds of bitterness will fester, but power with our ideas, our ideas in power. This is why I calmly say to you, I have become a man outside of the system.

CR - This is clearly important news. I had guessed it, but I'm glad you're saying it yourself. You have broken away and that is how you answer those who accuse you of having one foot in the system and one foot out. Now, both feet are out.

PDV - Absolutely. But I understand their reproach because, historically, it's true. For a long time, I thought - you can accuse me of naïveté, but I'm cured of it - that the system could be reformed from within. In fact, the system is a shredder that instills ideological poisons into French society. They are as follows: 1) socialism: redemption through taxes; 2) separatism: the notion that the France of tomorrow will be a happy juxtaposition of ethnic, sexual, religious communities and not one community, unique because concerned only with France's best interests; 3) Europeanism, naturally: the notion of shared sovereignty...;4) globalism: the idea that globalism is necessarily a good thing and that there must not ever be champion nations, even less European champion nations. In short, all of these ideological poisons that have been the cause of the gangrene of the political class for 30 years.

CR - This is a clear message. Now what is needed is for those who want a rupture to be proven right, and you know that we are also in this position...we launched the Blue Revolution in this spirit...the political parties that will have taken part in this great movement...who will have the will to change France, will take control of operations...You lead a political party, you are a candidate in the presidential election. Do you think it will be held on the appointed date?

PDV - I have no idea. I think so.

CR - You don't feel that events might speed up the process?

PDV - The health of the president could, but I'm not a doctor and I don't have any information on that. Or else the race...between Villepin and Sarkozy. But for now, I think it will take place on schedule.

CR - At any rate, if the election goes off as planned and there is no rupture, one can safely say that events will soon catch up with the new president.

PDV - Yes, if they pursue the same policies that have resulted in the failures we all know, programmed by men that we know - they're all alike and so is the language they use, the same thing on the right as on the left. I believe that today there are two urgent goals and these are the basis of my platform. First, we must rebuild French identity which is being destroyed. To do this we must have a zero immigration policy, not a selective immigration policy, we must Frenchify to stop the Islamization of our society. For example, a national charter on mosques that imposes severe draconian restrictions, because I do not feel that France's mission is to become a land of Islam. It's an essential point because it concerns France's identity, her substance, her personality, whereas we are living through simultaneous changes in population, in culture and in civilization. With amnesia in addition: our head of state is the world champion of repentance. As for my second goal, and I think you'll agree because I know you, I've been reading you attentively for a long time...If we want to repatriate our work force, replant it on home soil, repatriate the various headquarters, repatriate the brain power and renew the morale of our vital forces, I say this in light of my experience in Vendée, we must trust in the PME (small and mid-size businesses). We must restore dynamism to the two million small and mid-size businesses, that generate four fifths of the jobs, and that fight for the juncture of capital and labor in order to stay in France. We would do this through a vast program of fiscal liberation. We would have to go far, eliminate 50% of their fiscal burden, for example.

CR - I agree completely.

PDV - In Vendée, twice as many jobs were created in ten years as on the national level. Why?...we have a network of PME's, with the famous association of labor and capital that leads small businessmen to say, "Labor is also my capital". Because a society cannot live and prosper if capital and labor are split, if capital prospers at the CAC40 and labor moves to China. My plan is the French model: small towns, small enterprises, small companies, a balance in our land.

Jean-François Revel (1924 - 2006)

French writer, teacher, philosopher, journalist and defender of Western civilization, Jean-François Revel, died last night from a heart condition at the Kremlin-Bicêtre Hospital near Paris. The photo shows him in his "habit vert" (green costume), the celebrated uniform worn by members of the Académie Française. The green refers to the olive-branch embroidery(1) on a black background. Best known to Americans as an unusual Frenchman who didn't hate America, he had a long life actively engaged in political and social issues. His best known works are: Without Marx or Jesus, The Totalitarian Temptation, How Democracies Perish, Democracy Against Itself, Anti-Americanism and The Monk and the Philosopher. Wikipedia cites three famous quotes:

"...anarchy leads to despotism...despotism leads to anarchy..."

"Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend himself."

"It is unlikely that we will ever be capable of building a world that is qualitatively better than we ourselves are."

The following is a hommage from a friend, Guy Sorman:

Adieu to Jean-François Revel

Revel's entire output is a fight against bad faith: he could not comprehend that men could have a passion for false ideas, ideological or metaphysical.

Once a fact was proven to be untrue(2), how could anyone still defend its position? As an example: Communism kills, so, no one could be a communist, except out of bad faith! Or, planned economies fail, the market economy works well; so, defending a planned economy can only be an act of bad faith. Revel could not comprehend that knowledge could be useless. Ideologues must necessarily be imposters. Religion, not proven, seemed to him just as incomprehensible. If he agreed to the worth of Buddhism, it was only as a philosophy, a thesis espoused by his son Mathieu also.

During our regular get-togethers, festivals both of the mind and of good wine, I would try unsuccessfully to persuade Revel that men also had passions, real passions and beliefs and that they could be mistaken in good faith; I did not convince Jean-François.

In any case, life did not grant him the few years he still desired in order to complete the second volume of his memoirs; he would have entitled it "The Bada", an expression from the Marseilles of his youth. The bada was the extra dollop of free ice-cream that the street merchant added at the last minute to the tip of the cone. The bada was the expression of a generosity of heart, reflective of the mediterranean culture of the time. Bad faith, to Revel, was the dark side of man and the bada was the best in man. Jean-François, merci for the bada.

(1) The Government decrees on the costume include this one signed by Bonaparte on the 23rd of floréal, year IV. The National Institute is the Académie Française.

The Consuls of the Republic, having read the report by the Minister of the Interior and the proposal by the National Institute, having heard the Council of State, decree:

FIRST ARTICLE - The members of the National Institute will have a great and a small costume.

ART.2 - These costumes will be determined thus: Great costume - Black top part, vest or jacket, culotte or pants, embroidered fully with olive branches in dark green silk; French style hat. Small costume - same cut and color, but having embroidery only at the collar and on the sleeve, with ornamental ribbon on the edge of the jacket.

ART.3 - The Minister of the Interior is charged with the execution of this decree which will be inserted into the Notice of Laws.

The First Consul, Bonaparte

(2) The French text is garbled. I had to guess.

Many disliked Revel for his lack of religious faith, and for the fact that he had at one time been left-wing. Most disliked him because he didn't hate or have contempt for the United States. This set him aside as one of the voices in the wilderness, denouncing communism and all totalitarian systems. He will be missed.

Claude Reichman Takes On Duhamel

This article by Claude Reichman appears at his website and at Occidentalis. Alain Duhamel is well-known to most Frenchmen. His background is in medicine and science, but for 30 years he has gained fame as a journalist, writer, and radio and TV personality. Recently he was critical of Philippe de Villiers' exposé on Roissy airport.

During his April 25, 2006 discussion on RTL, Alain Duhamel raised the issue of The Mosques of Roissy, the book by Philippe de Villiers that came out that same day, criticizing it in these terms: "His thesis is that Islam brings Islamism and that it brings terrorism, so that, in the end, a place of worship necessarily becomes the center of conjurations and of risks, as if Catholicism necessarily led to the crusades, and Protestanism to George W. Bush."

It's hard to imagine greater perversity in an argument. Evoking the crusades in this context is to flatter Islamism, whose adherents apply the word to Christians; and all at once placing George W. Bush in the same category is to bow down even further before the Islamists who consider the war in Iraq as nothing less than another crusade waged by accursed Christianity. There you have it - full circle: terrorism has no more of a connection to Islam than the crusades have to Catholicism and the Iraq war to Protestanism!

A Protestant himself, Duhamel has sworn a vigilant hatred of the American president, never hesitating to use the airwaves as a means to settle religious accounts. He is blinded to the point where he overlooks the most well-founded historical truths, starting with the notion that anachronisms are a crime against the mind, since they lead you to judge yesterday's facts with today's knowledge and mind-sets.

The editorialist at RTL cannot be unaware of the fundamental differences between Christianity and Islam. Christianity has never claimed to bring the laws that govern societies. On the contrary, Christ advised that we render unto Caesar what was his. Furthermore, the Christian religions did not remain frozen - they always managed to stay connected to the everyday realities of the faithful. Conversely, the Muslim religion has not evolved from the original 7th century preachings of Mahomet, and still controls every movement in the life of a believer today as it did in former times.

The result is a veritable schizophrenia, to borrow the term used by Anne-Marie Delcambre in her latest book (The Schizophrenia of Islam.) "Islam", she writes, "is doomed to be torn apart between the myths that founded it and the technical structures that serve to transport it. The mind of the believer is forced to abandon its metaphysical abode for a new land, namely, the historical, economic and social realities of the times. This 'transplantation of the the mind', is the source of fractures and ruptures. All manner of distortion will be employed to protect the faith, including the most insane ideas, borrowed from modernity. The result is aggravated schizophrenia, prone at times to become explosive, in which are intermingled a rage to survive and a desire to destroy the real world that is perceived as an obstacle to the paradise lost".

This then is the trauma of the Muslim religion and its terrible proclivity toward criminal behavior. Philippe de Villiers is, therefore, correct in saying that "Islam is not compatible with the Republic", even if it is true that all Muslims are obviously not terrorists, for the simple reason that they are held back much more by natural laws embedded in the human subconscious than by religious instructions running contrary to such laws. But in times of grave crisis, such as France is now experiencing, where our society has shown itself to be incapable of integrating and assimilating the millions of migrants who have come to settle, the Islamic preachings may, at any moment, spur the Muslims to lose hold of their natural-born restraints. That is the reason why Muslim immigration on such a scale was sheer madness, and will remain for a long time the unforgiveable fault of the politicians who have governed France for more than 30 years.

Equally unforgiveable is Mr. Duhamel's militant preaching that strives to deform the facts and to present them in a decidedly fallacious way. "To incorrectly name things, is to add to the world's misery", said Albert Camus. For how much longer will RTL grant its antenna to an editorialist so threatening to civil order and the national interest? For both require, not that you try to reassure the citizenry by disregarding the facts, but that you tell them the truth.

Belgian Church Occupied

Another item from François Desouche:

A new religious edifice, the Church of Notre-Dame Immaculée, located on Dr. De Meersman Street in Anderlecht, has been occupied since Tuesday at 10 a.m. by about a hundred illegals, with the consent of the priest of the church. Only about 40 of them can spend the night there. A rotation system of persons admitted into the church is being considered to allow the greatest possible number of illegals to participate in the occupation. The priests of the parish of Saint-Francis-Xavier and of Notre-Dame Immaculée have expressed concern for the suffering and injustice endured by members of the English-speaking, Spanish-speaking, French-speaking and Dutch-speaking communities and have agreed to a permanent occupation of the church by illegals and the setting up of an information stand. These illegals are people who were denied asylum, whose request is being processed, or who have not yet made the request. They are all demanding that their status be legalized in Belgium.

Protected Murderers

All the French-language websites have been talking about the murder of the young Belgian Joe Van Holsbeeck. The crime was committed on April 12, in a Brussels railroad station, during rush hour. The first photo shows the crowd of 80,000 people demonstrating on April 23 in hommage to the victim. According to one report:

When the marchers passed in front of the railroad station, Joe's parents, accompanied by their oldest son Jimmy and other family friends, placed a wreath and observed a moment of silence before a photo of the adolescent, posted at the station's main entrance.

Then they uttered this oft-repeated litany of the feel-good doctrine we usually call "political correctness", but "terminal brain-poisoning" might be a better term:

"The most important thing is to educate young people", said Joe's father, pointing out that severe punishment is not a good solution to the violence.

According to witnesses, the two assailants, still on the run, had the appearance of North Africans. But so far, the local press has only timidly mentioned their origins, out of fear of stigmatising the whole community.

Which brings me to the second photo culled from François Desouche's blog. It shows the two murderers captured on camera. After being told that they are North Africans, we were informed that they are actually Polish. Then the Belgian courts ordered that the images be withdrawn from all websites because it has been determined that they are minors. I do not know if this law applies to websites outside of Belgium. Again from François Desouche's website:

The Brussels Court and the Federal Police are ordering that all photos and videos of the two suspects in the Joe Van Holsbeeck case be withdrawn from websites or that the photos be made unrecognizable. In addition the images cannot be shown on the television news or in the newspapers unless the faces have been made totally unrecognizable. According to the law on the protection of young people (April 8, 1965, article 80, line 2), it is forbidden to publish or broadcast drawings, photos or images that identify minors who are being pursued by the authorities or who have been detained. The inquiry conducted by the federal judicial police of Brussels has now established that the two suspects in the video images are minors. These images can no longer be broadcast and have already been removed from the "wanted" list at the Federal Police website.

I'm taking a chance, assuming very few people ever find my website. We'll see...

The third photo shows the arrest of one of them, named "Adam". The story is at the Belgian website 7sur7:

Adam G, a 17-year old Pole, will be held until June 27...(The regional tribunal of Warsaw-Prague) has asked Belgian judicial authorities to provide by May 18, documents clarifying if the alleged murderer will be judged in Belgium as a minor or as an adult...

Several Polish jurists stated that the extradition could encounter legal obstacles. "It's a constitutional question as to whether or not Poland can extradite its own citizens, protected by the constitution", declared Marian Filar...

According to the inquiry of the Belgian police, Adam G. delivered the five fatal stab wounds to Joe Holsbeeck...His alleged accomplice, another Pole, 16 years old, residing illegally in Belgium, was arrested on Monday.

First Head to Roll

A story in Figaro tells of a major upheaval at RG - Renseignements Généraux, the French counterpart of the CIA. The Interior Ministry in France is the larger framework in which the RG operate. The Interior Minister is nicknamed "France's first cop" (premier flic de France). Here are a few excerpts.

Pascal Mailhos, the Central Director of French Intelligence, is leaving his post tomorrow following a decision of the Council of Ministers, to become head of modernization and territorial administration within the Ministry of the Interior. And a policeman could replace him - Joël Bouchité, currently second-in-command at the RG...

After the November riots, a note from the Central Director, attributing to the rioters a history of fewer offenses than had been described by the Interior Minister, made Sarkozy look like a liar. The Minister did not appreciate being forced by his own staff to retract his statements.

Confronted with violent gangs and torched cars, the RG had as its primary mission to foresee such violence by infiltrating the ghettoes in order to nab the leaders and create insecurity among the criminals...

Finally, the new controversy surrounding the police documents, exploited by Philippe de Villiers in his pamphlet on the mosques at Roissy airport, destroyed the last bit of credibility the Central Director had with high-profile political personalities in Sarkozy's entourage. No matter how hard the RG insists that the documents did not originate with them, the fact that these documents, of which they had knowledge, could be exploited for political purposes is hard to explain.

Director Mailhos, at the age of 45, came very young to head this agency of "devious deeds" (coups tordus), and will not have had a chance to leave his imprint..."Mailhos has more the fiber of an administrator than a police agent", sums up an intimate associate.

Finishing the Job

Galliawatch reported on vandalism at the Sorbonne in two posts last month. Apparently the vandals returned to the scene to tie up some loose ends. This news is from VoxGalliae
.

A few hours after its re-opening, the Sorbonne was briefly occupied on Monday afternoon by about 200 students, who were removed from the scene by evening without any disruption to classes... According to Monsieur Boudot, head of the rector's office, these young people are not representative of the 12,000 students enrolled at the Sorbonne. "They are fanatics. They are the same ones who were there during the siege of the Sorbonne when great damage was done."

Later that evening, the rector's office indicated in a communiqué that "new damage" had been found "in the offices of the Ecole des Chartes, which had already been vandalized during the siege of March 10, 2006".

Le Pen's Way of Thinking

Some in America had high hopes that Jean-Marie Le Pen would revive a feeling of French nationalism and restore France's faith in her own civilization as a special and specific culture, rather than a multi-culti cloaca. To a great extent he succeeded in doing this, but his hidden motivations have been slowly coming to light. Many articles have been written about this lately as the FN loses ground to Philippe de Villiers. This entry from his blog, dated April 19, 2006, sheds some light on his beliefs. While what he says about the United States is true, the reasons for his animosity toward America are ill-founded. It has been noted by many that he is not critical of Islam, despite his opposition to immigration. This article reveals why.

Three critical hotspots could degenerate into a general war. The French government cannot afford to ignore them.

Concerning Iraq, there is chaos, to the point where, for the first time in the history of the American military, several generals are rebelling against the policies of the Pentagon and calling for the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld: unheard-of.

Unfortunately, the military failure is not leading the White House to a state of awareness, but to another flight forward that aims to take political and military action against Iran. The International Atomic Energy Agency is preparing its April 28th report on Tehran's nuclear activities. Washington wants the UN Security Coucil to adopt a resolution under Chapter VII authorizing sanctions and even military intervention if Iran does not stop its program of a 3% uranium enrichment. Such a program is in the domaine of peaceful purposes since nuclear weapons require a 90% enrichment.

How can the Iranian government, its Arab population zealously opposed to any intervention from the West with its partiality toward Israel that has 200 nuclear warheads, accept such a humiliation?

The increased danger was apparently not great enough to prevent the strategists across the Atlantic from withholding their financial aid to the Palestinian government. And now this aid is being sent by Tehran!

This devastating observation does not in any way excuse the attacks against innocent Jewish civilians, nor the rants of the Ayatollahs against the existence of Israel. But it's as if the American president, confronted with the absence of Iraqi WMD's, with the quagmire his army is in, thinks he can find a way out by rushing headlong into another conflict.

As sincere friends of the Americans, conscious of what we owe them and of their admirable successes, we say, "stop the escalation". France, a permanent member of the Security Council, has a duty to defend the higher interests of Western geopolitics, and must veto what could easily degenerate into the third world war.

The problem with this article is that he does not recognize the danger these Islamic countries present, only the danger that results from trying to stop them militarily. No question Bush's strategy was wrong, and his head is in the sand; but his strategy should have been more forceful, oriented toward the defense of the United States not toward the democratization of Iraq, which is clearly unwise and impossible. Le Pen would have us stop opposing these violent countries and give them subsidies. Since he is obviously on their side, he cannot speak out against the Islamization of France.

A brief article in VoxGalliae adds this bit of information:

Christian Baeckeroot, regional counsellor of the Front National from the departments of Nord-Pas-de-Calais declares: "By refusing to clearly commit himself on the question of Islam, the FN is turning its back on the policies that brought it its greatest success. Since 2002 the FN has been on a suicidal path. To say that de Villiers is potentially a traitor is really not a very responsible argument. In any case, (de Villiers) defends the ideas I believe in, and in 2002, as far as I know, he did not tell people to vote for Chirac."

"Islam is NOT Compatible with the Republic"

A couple of days ago, Philippe de Villiers was the guest on a televison news show called Grand Rendez-Vous. Marianne, a contributor to Occidentalis, posted this report:

"I think that there are moderate Muslims, they are even the vast majority. I do not believe that there is a moderate Islam, " said Mr. de Villiers in a televised interview.

"I believe that Islam is not compatible with the Republic", because of the "three principles of Islam: oumma, sharia, and finally jihad", he explained.

The leader of the MPF, a presidential candidate in 2007, frequently turned the conversation to his book entitled The Mosques of Roissy, in which he declares that Islamists have infiltrated the various services of the large airports and are threatening the security of air transport.

He said with assurance that the reports he consulted were absolutely authentic. He warned Interior Minister Sarkozy against casting doubts on these reports. (He added that he had) cited only 10% of the information at his disposal in order not to disrupt the operations being conducted by the French security services.

"The Islamist presence is not marginal, but real, profound and dangerous", he said adding that his book "upsets" the government.

Presenting himself as the spokesman for peaceful Frenchmen, Mr. de Villiers asked three things of the government: a parliamentary committee of inquiry, the complete publication of all the reports on the topic, and a public debate with Nicolas Sarkozy that would center on the Islamist infiltration at Roissy, to put to rest any doubts expressed by the Interior Minister.

Stating that the debate on the Islamization of the country is taboo, he demanded a moratorium on the construction of mosques, the dismantling of the CFCM (French Council of the Muslim Cult), and the end of immigration, both desired and undesired.

I listened attentively to the leader of the MPF; and I applaud his courage for proclaming loud and clear what Occidentalis has been saying for a long time. This type of courage is lacking in our politicians, who nonetheless insist that they love France and wish for the happiness of the French.

Note: In parentheses I put "He added that he had" because something appears to be missing in the French text, and I had to make a reasonable guess. The problem is, I'm not sure which man, Sarkozy or de Villiers, cited only 10% of the reports.

Roissy - Excerpts from the Book

The book by Philippe de Villiers, which I spoke of two posts ago, describes the infiltration by Muslims of the Roissy airport, located north of Paris in Roissy-en-France. De Villiers consulted documents from French Intelligence and insists that everything has been thoroughly researched and verified. Here are some excerpts, posted at the MPF website, relevant to the Algerian town of Ghazaouet that has sent so many of its residents to Roissy.

(A document from French Intelligence states) "Ghazaouet is a port city of 30,000 inhabitants, located 75 kilometers from Tlemcen and 100 kilometers to the west of Oran. Since 1998 an endless flow of inhabitants from this region has filled the ranks of employees at CBS" (Connecting Bag Service).

Out of 758 salaried employees, 77 come from the town in question, 30 others from neighboring towns. The three founders of the network are "K" (we'll call him Karim), who owns a house in Ghazaouet, Abdel also owner of a house there, and Mustapha who was born in Ghazaouet. The latter does not hide his anti-French feelings, nor his aversion to the Western life-style.

The first two meet during a stay in the Algerian city. While there they recrute volunteers to emigrate to France and to enter the services of CBS. They provide these volunteers with false job contracts bearing the letter-head of the company. They proceed to representatives of the French diplomatic corps from whom they obtain the required documents to enter French territory.

There is an agreement between France and Algeria allowing someone with a proof of employment to obtain legal resident status for one year. In the process, Karim and his accomplices exact a "contribution" from the immigrants. The uncontested leader of the "Ghazaouet network", ably seconded by Abdel and Mustapha, Karim behaves like a tyrant toward the French full and part-time employees in this service organization that has been placed, against its will, in the very delicate position of having to substitute for the real management. No hiring can take place without its approval.

One strange thing is that at every opportunity Karim opposes the hiring of ethnic Frenchmen. The workers at CBS seeking promotions are often passed over in favor of Muslims. "It is nothing more and nothing less than an ethnic and religious apartheid. Karim forgets his professional obligations and provokes genuine disorder. This could impair air traffic, since the workers are in total chaos as far as care of the baggage is concerned"...

An inquiry from November 11, 2005 informs us that Bag Flight Services (another baggage company), "also hires within its ranks members of the Muslim Brotherhood". So, on the tarmac at Roissy, there is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Some of them, like Elakhtar and Taricq, are known to "frequent the clandestine prayer rooms situated at Roissy airport."

After a long enumeration of dangerous individuals with badges that authorize them to work in total freedom in the restricted areas of the airport, the document concludes: "The facts described here reflect the atmosphere that reigns everywhere, both in the restricted zones (runways, baggage areas, technical facilities) and in the service organizations. Islamists and criminals from the ghettoes work together to place the airport under sharia law, by threatening managers and the few ethnic Frenchmen who work there...

According to the most recent revelations, Roissy is like Swiss cheese. The holes are multiple and numerous. Every day you can enter into a restricted area through a regular door without being questioned. All you need is to know the entry point used by the initiated. It is very easy to cross the perimeter at certain sensitive points, without recourse to the official doors. It is not at all impossible, although the Airports of Paris deny it, to carry explosives into the restricted zone, and it would not be hard to slip two pounds of semtex into a freight compartment under the feet of the passengers..."

Claude Reichman Declares Rally a Success

Claude Reichman declared Saturday's rally for the Blue Revolution a great success. A dense crowd, gathered in Paris at Place Colette, expressed their demands for change and applauded the various speakers.

The next rally is scheduled for Saturday, May 20, 2006 at 4:00 p.m.

See his website for more photos.

Muslim Mafia at Roissy Airport?

All the French websites are talking about this book due to be published this week. The author is Philippe de Villiers, leader of the MPF party, and candidate for the presidency. Though many people doubt de Villier's sincerity, he has at least raised the vital issue of the Islamization of France. Whether he is loyal to his own principles remains to be seen. For now, let's hope he is sincere. In this book, he exposes the practice of hiring young Muslims for all kinds of airport jobs, including baggage security. It appears that the majority of these men originate from one town in Algeria. Here is the initial report, posted April 22, from VoxGalliae:

Next week, Philippe de Villiers will publish the findings of an investigation entitled, The Mosques of Roissy, Albin Michel, Publisher. Obviously these findings that will be revealed to the public are making the Interior Minister very uncomfortable.

Yesterday (Sarkozy) paid an unexpected visit to assess the security at France's largest airport where, according to the intelligence reports consulted by de Villiers, certain baggage services at the airport, such as CBS (Connecting Bag Services), are composed mainly of Muslims who organize themselves along ethnic and religious lines, in Mafia style.

According to the RG (Renseignements Généraux - French Intelligence), "a thorough inquiry revealed that two managers, of North African origin, forced CBS to hire exclusively Algerian workers...all of whom came from one small town called Ghazaouet" and who are organized into a "network".

De Villiers also reveals a letter from the border police (PAF) that contains a list of 47 Islamists "working primarily in various security and baggage services". The letter stresses that "some of them parade openly their religious militantism and are involved in radical Islam."

Nicolas Sarkozy, who admitted there were flaws in the security system, took Philippe de Villier's revelations lightly, saying that the suspects were only 122 out of 83,000 persons having authorization to work at the airport. Has the Interior Minister forgotten that the September 11th terrorists were 6 times less numerous?

Yesterday, (Sarkozy's) entourage could not find words strong enough to denounce the irresponsable behavior of de Villiers, who "sees mosques everywhere". But others in the ministerial staff acknowledged that the deputy from Vendée had "touched a sore spot".

Popular Bouteflika

I couldn't resist borrowing this image from Novopress. It shows the President of Algeria, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, in an angry mood. His comments about the French colonization of Algeria are, "Colonization brought about a genocide of our identity, of our history, of our language, of our traditions. We no longer can tell if we are Berbers, Arabs, Europeans or French." Under the picture are the words, "Bouteflika, get the h...out!" (Casse-toi). Then at the bottom it says, "We'll send the bill for your medical care to your socialist-Islamic paradise."

I believe he has been discharged from the hospital. I don't know if he is still in France.

Aznavour in Armenia

Armenians have had close ties with France since the 17th century, when Western Europe became a "magnet for Armenian merchants, students, and expatriate intellectuals and political activists." This quote is from Chapter 13, The Armenian Diaspora, by R. Hrair Dekmejian, in Volume II of The Armenian People, edited by Richard Hovannisian. Here is more:

In view of its...tradition of liberty, France became the largest center of Armenian settlement. Around the turn of the century, Paris became a haven for Armenian expatriate revolutionaries and intellectuals as a prelude to the onrush of over 50,000 immigrants between 1921 and 1925, which swelled to 70,000 in the late 1930's. A significant number of French-Armenians distinguished themselves in the French resistance against the Nazi occupation. The growing instability of the Middle East in the 1970's brought new waves of immigration to France particularly from Iran and Lebanon. In the early 1980's the community was estimated at 200,000, mainly living in Paris, Marseilles, Lyon, Vienne, and Valence. The Armenian community has become an integral part of French society while maintaining a vibrant ethnocultural life centered around the Armenian Church and numerous political and educational institutions...

How anxious some Armenians must feel now that they are once again surrounded by Turks, with people like Bush and Rice endorsing Turkey in the EU!

Charles Aznavour has always been a favorite French singer. France has a great tradition of "chanson" that goes back to the early 20th century. Aznavour is a popular singer, like Sinatra was, with this difference that he writes his own songs.

Two weeks ago he was in Armenia on the first Air France flight to that country. Here is the brief report, in slightly awkward English from Panorama.

Today President Robert Kocharyan received world-wide singer, public figure Charles Aznavour. The renowned singer has arrived in Armenia by the first flight of French air-company “Air France”.

Warmly greeting Charles Aznavour the President said that the former has to visit Armenia at least once or twice a year being not only in Yerevan but also in the regions, learning all Armenia.

“I’m glad to see that life goes on in the country,” the celebrated singer said. President Kocharyan and Charles Aznavour discussed humanitarian problems, touched upon the process of programs and new initiatives of “Aznavour to Armenia” fund. Robert Kocharyan also informed that a number of interesting programs including different fields are in the process with the French side. The information has been provided by President’s press service.

Note: The photo, from a fan's website, shows him in Armenia in 1988 after the earthquake. The words say, "No personal fortune will ever suffice for a calamity as great as the one in Armenia."

The Battle in Lyons

The city of Lyons, ancient capital of Gaul, called Lugdunum by the Romans, will be the scene of more demonstrations this week between Turks protesting the Armenian memorial and Armenians protesting the on-going denial by the Turks of the 1915 genocide of more than one million Armenians. The image above from Occidentalis shows the Turks with a banner saying, "We are proud of our past." The following text from Occidentalis, originated at an Armenian website, the CDCA (Committeee for the Defense of the Armenian Cause).

Major known anti-Armenian acts on French territory since 2002:

April 2002, Alfortville and Grenoble -
Defacing of monuments to the Armenian genocide

April 24, 2003, Marseilles -
A member of the Armenian community was brutally assaulted by a "mentally unstable" person of Turkish origin during a demonstration in front of the Turkish consulate.

April 25,2003, Vienne -
Defacing of a monument to the Armenian genocide

End of April, 2003, Paris -
The monument dedicated to the Reverend Father Komitas, inaugurated on April 24, 2003 by the mayor of Paris, was covered several times over with Turkish flags by groups of militant Turkish nationalists.

November 27, 2004, Valence -
Young Frenchmen of Armenian origin, who were passing around a petition demanding that the recognition of the Armenian genocide figure among the criteria for admission to the European Union, were assaulted by about 20 Turkish thugs(1) who beat them and threatened them and their families with death.

(1) The French word is "nervi" which can translate "killer".

April 11, 2005, Marseilles -
The stele in the Beaumont district, in front of the new memorial to be inaugurated on April 24, 2006, was desecrated and defiled with homophobic graffitti.

March 18, 2006, Lyons -
Several thousand Turkish demonstrators paraded in the streets of Lyons waving denial banners. The demonstration, authorized by the department of the Rhône, sought to protest against the building of a memorial to the Armenian genocide, located at Place Anthonin Poncet in Lyons.

April 17, 2006, Lyons -
Defiling of several of the stones of the future memorial, to be built at Place Anthonin Poncet in Lyons. Graffitti included remarks like, "F... the Armenians", and "There was no genocide".

The CDCA affirms that none of these unacceptable acts was ever punished, and repeats the urgent need for a law making denial of the holocaust illegal.

Note: I do not agree at all with the last statement. I do not believe in illegal opinions, however detestable. In England today it is virtually illegal to be critical of Islam. In France, too. This tactic leads to more horror. I do not want to see the Armenians acting like Muslims, on the grounds that "If they can do it, so can we." What has to be done is for the Western powers to acknowledge the genocide, to ban Islam from Europe on political grounds as a threat to the existence of the European cultures, and for Turkey to be induced to admit the truth without the quid pro quo of membership in the EU.

In addition to the above, I strongly recommend two articles recently published at a wonderful Canadian website, NoDhimmitude. The author of both is Charles Henry who frequently, and graciously, posts comments at Galliawatch. The first article is entitled, "Genocide, What Genocide?"; the second is "Grandchildren of Killers".

Finally, if anyone's interested, there is an English-language Armenian blog called HyeLog. "Hye" is the Armenian word for "Armenian", and is not of Indo-European origin.

Marine Le Pen Judged by Via-Resistancia

The Google group Via-Resistancia has just issued this statement on Marine Le Pen's most recent remarks concerning Philippe de Villiers. She is the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen and his successor as leader of the Front National.

Marine Le Pen, who has vehemently criticized Philippe de Villiers, judging him to be "ridiculous" when he denounces the Islamization of France, adds this comment that reveals her vision of the FN: "In his new crusade, he has a religious notion that is not ours nor that of our activists." In other words, Marine Le Pen does not wish to extend the debate on immigration to the issue of what is really at stake, namely, its religious dimension.

And this clarification from Marine Le Pen must be underscored, for it allows us to see what distinguishes us from the FN. Insofar as the Front National continues to lump together all forms of immigration, including successful ones, such as Asian or Latin American, in a global vision hostile to "the other", to "the foreigner" as such, one is justified in saying that it is literally "xenophobic", if not "racist".

How can we otherwise explain the fact that Le Pen's party refuses to see as distinct the special question of Islam, and its separatism with respect to the total concept of immigration? An indispensable distinction if we want to break out of a racial deviation that does not allow us to see that there isn't just one "immigration"; rather there are "immigrations". How can anyone continue to believe that there could be one unified policy for a Vietnamese Buddhist, a Venezuelan Catholic, a Protestant Hungarian and a Syrian Muslim?

In this sense, it is clear, and we state it clearly that Via-Resistancia will never support the FN, so long as it orients its politic along racial and nationalistic lines, while we, for our part, direct ours to the issues of ideology and religion. Thus, the FN would reject any Arab immigrant, while we would distinguish between Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Tariq Ramadan. The FN is against immigration, we are against Islam...

In this sense, we feel closer to the ideas of Philippe de Villiers, who recognizes what is at stake and places the argument where it belongs..., although we remain doubtful regarding certain ambiguities that he still has to clarify...

It is difficult to know what to make of this statement. Via-Resistancia is right to cite the specific nature of Islam, but they do not seem to recognize the dangers of a policy that does not include nationalistic sentiment, nor do they consider the possibility that too many Asians or Latin Americans would not be a good thing for France. On the other hand, the much-discussed racism of the FN may cover up a preference for Islam, that has been alluded to many times by Occidentalis, among others, and by Le Pen himself, when he came out in favor of Iran's nuclear aims. Finally, the distinction between Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Tariq Ramadan may not be all that great, since she appears to be pro-Communist and against all religions, and potentially as totalitarian as anybody.

Philippe de Villiers Condemns Bouteflika

The President of Algeria Abdelaziz Bouteflika was treated last year in France, at the Val-de-Grâce Military Hospital, for a stomach ulcer. A few days ago he was re-admitted for a follow-up exam. Both Philippe de Villiers (in the photo), leader of the MPF party and candidate for the presidency, and his second-in-command Guillaume Peltier, have denounced the Algerian president for his anti-French comments and for the VIP treatment he is receiving at taxpayers' expense. These comments are from the MPF website.

Philippe de Villiers, head of the Mouvement pour la France (MPF), is scandalized by the remarks made by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who on Monday accused France of "genocide of (the Algerian) identity".

This odious accusation should have triggered a swift reaction from the French authorities. Instead, the Minister of Foreign Affairs has refused to comment, demonstrating once again, as if it were necessary, the cowardice of this government. After abdicating to the left, in the CPE affair, it now grovels before the insults of the man whose health care was paid for, this past winter, by French taxpayers.

The Mouvement pour la France summons the Villepin government to emerge from this scandalous silence and to condemn the hateful remarks of the Algerian president, remarks that cannot help but fuel anti-French racism.

The following is from Guillaume Peltier:

Guillaume Peltier, the second-in-command of the Mouvement pour la France, has described Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika's arrival in France for health care after his latest denunciation of France's colonial past, as a "veritable scandal".

It's a "veritable scandal" that a man "who, on the one hand spits on us, on the other comes to get treated in France at taxpayers' expense", declared Mr. Peltier on Thursday to i-télé (a TV Channel).

"France has become a welcome mat, our history is scorned, our arcs of triumph are transformed into arcs of shame, we celebrate Trafalgar instead of Austerlitz. Anything goes! How can we instill the love of France in the younger generation if we deny, to such a degree, our own past?", he added.

The second-in-command at MPF also affirmed that "France played a positive role in Algeria and wherever else" she colonized.

The website Afrik had this to say about the hospitalization:

Medical secrecy surrounding the ailments of the rich and powerful is a guaranteed tradition, both in France and in Algeria. The Algerian president, whose latest appearances bear witness to a rather startling intellectual vitality, is not about to give it up. All of which means that whether or not there is an official treaty of friendship, the two countries still remain brothers.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, who had criticized Bouteflika's comments, was quoted by the Nouvel Observateur as saying ironically:

"I really can't understand why this gentleman would choose to seek medical treatment from abominable colonizers such as we."

Finally, a message last night from Via-Resistancia, a Google group:

A Communiqué from General Pierre-Marie Gallois -

On April 11, the Georges Pompidou Hospital urgently requested that I be transferred to Val-de-Grâce. The answer: There is no room.

I infer from this that when your name is Bouteflika and you hate France, there is room.

Denmark's Intifada

Since the example set by Denmark seems to be the inspiration behind Germany's attempt to start legal proceedings against the Koran, it might be worthwhile to look back for a moment to this article by Paul Belien that was first published on March 13, 2006. It appeared in English at American Conservative and in French translation at Polémia.

The Koran is taken to Court

Kent Olsen, a correspondant to Jyllands-Posten, the Danish paper that printed the now legendary cartoons, has written this report of an attempt to cite the Koran as being contrary to the German constitution. Here is the beginning of the article:


Quran reported to the Police in Germany

By Kent Olsen

correspondent to Jyllands-Posten

18 April, 2006



A broad alliance of grass-roots movements have gone to the prosecutors of several states to hinder the dissemination of the Quran. According to the indictment, the Quran is not just a religious and historic book, but also a political book, which is incompatible with the constitution.

Berlin
At the prosecutor’s office at Gorch-Forck-Wall 15 in Hamburg, an unusual letter was received Monday morning, containing an indictment filed this weekend. The indictment targeted the Quran, charging that the holy book of the Moslems, according to the accuser, is incompatible with the German constitution.
“Support Denmark!”

The accuser is “Bundesverband der Bürgerbewegungen (BVB)”, which concerns itself with, in its own words, “defending basic rights and freedoms” against Islam. The extensive international furore, allegedly caused by the Muhammed cartoons, has made clear the relevancy of the alliance. Its homepage is decorated with a Danish flag with the words “Support Denmark! Defend the Free World.” superimposed on it.

The indictment has been filed in several states, including Hamburg, Niedersachsen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Bayern and probably more.

In several talk-shows on German TV, conservative politicians have pointed out that the Quran is incompatible with the German constitution. The Turkish-born writer Serap Cileli said on January 29 this year that “the Quran must be considered a historic document. It is not compatible with our constitution and Human Rights.”

Now the alliance wants the matter tried at the courts.

Potent Political Book
The author of the indictment in Hamburg, Jutta Starke, says that the Quran was reported to the police two or three years ago, but that the report was dismissed on the grounds that it was a book of only historical interest.

“The events of the last months have made clear that the Quran isn’t just a historical book, but very much a potent political book, a thing which we document extensively in the indictment,” Jutta Starke says.

She says it is a task of sisyphean dimensions to inform the media, politicians and churches of the true intentions of Islam in the enlightened world of the West.

“We are grateful to Jyllands-Posten that discussions about Islam have now become possible,” says Jutta Starke.

Go to IslamWatch for the rest of the article.

Eurabia - Out in the Open

I just received this e-mail message from the Google Group Via-Resistancia. The author signs with the initials JMG. The illustrations are from the ForumEuroArab website where a conference is announced for April 26-27-28 on the theme of "perspectives and content of a strategic Euro-Arab partnership." Jacques Chirac will open the ceremonies. The image of an hour-glass is very fitting, in more ways than one. Has time run out for Europe?

From now on, the Eurabian axis is no longer a secret, but shows its face in the light of day, without any qualms.

Islam is on the move. In the land of Voltaire where the political elite impose self-censorship on the media (in the matter of the cartoons, France-Soir is dying a slow death for having defended its freedom of publication); in the land of Aristide Briand where the Minister of Religious Affairs (Note: this would be Nicolas Sarkozy, Interior Minister) allows a hidden religious power under foreign influence to operate; in the country of Jean Moulin where collaboration has become once again the self-defense of the economic powers through affirmative action, and of the social elite through newspapers and TV shows worthy of Radio Paris. In this country, that belongs less and less to us, the Institute of the Arab World will be the Supreme Kommandatur of occupied France for 3 days.

From Oriana Fallaci to Bat Ye'or, we have been duly warned, but who is listening to those who alert us? Here we are again as in 1940, with compromises from our elite politicians, our journalists who are accomplices, and the French people, subjugated and voluntarily compliant. The same anti-American and anti-English feelings, the same odor of anti-Semitism, carefully couched in a "just a criticism of Israel" wrapper, the same presumptions about a world-wide Jewish plot (the Meyssan version of September 11 sold millions of copies; the war in Irak was manipulated by the Jews) (1), etc...

Our schools will soon have Arabic names, "experimental" bilingual classes will be inaugurated next school year, thousands of school and business cafeterias are already no longer serving pork, while hallal displays invade our markets and affirmative action deprives tens of thousands of non-Muslim Frenchmen from an honest job.

Economic liberals, socialists, communists or Gaullists, all collaborate in the rampant Islamization of our country, as in 1940, when the Chamber of Deputies, almost unanimously gave full powers to Pétain. All in the name of "tolerance". And this time there is no Roosevelt across the Atlantic, no Churchill across the Channel, just cynics, whose blindness borders on schizophrenia, if not criminality, refusing to acknowledge the consequences of failure in Irak, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in Darfour, in the Balkans, in Black Africa, as they are confronted with Iran and Saudi Arabia. But after overthrowing Sadaam, we had been promised democracy and freedom everywhere in the world...

What remains of these fine promises? A copy of the Koran has been placed in the library of the White House - can you imagine Roosevelt doing that with Mein Kampf? And Bush and his administration continue to support the admission of the Turkish Trojan Horse into the European Union, even - during the course of the "European" summit - going so far as to put unspeakable pressures on Austria and Poland, and subsidizing regimes as unenlightened as those of the Saudis and the Egyptians...

Everywhere the same false and hypocritical speeches about the nature of Islam portrayed as "a religion among others". The truth is that Islam shows itself to the world as a primary type of esoteric doctrine, through the veneration of a prophet who was nothing more than a common brigand, closer to Olonnais(2), than to a real warrior, and who was, in addition, a pedophile and a proponent of slavery. But hidden behind this facade lies another more ancient doctrine, just as genocidal, racist and criminal, that can only be compared to Nazism. The Muslims, having invented from whole cloth the myth of a so-called "Palestinian people", were allies of the Nazis to the point where they despatched a "Muslim legion" of SS Waffen into Russia, with the blessings of the grand mufti of Jerusalem.

Taking advantage of the ignorance of European peoples who have no more read the Koran today than the French and the British had read Mein Kampf in 1938, at the time when Daladier and Chamberlain returned from Munich, (history tragically repeats itself), they lie, they manipulate, they make you believe that they will "save" the peace. They make you believe that the only possible peace is through abdication of our freedom, and laying down our arms without having even tried to fight. Even bishops and priests support the construction of new mosques...

Where is European honor? Have they become so cowardly that, ultimately, they deserve the fate that has been reserved for them? Maybe, after all, the answer to that is "yes"...

(1) Thierry Meyssan wrote a book accusing the Bush administration of plotting the September 11th attacks.

(2) Olonnais was a famous 17th century pirate, eventually captured by Amerindians, cut up into pieces, roasted and eaten by his captors.

The Reformed Church of France

I know very little about French Protestants other than some history of the Huguenots and the salient events, such as the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre and the conversion of King Henri IV. The website ERF (Eglise Réformée de France) has much information and is divided into several websites according to region. I browsed through the sites for Paris and for Cévennes-Languedoc-Roussillon (CLR) trying to find the core ideas. There was an angry denunciation of the West's weakness in the matter of the Danish cartoons, an equally angry review of the fate that has befallen those who criticize or satirize Islam, a bitter criticism of the Archbishop of Paris, André Vingt-Trois, who admonished the French to choose between Christ and dependency on the State, where choosing Christ (and the temporary uncertainty that comes with freedom) would never bring disappointment, while choosing the State (and the illusion of security), would eventually lead to disaster.

There was also a link to an article about the need to provide the same opportunities to the ghetto dwellers that the privileged and protected French receive. I cannot draw a definite conclusion about the ERF from this brief glance, but despite some criticisms of Islam, there seemed to be a general trend toward the idea of equality, equal distribution of wealth, and the need to reach and help the "have-nots" of the world.

This article, by Raymond Beltran, was mentioned by France-Echos.

It is customary, among the bien-pensants, to say that Islam is peaceful and that the Koran does not incite to violence, that only a faulty reading of the "Book" could lead Islamists to this kind of behavior. It is also in good taste to extend this notion to all other religions.

Unfortunately, this feel-good mentality does not correspond to reality. A literal reading of sacred Books, and of the traditional commentary that accompanies them, shows that in all religions there are calls to hate, to wage jihads and to embark on crusades against the infidels. The Muslim religion is not exempt.

There are, however, moderate interpretations that put these calls into perspective, either omitting them altogether, or retaining only the calls for conciliation. These interpretations are fitting for a society that has changed, a society that has become secularized. Here civil law is respected, civil law not subject to religious law.

No religion can be moderate except in this sense. In a modern society, this is not a problem, because tolerance can be reciprocal between believers and non-believers.

But if one undertakes a thorough reading of the sacred Books, with no nuances, with no allowance for an adaptation to modern life, one will inevitably arrive at fundamentalism. Fundamentalism permits God to say only what strengthens His position, only what impels believers to extreme forms of behavior, believers who are fanatics and who threaten those who do not submit to these teachings. This intransigent position is unacceptable since it denies each person his freedom; it seeks to impose its own out-dated view of the world onto others.

Muslim fundamentalism, like any fundamentalism, must be defeated. Any defense of "laïcité" must abstain from tolerating intolerant religions.

Note: Again the word "laïcité" comes up. This refers to the French law of 1905 regarding separation of church and state. At the time the law was passed, Christianity, especially Catholicism, was the only religion involved and the purpose of the law was to remove the Catholic Church from the political sphere. Islam was not on the radar screen. Now that it is, "laïcité" needs to be reexamined. It would be best, in my opinion, to ban Islam from from France on political grounds as a threat to the Republic, rather than on religious grounds.

China's Barbarity - Off Topic

I realize that my main goal is to write about France and Europe, but this article horrified me. It was written by Spencer Warren exclusively for Lawrence Auster's VFR website. Warren frequently writes about animals and their sorry fate on this planet. He describes how animals are treated in China, and it is not for the super-sensitive. I had to skim parts of it. I am not an animal activist, but I have always been fond of animals and feel sympathy for what they endure. Anything positive that comes out of China is offset by news like this. I do firmly believe that we are justified in judging a people by the way it treats its animals.

The Barbarity Within

This book review by Yvan Blot appeared in Polémia in March. Though I have not read the book by Jean-François Mattei, it sounds like something I should have on my bookshelf.

The Barbarity Within: An essay on modern baseness .

For professor of philosophy Jean-François Mattei, the crisis of civilization that afflicts us has its roots in Marxism and beyond that, in the French Revolution. But it was after May 1968 that it took on a new and particularly destructive dimension. The author takes art as a very incisive example. Modern painting no longer represents the human figure, or landscapes, or man, or the world. It represents the inner life of its "subject". And we are immediately in the realm of the base, because the subject absorbed by itself, prisoner of itself, is the antithesis of the civilized world. It is the "terrible beast" with a hundred appetites, whose instincts are liberated from all civilizing constaints that Plato speaks of.

Following Freud and Marx, the ideologies of '68, originating in the United States [where they flourished thanks to the emigration to America of the Francfort School(1)], have not ceased to encourage the liberation of the beast from the constraints of bourgeois civilization. And people are surprised at the rise in crime in the USA, and then in Europe!

Barbarity invaded education. In the United States, in the year 2000, there were 11,000 armed attacks in the schools, 7,000 reported robberies, and 4,000 confirmed rapes. "According to the Department of Justice, 25% of the adolescents stated that gangs existed in their school, and 66% declared that they could procure drugs directly in class. The major pedagogical error was to open the school to the life beyond its walls, instead of protecting it from these intrusions. Furthermore, the error stems from the fact that the pupils, or what's left of them, are no longer interested in the external knowledge that schools can provide, or in what they might become in the future - cultivated individuals - but only in their own internal needs, which, in the end, always lead them back to their base subjectivity. Not only is the subject unable to rise to the level of excellence required by the culture, but he cannot even go beyond himself or break out of his inner exclusion."

There is also political barbarity that has two aspects: the ferociousness of totalitarianism and the democratic "vanitas" that turns the individual into a God. For Professor Mattei, "totalitarianism can only happen on the terrain of a pre-existing democracy whose principles destroy feelings, whose subjective formalism ruins the substance of man. The democratic world was the matrix of those barbaric figures we call Nazism and Communism, because it had already reduced man to this new type we call the Masses, the mob having replaced the people."

And the author quotes a warning from Solzhenitsyn: "A civilized and timid world will have nothing with which it can oppose the brutal and open-faced renaissance of barbarity except concessions...That is the permanent state of mind of those for whom material well-being has become the main goal of their life on earth."

(1) The Francfort School was a social and philosophical movement that flourished in Germany in th 1920's. Grounded in Marxism it established a critical theory that sought to constantly break down any attempt to reach an absolute truth, presumably out of fear of totalitarianism. Ironically, it's inspiration - Marxism - proved to be one of the great totalitarian ideologies of the century.

The image of the book is from Amazon. Click link below.

Barbarity in French Schools

The young woman pictured is Isabelle Hannart, head of SOS-Education, an organization devoted to exposing the violence, the indoctrination and the incompetence that prevail in French schools. I wish them well. As a veteran of thirty years in an inner-city school, I am only too familiar with this largely unsolvable problem.

Everyone has heard of Colombine; but violence goes on regularly in American schools, though not always of that magnitude. French schools have been awash in violence for many years. Much of it goes unreported. The incident she refers to took place in Etampes on December 16, and serves as a small example of what is going on. While physical violence and threats of violence are terrifying, the daily intimidation, the daily conflicts with the students, the endless arguments, the pressure to give undeserved high grades, also take their toll. All of which is the predictable consequence of allowing an enemy culture to prevail over the civilized pre-existing one.

Let us end barbarity in our schools.

The attempted murder with a kitchen knife of a teacher in Etampes on December 16, 2005 made headlines for several weeks. People were shocked by the cold-blooded brutality of the student who, for insignificant motives, stabbed his teacher five times. But the worst part is the attitude of the school inspectors and of the Ministry of Education - they have done everything possible to abandon the harried teacher and to pass her off, in the public eye, as having brought on her own misfortune. Faced with an intolerable scandal, the members of SOS Education are mobilizing to defend teachers who become victims of barbarity, and to remind one and all that it was largely the cowardice of certain bureaucrats that triggered the explosion of violence in the schools.

The administration washes its hands..."There was no discernible failing", "no failing on the part of the school". The day after the attack on art teacher Karen Montet-Toutain, at Louis-Blériot Vocational, the entire upper management closed ranks, not in support of the young woman, even less to eliminate school violence, but to refuse all responsibility and to find excuses for not having acted sooner...

Most statistics on school violence are kept secret, but some leaks give an idea of the disturbing reality. SOS Education has obtained the list of suspensions at a school near Paris, République Middle School in Bobigny. It is hard to believe: the school only has about 1000 pupils but records almost 700 suspensions of three days or more each year! That comes to 4 suspensions per school day, reaching a peak of 100 during certain months of the year. And these figures do not include other types of punishment (one-day suspensions, various other penalties)...Finally, despite Education Minister Gilles de Robien's statement that order had been restored at Louis-Blériot, a fight with non-fire arms broke out among the pupils on Monday, February 20...

The immense majority of parents and teachers are now favorable to a radical change in policy toward violent pupils...The 64,000 members of SOS Education are now gathering petitions for an emergency plan against school violence, including measures such as restoring security personnel, extended "in-house suspensions"(1), permanent expulsions and numerous other firm but necessary steps...the members of SOS Education, believing in justice and respect for the victims, will continue to mobilize until the hypocritical kindness of the bureaucrats toward violent pupils, which is nothing more than an admission of cowardice and lack of responsibility, ceases definitively.

(1) I use the expression "in-house suspensions" to designate something a bit more drastic. We used to send kids to the auditorium or to an office for the school day as a disciplinary action, rather than officially suspending them. She speaks of "boarding for disciplinary reasons". I infer that the kids actually live in the school for a period of time and are not allowed to return home. I believe that France still has boarding schools on a greater scale than we do.

Karen Montet-Toutain, the teacher referred to in the article, granted an interview on January 10, 2006 to reporters gathered at city hall in Etampes.

She described how terrified she was from September 16th on. The pupils surrounded her desk, rummaged through her personal belongings, gave her threatening looks, and became obscene. She often heard, "Madame, I have a yen for you", or "I want to marry you", "I want to become a sharp-shooter", "I want to work and become a human being"...In November she heard, "I want you right now, on the table!"...On December 5th she received death threats, after a classmate had been suspended. They spoke of the uselessness of teachers who make 1,500 euros a month and of burglaries as a means of getting dough. They threatened to rob her house, "Don't worry! We'll get your address and we'll put a bullet in your head". She described the threats to her supervisor who replied, "That's a good one!", and then "Things certainly aren't going well".

The kid who assaulted her had been suspended for three violations, one of which was the refusal to remove his cap in protest against the Easter vacation, since he wasn't Christian. She met his mother the day before the attack. The mother knew nothing of the suspension, and presumably reprimanded him that evening. The next day, in class, he said to the teacher, "Are you the one who met my mother yesterday?" - "Yes" - "And you're the one who told her I refused to remove my cap?" He then got up and drew a knife and stabbed her in the navel, the stomach and the right arm. another pupil tried to intervene, but he continued stabbing. She received seven stab wounds.

France-Echos Targeted by Sarko?

This disturbing story appeared four days ago in France-Echos.

Scoop: Sarkozy wants to "neutralize" FE. We have learned, from an internal source at the Interior Ministry, that several measures have been adopted to censor our website. According to our information, we arouse the ire of the government. The Interior Ministry, through its affiliated services such as the DLPAJ (Direction of Public Freedoms and Judicial Affairs), is allegedly trying to "break" us, both judicially and technically.

Wait and see...

At any rate, the current Interior Minister will sooner or later have to explain to the French people why he bestowed knighthood on the UOIF (Union of Islamic Organizations of France), thus trampling on the tattered remains of the French Republic, why he orders his police not to arrest vandals, why he manipulates "takia"(1) on the criminals, not to mention (his) clandestine immigration, Islamists, etc...

He wants to "speak clearly" and "without taboos"? Checkmate!

(1) Takia refers to the Muslim practice of pretending to be innocent, or pretending to be on our side, for purposes of tricking us into believing we have a friend. I'm not sure what Sarkozy actually does.

Also, I used the English "checkmate" instead of the French "banco", a term used in the game Baccarat. I don't know how many Americans play Baccarat. I've never heard anyone say "Banco!".

April 22, 2006 - Place Colette

A reminder that the Blue Revolution will have its next rally on Saturday, April 22, 2006, between 4:00p.m. and 5:00p.m., in Paris at the Place Colette, opposite the Comédie Française, subway stop Palais Royal.

Throughout the rest of France, participants are to meet in front of city hall.

Claude Reichman Calls on Chirac to Resign

The leader of the Blue Revolution calls on Jacques Chirac to resign or to dissolve the National Assembly in this article from his website.

Since he has drawn no conclusion from the failures of the government and of the parliamentary majority in the CPE affair, Jacques Chirac is placing the regime in the most perilous position imaginable. The Street now rules over the representative institutions of the Republic. Unless legitimacy is restored to them, through popular suffrage, we are condemned to see the Street govern until the next scheduled election. But that does not take place for a year, when the terms of both the president and the National Assembly come to an end. A year is a long time, especially when the economic and social situation is extremely grave and when riots can erupt at any moment in the suburbs. Once again, Chirac is showing his incompetence and his irresponsability.

Since the looney tunes election of 2002, Chirac has accumulated one failure after another. He has successively lost regional, local and European elections, as well as the referendum of May 29, 2005, on the European consititution. This referendum, which he himself mandated, as is his right, was a presidential committment. The stinging failure of the "yes" vote should have impelled Chirac to resign immediately, as did General De Gaulle in 1969 after he lost the referendum on regionalization. But Chirac did not resign and he has lost the last milligram of respect that opinion accorded him.

How could he have even hoped that the new prime minister, appointed after this electoral disaster, would have the necessary authority to repair the damage? Dominique de Villepin began with a disadvantage in this insane venture, especially since his exalted nature and his total ignorance regarding the people could not help but lead him to take the most unlikely steps and measures. The CPE affair revealed this absurdity, as the prime minister embarking on his mission, consulted no one, provided for no possible repercussions, and finally smashed up against a huge wall of protest, as diverse as it was powerful. This protest brought together the various elements in French society who refuse to face reality as well as those who are angry at the government's impotence in matters of economic recovery.

If he wants to preserve domestic tranquility as much as possible, Chirac has no choice but to resign or to dissolve the National Assembly. This will not revive the regime, undermined as it is by economic and social failure and by its inability to control the wave of immigration that has submerged our country, but at least it will allow us to face, with a minimum of legitimacy, the violence that will inevitably grow within the context of this permanent crisis afflicting France today. Genuine renewal will only come when a new majority, arising from a popular movement such as the Blue Revolution, results in the people and its political representatives speaking with one voice.

If Chirac does not want to end up in a Ceausescu-style catastrophe, he has no option but to summon France to the voting booths.

The French "Billary"?

The Clintons are called by many nicknames - "Billary" was the most famous, and I'm sure I saw "Hillbilly", as well. She is sometimes just called "Hill" and he is called... well, many things. But they form a powerful American couple, driven by unquenchable political ambitions, where nothing but the highest office will do. Not to be outdone, the French also have a powerful political couple - Ségolène Royal and François Hollande, pictured together in the top photo. The second photo is of "Ségo" apparently at a wine-tasting event, one of the more pleasant perks of being a French politician, though she appears to be drinking something else.

Ségolène Royal was adviser to François Mitterand and has held various ministerial positions. She is now poised to run for the presidency in 2007, according to an article in the Guardian, dated March 3, 2006. The article gives a great deal of background information about her. She was born in Senegal, raised by very strict Catholic parents and attended France's prestigious ENA, Ecole Nationale d'Administration, that produces most of the country's high-ranking public servants. There she met François Hollande, the current leader of the Socialist Party. They have been "partners" for 25 years and have four children, their status being determined by France's PACS (Civil Union Agreement), which places a situation such as theirs mid-point between marriage and an open relationship. (The PACS also has a clause providing for same-sex unions.) At one time, Ségolène Royal would have become his common-law wife, but I don't know if that designation still exists in France.

An adulatory website devoted only to Ségo, provides loads of images (she is very photogenic and seems to have more photos on the web than Azouz Begag!), and quotes Lionel Joffrin writing in the left-wing Nouvel Observateur:

And Ségolène? Well, it's simple: Ségolène Royal is a new political phenomenon. That says it all. It's not just about polls, even if converging studies show that the public was anticipating someone or something. No, the "Royal power" also affects (...) militants, leaders, concerned citizens, and a large contingent of very active internet users. Judging by the grim faces of her competitors, the "Affaire Ségolène" is beginning to be taken seriously. For some, she is like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, who cuts up her enemies into pieces with a large eye-catching sabre. For others, she is a kind of Saint Teresa of Lisieux, who arouses an irrational devotion. In a word, Ségolène Royal has created a new circumstance in the left flank, and even if it is still very tenuous, we find it stimulating.

For the first time, a woman is at the head of the pack of socialist candidates for the presidency. That is due to an immense need for renewal (...) Ségolène Royal, though an integral part of the left for twenty years, symbolizes this need for new direction.

Then there is her manner of speaking - precise, resolute, concrete, playing on her personal understanding of the voters, their daily concerns and fears (...) Ségolène Royal speaks both morally and politically. The French people adrift in need of anchors, are sensitive to this (...)

The Nouvel Observateur of April 13, 2006 adds the following:

Ségolène Royal, henceforth a "candidate for the candidacy" in the 2007 presidential elections, said on Wednesday, April 12, that she did "not have the right to give up" because "it would be unworthy" of all the support she has received.

Questioned on the Internet during a chat session at the TF1 website, the socialist deputy from Deux-Sèvres reaffirmed that she would run in the primaries. Ségolène Royal, a favorite in the polls, had confirmed on Tuesday evening that she would "probably" seek the socialist endorsement. "It's a first step, the road is not easy, it is strewn with traps, but voilà, I have said it", she added.

Note: The above texts are typical of the main-stream press - bland, remote somehow from the real issues, and full of standard clichés ("need for renewal, "the road is not easy", etc...) Surely there will be more to be said about her, if indeed she gets on the ticket. It is possible that her partner François Hollande will also want to run - in either case it's another "twofer".