Withdrawal From Afghanistan

On January 20 Yves Daoudal posted this item at his website:

For the second time in a few weeks, French soldiers have been killed by soldiers of the Afghan army whom they were training…

Sarkozy is angry: "If security conditions are not clearly established, the question of an early withdrawal of the French army arises."

I don't really see what is meant by security conditions for soldiers in a country at war… and you had to be uncommonly naïve not to predict that the Taliban would join the Afghan army in order to take advantage of French military instruction…

Sarkozy's remarks are no doubt a way of admitting that it is not our war, and of announcing the return of French soldiers without admitting defeat...

Yesterday (Saturday) I received an e-mail from Diana West, with a link to an article at her blog announcing the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan. She links also to an article in the Peninsula Clarion describing the angry reaction of Afghan MP Tahira Mujadedi. Here are excerpts:

Mujadedi argued that Afghan forces in Kapisa are not ready to go it alone in fighting the Taliban insurgency, which is especially strong in several of the province's districts. She warned that if NATO forces pull back from Kapisa, it could also destabilize nearby Kabul, the Afghan capital.

"We have had so many attacks, ambushes and also suicide attacks in Kapisa," Mujadedi said. "Unfortunately, our national police and army, while present in Kapisa, are unable to provide good security for people." (…)

"When military forces are present in a war zone, anything can happen," she said. The French troops "are not here for a holiday," she added.

But the killing of the unarmed French troops by a Afghan soldier whom they were training has deepened discontent with the Afghan war in France, where Sarkozy is facing a tough election this year. France has about 3,600 troops in the international force, which is mostly made up of American troops.

When you visit Diana West's blog (linked above), browse through the many articles she has written on Afghanistan. Like Yves Daoudal, she has kept a chronicle of our failures, cover-ups, and losses in this apparently futile war. Diana is a nationally syndicated columnist, and one of the few true conservative writers to break through the barriers erected by liberal journalism and reach a public normally deprived of enlightened viewpoints.

The photo below shows Hamid Karzai at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Paris on January 27. According to the military website FNCV:

Karzai and Nicolas Sarkozy signed a bilateral agreement of friendship and cooperation that details the civil and military aid from France to Afghanistan. The meeting between the two heads of State, scheduled long ago, took place in a special atmosphere, after the deaths of four French soldiers (…)

According to the initial withdrawal plan, six hundred French soldiers were to return home in 2012. But, in fact, one thousand will return. Beginning in March, the security of Kapisa Valley - for the moment in the hands of the French - will be the responsibility of the Afghan army. And that was not in the initial plan. For now, President Sarkozy insists it has nothing to do with the deaths of four French soldiers on January 20.

For Sarkozy it will be a "gradual" withdrawal that will also mean the end of combat missions for French troops in 2013. The troops will then be moved into positions as trainers for the army and the Afghan police.


Yves Daoudal has also chronicled the casualties and military decisions in Afghanistan. Like many Frenchmen he feels that it is not France's war. In March 2009, he quoted Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Afghanistan:

"We are not going to win this war merely by staying there. Quite frankly, we will never succeed in defeating the insurrection. In my opinion, Afghanistan has always had in its history an insurrection of one form or another. So what we need in Afghanistan is a government that is capable of managing this insurrection."

It is interesting to compare what Harper said with what Tahira Mujadedi (see above) claims - essentially, that the current Afghan government cannot manage the insurrection.

According to Wikipedia there have been 2,765 coalition deaths in Afghanistan as of December 20, 2011. Regarding France:

A total of 82 French soldiers have died thus far. 61 soldiers have been killed in action, of the others: seven have died in vehicle accidents, four were killed by an Afghan soldier who turned and fired their rifle on French soldiers during training, one in a helicopter crash, two committed suicide, two have drowned, one was killed by a lightning strike, two died from a non-hostile gunshot wound, one died in an accidental explosion, and one died of unknown causes.

The largest number of soldiers killed was when French troops were ambushed in the area of Sirobi, some 50 km (31 mi) east of Kabul, in August 2008. Ten French troops were killed and a further 21 wounded in the attack - the heaviest loss of troops France has suffered since deploying to Afghanistan in 2001.

Finally, despite the general opposition to the presence of the French on Afghan soil, there are those who want the troops to finish their mission. At Le Journal du Dimanche (JDD), Pierre Servent explains why France is wrong to leave. Here is just the beginning of his editorial, written just before Sarkozy's decision was announced:

If France were to withdraw her forces early from Afghanistan, as the president indicated on Friday, it would be an error. First, that would amount to giving the Taliban a considerable political and psychological advantage. Next, it would penalize the passing of the baton between French soldiers and Afghan soldiers, police and gendarmes. Finally, it would set a bad example, vis-à-vis the coalition of 47 nations of which we are a part, to all those who are also tempted by a premature withdrawal. France has in fact discovered the extent to which infiltration, one of the modus operandi of Taliban extremists, can be deadly. (…)

Japanese Restaurants Now Serve Halal

Japanese restaurants in France are offering halal food. Miyako is a franchise that serves Paris and the surrounding area. Novopress reports:

Here is a major discovery thanks to the Japanese restaurant Miyako in the department of Val-de-Marne: the publicity flyer for this establishment indicates that the menus prepared for sale contain halal meat. We didn't realize until now that in Japanese culture, the gastronomical codes required the use of meat from animals bled while alive and turned in the direction of Mecca. In this case we are close to merchandise fraud. The problem here is a lack of respect for the customer, a frontal attack on his knowledge and his intelligence. When a person who likes sushi goes into a Japanese restaurant, it is, in the majority of cases, with the intention of eating traditional meals from the land of the rising sun, and not halal meals that refer to an Islamic culture. This case also reminds us that certain luxury products with a French brand name, and proudly touted as French brands, are in truth made in China.

With globalism, anything is possible.

The cultural side, i.e., the human side, is tossed away in order to focus only on the mercantile aspect, the search for maximum profits, the Grail of globalism. If that's the case, how can we be surprised that merchants encourage cultural mixtures. You can sell the same product to two people of mixed blood. However, it takes more brains and effort to sell to an African and to a Frenchman. So cultural mixing is also an economic strategy.

Note: People of mixed blood are less demanding, than people of pure blood. This seems to be the gist of the above paragraph. Big companies have an easier and cheaper job selling to the "métissés", the mixed races, who don't know or care what they are, than to a Frenchman, for example, who is very demanding.

I assume it leads to the conclusion that a Japanese restaurant that sells halal meals will make more money because it has a larger, more indifferent clientele than a Japanese restaurant that prepares authentic Japanese food for connoisseurs.

Novopress concludes:

Just a reminder that when you eat halal food, you the consumer are paying a "tax" to the mosques and to Muslim associations that verify the halal food as conforming to Islamic law. This money contributes mathematically to the Islamization of France.

Readers' comments indicate that this is not new, and that many "Japanese" restaurants actually have Chinese owners.

While this article is about halal, the same idea of mixing cultures could be said about McDonald's. Frenchmen who eat at McDonald's are less demanding than Frenchmen who refuse to eat there in favor of their authentically French brasserie. Of course, halal is more ominous - the French are soon not going to be able to avoid halal foods. You can at least refuse to go to McDonald's. And I believe McDonald's serves halal food as well - two reasons for not going there.

In short, mixing races on a massive scale results in a dumbing-down of the population and a boon to the international corporations.

En Partant - Nana Mouskouri

As a musical interlude here is Tom Paxton's great song Outward Bound, sung here in French by Nana Mouskouri.

The English version, also sung by Nana Mouskouri, is here.

Below, a translation of the French lyrics, which are very similar to the original English:

Outward bound, on an imaginary ship,
Outward bound, you the captain, I the sailor
Alone in the world, we left all our friends on the shores
This morning when we departed.

Outward bound, on a voyage without ports of call
Outward bound, with our dreams for our ocean
We will watch the green prairies disappear
Slowly, far from us, far from time.

And farewell, adieu, so long, vaya con dios
May Heaven give us what we are searching for
Just yesterday, the wine was sweeter than honey
God, those times, those times were good.

Outward bound on an imaginary ship
Walking on an old dusty road
Every moment that we have to live
Will be made into a legend for our children

And farewell, adieu, so long, vaya con dios
May Heaven give us what we are searching for
Just yesterday, the wine was sweeter than honey
God, those times, those times were good.

New Kid on the Block

France welcomes Croatia to the European Union. From Le Figaro:

France is happy today over the referendum vote on the admission of Croatia to the European Union, and regards this as an example to follow for the other countries of the Balkans (…)

The Croats approved by more than 66% of the votes the admission of their country to the European Union. But participation (43.58%) was very low in this referendum deemed "crucial" by the authorities of this young republic, twenty years after its independence from the former Yugoslavia.

In a joint communiqué, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé and European Affairs Minister Jean Leonetti declared:

"Yesterday, the Croats approved by referendum the admission of their country to the European Union. The results indicate that they made this choice unambiguously. We are particularly happy that they have decided to make their State the 28th member of the Union, marking thus their confidence in the European project."

At his blog Yves Daoudal writes:

"Welcome aboard the slave ship."

French Senate Passes Law on Genocide Denial

The French Senate (above) voted into law a bill that makes denial of the genocide of the Armenians by the Turks a crime. The result has been a flood of commentary, recriminations, congratulations, and questions over the consequences of this new law.

I repeat for the hundredth time that I sympathize fully with the cause of the Armenians, and with their current concerns over the presence of Turks in Europe. But I do not support this law. It means that while many people on a daily basis, in the ghettos and in the Turkish neighborhoods will shout anything they please with impunity about the Armenian genocide, if one white European happens to say something against the Armenians and gets caught he risks a jail sentence or a fine. Such laws are not enforceable. The Gayssot law, which forbids denial of the Holocaust of WWII has not been enforceable for this reason and it has increased the animosity towards the Jews about whom, it would appear, one cannot say anything negative, especially with regard to the Holocaust.

These laws do not bring back the dead, nor do they honor the dead in any way. They are a political expedient in response to demands from the "oppressed" minority or they bolster the image of the government in the eyes of the world. Sarkozy's government is tough, it pulls no punches, it will put you in jail if you deny the genocide. But if you are a North African immigrant, and you decide to burn a few cars, rape a few girls or throw rocks at the police you will receive a slap on the wrist and maybe even some money to go back home to Algeria where you can deposit the money and then return to France through the open-door policy currently in use.

Here is a slightly condensed report from France-Soir, which summarizes the basic information. There may be an attempt to repeal this law through the Constitutional Council:

The outraged reactions grew steadily in number in Turkey on Tuesday after the voting the night before by the French Senate on a bill criminalizing the denial of the Armenian genocide under the Ottoman Empire. At the same time, Paris appealed to Ankara to remain calm.

The weekly speech by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the deputies of his party was expected to give more details on what type of sanctions against France were being considered.

After the Turkish Minister of Justice Sadullah Ergin, denounced "the total lack of respect for Turkey", the Foreign Minister "strongly condemned" on Monday night an "irresponsible act" on the part of France.

On Tuesday, Labor Minister Faruk Celik called Nicolas Sarkozy, who supported the bill, as an assassin of History:

"Sarkozy will go down in History as the man who massacred History"

The Turkish press was unanimous in denouncing blow dealt by France to freedom of opinion:

"Shame on you, France" was the headline of the popular daily Vatan. "France, where the ideal of freedom was born, has dealt the unkindest blow to freedom of expression. By passing the law on denial of the genocide, she has renounced her past."

"President Sarkozy turned his back on freedom and on Turkey, in exchange for a few votes", proclaimed the popular paper Posta.

The widely read paper Hürriyet ran as its headline "He massacred democracy", next to a photo of the French president.

Two papers usually in opposition to each other, the very secular Cumhuriyet and the conservative Islamic Zaman joined voices on Tuesday to denounce "French justice" and an "historic shame" respectively.

These reactions prompted Foreign Minister Alain Juppé to appeal to Turkey for "calm".

"I would like to appeal to our Turkish friends to remain calm and I extend my hand to this "great country, this great economic and political power", declared the minister on the Canal Plus television channel.

The Senate ratified on Monday night a bill already passed through the National Assembly on December 22 that punishes the denial of all genocides recognized by France, including that of the Armenians in 1915, with one year in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros.

Turkey refuses the term of genocide, all the while recognizing that massacres were committed and that some 500,000 Armenians perished in Anatolia between 1915 and 1917. The Armenians speak of 1,500,000 dead.

Turkey accused the French president of trying to win over the voters of Armenian origin before the election scheduled for this Spring.

After the vote in the National Assembly, Mr. Erdogan had reacted very angrily, freezing political and military cooperation with France, its ally in NATO, and denouncing a "genocide" committed by the French colonists in Algeria. (…)

New sanctions against France may not be announced until after the promulgation of the law, if indeed it is ratified by the French Constitutional Council, according to the widely distributed daily HaberTürk, quoting sources from within the AKP Party after a meeting Monday night. These sources indicate that Mr. Erdogan has declared his intention not to visit France again, if the law is ratified, so long as Mr. Sarkozy is in power.

Note: In France a law passed by both houses has to be "promulgated" or ratified by the President of the French Republic within two weeks. Only then can it be executed. However, if there is a question about the law, the Constitutional Council must rule on its constitutionality before the President "promulgates" it. If the Council gives the OK, Sarkozy will ratify the law and from that point on it must be executed.

While some say he did this to win Armenian voters, it is more likely he did it to win other voters as well - all those who believe such laws are a sign of the high moral principles of France and her leader. And this may be a substantial chunk of the population.

It will be very interesting to see what Turkey does, and how France tries to soothe the outraged "great" nation.

Below, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

Crime Rising

Here are some recent statistics on crime, as reported by Novopress:

The figures on crime in 2011, presented by Claude Guéant on January 17, reveal an ever increasing assault on the safety of the French people. While the Interior Minister dared to boast about a ridiculous drop of 0.34% in crime overall, other figures were much more instructive.

Thus, the rate of burglaries of primary residences rose by 17.1% compared to 2010. Other significant data include violence against people, notably voluntary homicides, that rose more than 10%. Note too that violent acts against people have increased more than 22% in the last ten years.

These figures are certainly a low estimate since many French people, disappointed and discouraged by the absence of a concerted policy against crime and immigration, have given up filing complaints. Furthermore, certain types of misdeeds are not included in the State's calculations, such as bank card fraud.

Back to Future

The French, who are in great need of some recreation, are holding their bellies following the remarks made by Sarkozy's former Defense Minister Hervé Morin, 50. Morin is a presidential candidate for the Nouveau Centre (New Center) Party and has so far amassed about 0% of the voters' pledges. He will probably drop below that now, unless the French rally to his cause out of gratitude. Here is the article from Le Parisien (but it's all over the web):

The centrist candidate Hervé Morin, 50, got carried away Sunday during a visit to Nice when he said in a speech that he had seen the allies land in Normandy… 67 years ago. "Those of you who have white hair, you saw the landing in Provence not far from here," addressing himself to the older members of his audience. "I saw the landing of the allies in Normandy. We have lived through ordeals much more difficult than those we are living through today," added the chairman of the Nouveau Centre, credited with 0 to 1% in the polls.

Note: As I post, the 35-second video of his historical slip is not working. Try instead the version at Le Salon Beige.

Don't forget Al Gore invented the Internet, Latin is spoken in Latin America (I'm not sure Dan Quayle actually said that), Rick Perry could not remember which government agency he would abolish, and Nicolas Sarkozy saw the Berlin Wall come down.

Louis XVI, Executed January 21, 1793

The image of the king is from Le Post, a French website that is soon to become the French version of the Huffington Post. Headed by Anne Sinclair, wife of Dominique Strauss-Kahn. She apparently feels it's time to go back to work and make some money to offset the losses from last summer. Lawyers are very demanding.

Below the picture it reads:

To govern men is not to subjugate them.

A sovereign could do nothing more useful than to inspire in his nation a grand idea of itself.

The first duty of a king is to make his people happy.

Alexis de Toqueville wrote in the mid-1880's:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”

Quoted in a speech delivered by Allen West, posted at Blog 1389.

(Mis)interpreting the Torah

Grand Rabbi of France Gilles Bernheim has declared that the values of Judaism are incompatible with those of the Front National. The article appears at SudOuest, a local paper of Bordeaux:

Grand Rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim, when questioned by Sud-Ouest about the attempts made by Marine Le Pen to coax Jewish voters into voting for the FN, declared that "the values of Judaism are incompatible with those of the Front National. And whatever Marine Le Pen's position favoring Israel might be, that will change nothing.

Questioned also on Eva Joly's proposal to make Yom Kippur and Eïd El-Kebir national holidays, the Grand Rabbi replied that he did not have to respond to every statement made by politicians. "I would not want the presidential election to benefit corporatist interests. That is not my idea of the relationship between the political and the religious."

Note: Eva Joly (née Gro Eva Farseth) is the Norwegian-born candidate of the Ecology Party (with support from the Green Party) for the presidency of France in 2012. In 1967 she married Frenchman Pascal Joly, by whom she had two children. They later separated. He committed suicide in 2001. She became known to the public when she was appointed examining magistrate in the Elf-Aquitaine financial scandal in 1994, involving a widespread network of corruption in the French oil industry. In the course of the legal proceedings one person she exonerated was Dominique Strauss-
Kahn.

Gilles Bernheim was in Bordeaux last Sunday to commemorate the rounding-up of 400 Jews from southwestern France in the Synagogue of Bordeaux during WWII. Jews from Bayonne, Pau, Libourne and even Arcachon had been imprisoned in the synagogue before being deported to Drancy, then to Auschwitz.

A contributor to Riposte Laïque named Elisseievna, who is Jewish, responds to rabbi Bernheim's declaration in a long reproach, in which she attempts to explain why Jews are "bleeding heart liberals", citing Leviticus 19:33-34, where Jews are told to love foreigners:

"For you were foreigners in the land of Egypt."

Often, however, Jews seem to be victims of a theoretical hypertrophy of virtue, and boast of spreading this overflow of love, without any reciprocity whatsoever, to the foreigner who does not see himself as a foreigner! Even more - and we live through situations like this today - "foreigners" claiming to be the true possessors of our country - France - and calling us intruders, find themselves theoretically invested with loving protection ordered by the Torah. It must be stated clearly: this twisting of the moral conscience, laden with suicidal tendencies, is of galuti origin (meaning in relation to existence in exile in the diaspora, and not in Israel).

(…)

In conclusion, it seems to me more than evident, Mr. Grand Rabbi of France, that the policies Marine Le Pen proposes are the only ones that can (…) ensure the safety of French Jews. Go for a walk through the middle schools of the ghettos, Gilles Bernheim, listen to what the immigrant children and adolescents, or children of immigrants, are thinking today about the Jews, and then tell me if you can see, in the current state of things, a way of eradicating the terrible rise of antisemitism other than stopping Muslim immigration, all the while applying French laws to stop the kingpins behind Islamic subversive activities. If the laissez-faire policy toward Islam, which is that of all the other candidates, is continued, in a few years, Mr. Grand Rabbi, France will be "judenrein", Notre-Dame de Paris will really be a mosque as Elena Tchoudinova imagined it would be, and the France of Solomon ben Isaac de Troyes will soon be nothing but a memory, because we can count on indifference and the art of Islamic cultural ethnocide to eradicate every last trace. I don't know if this is what you prefer in the name of I don't know what values you call Jewish, but as for me, I will fight against this ethnic cleansing, and for this reason also, I think I will fight with "our new Joan of Arc".

Note: "Judenrein" means "cleansed of Jews."

The reference to Notre-Dame concerns the book by Russian author Elena Tchoudinova in which she describes the last Mass in the cathedral before the definitive capitulation to Islam.

Solomon Yitzhaki of Troyes, known as Rashi, February 22, 1040 – July 13, 1105, was a medieval French rabbi famed as the author of a comprehensive commentary on the Talmud, as well as a comprehensive commentary on the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible). See Wikipedia

I did not have time to research Galuti values, but I found this interesting piece at Palm Tree of Deborah. I can't tell if "galutnik" is correct or pejorative. "Galuti" is the word that seems to be preferred. Possibly "galutnik" is derived from "beatnik" and "peacenik"?

My soul has been churning in righteous indignation for more than 24 hours now and it isn’t lessening even one little bit and it won’t until I get this off of my chest.

After dinner on Leil Shabbat, I sat down to read a small magazine. I didn’t get any further than the first letter to the editor. It was obviously from a visiting galutnik Jew condemning the editorial decision that included in the magazine’s Yom Haatzmaut profile of various Israeli Jews’ comments on the holiday a wish for an Israel without Arabs. I won’t sully this blog by repeating verbatim what was written. Suffice it to say that reference was made to racism and democratic ideals, an obnoxious and obscene comparison between innocent Jews and murderous Arabs with special attention to a perfectly nice Arab waiter, who for all the writer knew could be plotting the next mass poisoning. But, you know, I don’t expect anything better from galutnik Jews. Their minds have already been poisoned by “Western ideals.” For lack of true Torah knowledge, they think it’s the same thing. What a shock they have in store!

Renault Promotes Gay Marriage

"Congratulations, Dad."

"Times change. So does Twingo."

No comment.

Europe's Fate

According to Islamisation, on January 6, 2012, Egyptian imam Ali Abu Al-Hasan delivered a sermon on Al-Hekma television. Here is one passage:

"…with Muslim emigration into Europe and the unwillingness of Europeans to marry and have children… One hundred persons will be succeeded by only eighty, and ten years later, these eighty will be replaced by sixty, and these sixty will later be replaced by forty, and these forty will be a mere ten one decade later, and twenty years later, not one of them will remain!

Europe has become aware of this. In time, Europe will become a single Islamic State, and will know only that: 'There is no other god but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger.'

That's the way it is, whether they like it or not. It is Allah's decision. Islam is arriving!"

With 470,000 visas issued annually by the Interior Ministry (official figures for 2008) to nationals of Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey, we can't help but believe that the Sarkozy government agrees with Islamic imperialism.

Click here for the video of the above, from MEMRI, with English subtitles. And see if you don't agree that the voice of the imam sounds very much like that of Hitler.

A Question of Neutrality

In his newsletter #154, available through subscription, Yves Daoudal relates the events at a high school in Saint-Dié, department of the Vosges, in Lorraine, eastern France. It concerns a cancellation by the Guillaume Budé Association, a scholastic society devoted to ancient history and languages, of a conference on the Armenian genocide. The Association issued this communiqué:

"We must cancel the January 20 conference by Madame Paule Gehay on the Armenian genocide. The principal has, in fact, determined that the current situation was not favorable for us to be able to discuss calmly this topic, and that the school must remain neutral. The next conference has been scheduled for Friday March 2 at 5:30 p.m.: 'Lenin, revolutionary or putschist?' by Jean-Jacques Marie, historian, and author of a biography of Lenin."

Yves Daoudal comments:

I fail to see how speaking about the Armenian genocide violates the neutrality of the school. It is an historic event, even officially recognized by the French Republic. To speak in a school of the Republic about an event recognized by the Republic (and the denial of which will soon be a punishable offense…) cannot contravene the republican neutrality of the school…

If I understand correctly, the mention of the Armenian genocide leads one to designate the guilty and the victims, and that the guilty are Muslims and the victims are Christians. And that IS contrary to "neutrality". It is even contrary to laïcité…

On the other hand, there is no problem with the next conference. The one by Jean-Jacques Marie on Lenin.

Jean-Jacques Marie has been a Trotskyist militant for… 50 years. He was a member of the OCI (Internationalist Communist Organization) (…) He stayed on when the OCI became the Internationalist Communist Party (PCI) in 1981. And since 1992, he has been in the Workers' Party (which joined the PCI).

But the principal of the high school in Saint-Dié felt that this is an example of neutrality.

At Le Salon Beige, a Catholic website, there are several comments about this story.

- I know Saint-Dié and I know that there is a very large Turkish community there. Were there local pressures?

- The principal must be afraid that the parents of the Turkish community burn the school down. Courage is not in good supply nowadays… It is also true that he has nothing to fear from the Armenian community whose mores are less barbaric due to the enrichment of Christian civilization. He has also taught us his conception of neutrality: snuff out the truth (and discussions) out of fear of violence.

The FN Is Not A Fascist Party

Five faces appear in this video from March 8, 2011. The first asks the basic question which is answered by political scientist Jean-Yves Camus and another man, unidentified. A fourth man, with his shirt-collar open, is Ivan Rioufol, a journalist with Le Figaro who tries but fails to contribute. At the very end we see briefly a white-haired man who agrees (by his nod) with the others.

- Is the Front National a fascist party?

- No. And for thirty years the pretense of the anti-fascists has failed. Perhaps they should start thinking of something else. Neither Marine Le Pen nor the Italian Northern League, nor the Swiss People's Party nor the populist parties of Scandinavia are the heirs of the fascism of the 1930's.

- Are these images meant to frighten people, are they useless, and above all are they out of sync with reality?

- They are certainly out of sync with reality. There haven't been any survivors of the traditional extreme Right for almost twenty-five years. They have to try something else.

- No one can believe that the election of one of these parties to the government of a European country would mean that hordes of fascist leagues would land in our cities and our villages. No one can believe this. So to adopt an anti-fascist position is erroneous, because no one believes it. On the other hand, and on the contrary, as these parties progress toward respectability, in society and in the representative bodies, what emerges is the possibility of an alliance (of these parties) with the ruling government party.



Note: One potential outcome we have to be aware of is that the Front National, should it ever accede to power and form an alliance with the Establishment Right, may weaken in its resolve to save France from whatever dangers assail her. The danger of an alliance is the danger of accommodation and compromise. For now, it is easy for Marine Le Pen to be a clarion voice of the opposition, a fount of truth and patriotism in a sea of mediocrity and collaboration. Everything she says rings true because everybody else is so bad. On the other hand, if she ever gets enough votes to win, then that would mean that there are enough Frenchmen who would immediately recognize any accommodation on her part and (hopefully) make known their displeasure. We are far from that point now; this is just speculation.

As Low As You Can Get

It's inconceivable that a journalist would treat Marine Le Pen (or anybody) like this, but the image above was featured on a show hosted by Laurent Ruquier January 7.

This article from Nations-Presse explains:

On January 9, Bruno Bilde, director of communications for the Marine Le Pen presidential campaign, addressed a letter to the attention of Rémy Pflimlin, president of France Télévision, to denounce the way Marine Le Pen was treated on the Laurent Ruquier show on France 2. During his show, Ruquier displayed a poster that was supposed to be humorous: "Le Pen: the candidate who is like you", with an illustration of a stool of excrement on a background of the French colors.

Today (January 12), Rémy Pflimlin announced in the press that he supported the talk-show host and was defending him. A short while ago Bruno Bilde sent a stinging response to Rémy Pflimlin:

"Your letter shows that you do not know the ethical and juridical rules: defamation and offense are only crimes when they are public. It is clear that by displaying this poster during his show, Laurent Ruquier offended Marine Le Pen. I might add that since the show is not live, you yourself, as director of programming, were responsible for the broadcast of this poster and that you also committed the infraction."

Below, the first letter, dated January 9, sent by Bruno Bilde to Rémy Pflimlin. In it he points out that Marine Le Pen is the only candidate to be treated this way in public. He then lists the other insults she has been the victim of on France Télévision. Among them, a suit filed against Ruquier after he transformed Marine Le Pen's family tree into a swastika.

The letter goes on:

"Now Monsieur Ruquier compares Mme Le Pen to a shit. By adding 'the candidate who is like you', Laurent Ruquier insults at the same time millions of television viewers and voters."

Bruno Bilde has sent a copy of this letter to the High Council on Audiovisual, an agency similar to our FCC.

Couple Attacked near Mantes-la-Jolie

Here's one of many crimes reported on a daily basis in France. The report, dated January 12, comes from Novopress:

Another French couple has been the victim of a terrifying burglary. A woman was discovered dead and her husband gravely injured on Wednesday at their home in Porcheville, department of Yvelines, near Mantes-la-Jolie. At mid-morning, the postman discovered the couple bound, the woman dead and her 74-year-old handicapped husband in serious condition. He was taken to a Paris hospital where it was determined that his life was in danger. One room of the home had been ransacked. A police source suggested the hypothesis of a hostage-taking that had "gone wrong".

Note: Like its American counterpart the French press uses the phrase "gone wrong" to describe a crime that starts out as a lesser offense and becomes in some mysterious way a greater offense. But is there a hostage-taking that "goes right"? A "mugging gone wrong" is one where the victim is more than mugged, he is killed. So a "mugging gone right" is a successful mugging. Crazy.

BTW, if a criminal attempts to mug somebody and fails, is that a mugging gone wrong or a mugging gone right? Is the criminal in some way compensated for his effort? At least he tried.

With crime rising rapidly and criminals armed to the teeth, the French people do not have official means to defend themselves. The possibilities are laughable (tear gas, gas pistols, blank bullets, etc…) Unlike the United States where defending oneself against an attack is a right. Like Sarah McKinley, a young widow from Oklahoma who bravely saved her own life and that of her baby on New Year's eve when her home was attacked.

The story of Sarah McKinley appears at CBS News, among other sources. The strange thing about this case is that Sarah asked permission from the 911 dispatcher to use her guns (she had two) against the intruder who was about to enter the home. The dispatcher said she had to protect herself and her baby.

Note: Mantes-la-Jolie has become notorious for its violent immigrant population. Possibly older people should receive police protection, or be moved out of the area.

Charges of Anti-Semitism (The Changing Face of the Front National)

One of the hardest jobs facing Marine Le Pen has been to correct the impression that the Front National is inherently antisemitic. This problem is, as we know, the consequence of her father's seemingly reckless but more likely well-calculated remarks about the concentration camps during WWII. His other remarks asserting the compatibility of Islam with the laws of the French Republic, his actions such as attending a performance given by French-African "humorist" Dieudonné who brought Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson onto the stage, his policy shift toward "inclusion" of immigrants, that stunned his voters during the 2007 campaign, all of these things and more induced potential voters not to vote for Le Pen but to choose instead the leader of the Establishment Right, Jacques Chirac, and later Nicolas Sarkozy.

Marine Le Pen inherited the thankless task of convincing the people that neither she nor the Front National is antisemitic. She has reached out to Israel and sent Louis Aliot, the vice-chairman of the FN to the Jewish State possibly to pave the way for a future meeting between Israeli leaders and herself. She has assured the Jews of France that they have nothing to fear from the Front National, despite accusations of antisemitism from Robert Prasquier, the leftist leader of the leftist CRIF (Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France) and Serge Klarsfeld, the lawyer responsible for hunting down and prosecuting former Nazis.

Now, the vice-chairman of the Front National, Louis Aliot, has been accused of being a "well-known antisemite". Louis Aliot, born in France of a French father and a repatriated Algerian mother who is half Jewish, making Aliot one quarter Jewish (like Nicolas Sarkozy), has been Marine Le Pen's colleague for ten years and her intimate companion for two. She is twice divorced with children, and Aliot is also divorced with two children.

The accusations of antisemitism against Aliot emanate from Edward Amiach, a member of the UPJF (a union of French Jewish managers) and candidate for the seat of deputy in the National Assembly in the 2012 legislative election which will follow soon after the presidential contest. Amiach is a candidate from the 8th voting district of Frenchmen living overseas in the countries of Italy, Malta, Saint-Marin, the Holy See, Cyprus, Greece, Turkey and Israel. The French citizens living in these countries will elect eleven deputies to the National Assembly.

The following communiqué appears at Nations-Presse, a website of the Front National, but it originated at a new website called The Union of Jewish Frenchmen (UFJ), a website by and for patriotic French Jews who have the same concerns as Marine Le Pen and who support her in her presidential bid. This is a refreshing and encouraging development:

By saying that it is "common knowledge" that Louis Aliot, vice-chairman of the Front National, is a "true antisemite", Edward Amiach uses the same arguments used by anti-zionists of the Left and extreme Left, the very ones who on January 8 in Seine-Saint-Denis, aided by the "young people" of the department, attacked a gathering where Marine Le Pen was to give a campaign speech.

Edward Amiach aligns himself also with the UEJF (Union of Jewish Students of France) who refuses to acknowledge that the Al-Dura affair was a carefully planned set-up against Israel.

And he aligns himself with Jean Glavany, the Socialist deputy who, in a parliamentary report, spoke of "a veritable Israeli apartheid" towards the Palestinians.

With friends like Edward Amiach, French Jews do not need enemies.

We should remind this honorable candidate for deputy from the 8th district of French citizens living abroad, and supported by the Jewish managers of France, that not only have neither Marine Le Pen nor Louis Aliot ever made anti-Semitic remarks, but the mere respect for the history of Jews in France ought to impel you to observe greater restraint in your language.


We suggest he read the book by Simon Epstein A French Paradox: Anti-Racists in the Collaboration, Anti-Semites in the Resistance (Albin Michel, Paris 2008), in which he observes that the collaborators came, in their majority, from the Left, while the Resistance fighters for a Free France in London were in the main from the Right. As for Edward Amiach's (new?) Communist friends, they did not resist (except for Charles Tillon) until after June 22, 1941, when Hitler's Germany invaded the Soviet Union.

Of course, his friends, were in Seine-Saint-Denis on January 8, shouting against Marine Le Pen.

The Union of Jewish Frenchmen supports Louis Aliot in his legal action against Edward Amiach and affirms to Louis Aliot its solidarity against these attacks that only serve the cause of the enemies of the Jewish people in general, and of Jewish Frenchmen in particular.

Note: Normally we say "French Jews", in French: "Juifs français" or "Juifs de France". However, the author of this communiqué uses a slightly different turn of phrase: "Français juifs" which translates as "Jewish Frenchmen". In the first example, the person is a Jew first and French as a descriptive term, while in the second, he is a Frenchman first and a Jew as an added description.

At the top, Marine Le Pen with Louis Aliot to her left (on the far right in the photo). Below, Aliot in Israel.


For many voters, for those completely loyal to Jean-Marie Le Pen, for those who joined the FN for its antisemitic image, for those who believe Israel to be a world-conquering, imperialistic vassal to the United States, for those who believe Israel has committed genocide against the Palestinians, this will be a bitter pill. They will regard the FN as a "Zionist" party, and Marine as a friend to the "Zionists".

For now, it appears only that Marine Le Pen is being realistic and that she wants to rid the party of a connotation that can only bring about its eternal damnation. She has made it clear in her foreign policy platform that she regards the Arab world as an essential part of French foreign policy and that she would like France to take the role of intermediary in the resolution of conflicts. But she has also said, at least with regard to Islam, that Muslim nations must not in any way dictate or influence the decisions of the French president or government. Neither she nor Louis Aliot has apologized for the conduct of Jean-Marie Le Pen or for the Front National. Aliot has only said "That's in the past". Their desire to start afresh unencumbered by past errors is obvious and apologies tend to make everything worse and more complicated than they need to be.

As for Jews who collaborate with the enemy, they have made their choice and will pay whatever price awaits them in this world, or the next.