A Place To Go To™ V

Le jour 360 de Sarko

Pave is always seeking new attractions in France to sway the undecided vacationer.* This summer consider flirting with malaria.

FRANCE FEARS PLAGUE OF MOSQUITOES IN MED RESORTS

PARIS May 3, 2008 (Guardian) - Authorities in southern France fear a possible mosquito invasion in tourist resorts this summer and blame EU regulations which prevent them from using the most efficient insecticide.

THIRD WORLD VACATION
At First World Prices

The area affected runs from the Camargue down to the Spanish border. Agents from the EID, the Entente interdépartementale de démoustication which clears thousands of hectares of marshland each year, say the new rules are forcing them to carry out this year's operation in record time, and with no guarantee of success, following recent rain.

For the first time since the early 1960s they cannot use temephos** - a pesticide now banned by the European Union. Instead the EID says it is obliged to turn to a bacterium considered to be more environment-friendly, but which experts argue leaves little margin for error.

... Whereas simple contact with temephos was enough to kill the larvae, one agent explained that BTI [Bacillus thuringiensis subspecies israelensis strain EG2215] had to be ingested within a specific time period to be effective. EID agent:

If it doesn't work, we can't re-do the treatment because it's already too late.

... The EID stresses it is "not panicking" about any potential reduction of tourist numbers. Bernard Sauvaire, head of the regional tourism chamber, told Le Figaro:

The EID's operations have always been successful. We're simply much more alert.

Christian Jean, the EID chairman, said he hoped the extra planning would help "avoid catastrophe".

Let's see, EID operations have always been successful, but past successes were the result of spraying temephos, the effective insecticide now banned. (Pause.) Why are we not reassured?

UN AUTRE NOUVEAU PANNEAU DE SIGNALISATION
Ouch! Bumps Ahead

The EID is not panicking but its chairman is left hoping to "avoid catastrophe". (Pause.) The "catastrophe" to which M. Jean, the EID chairman, alludes is any personal responsibility for the failure of an operation under his supervision that requires precision timing, with no room for error. The EID does not panic because it has already taken the precaution of blaming the EU.

Vacation in France, the thrill is free.

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* See here, here, here, here, and here.

** More on temephos here.

PFFT (What is this?): Bienvenue en France ½ | Rayonnement français ½

Pave: Europa's Revolutionary Christian Roots

Le jour 359 de Sarko

I have chosen not to insert the reference to the Christian heritage in the constitution. Rather I appeal to you to persuade me of its necessity.

Valery Giscard d'Estaing,
paper princeling, the bureaucrat's Socrates,
EU spiritual medium, and former président
de la République Française,
here stooping to wave off Christian Europa
BRUSSELS November 25, 2004 (Telegraph)

These Christians could at least have the good grace to accept that they lost the argument.

EU official,
suffering the uppity Euro-Christians
(ibid.)

Ah, but if Euro-Christians did indeed lose an argument without a forum, well, they still had the last laugh (and here).

We were reminded of the EU -- an EU cut loose from its Christian moorings by Brussels -- by the brilliant Eurostar advertisment, below, recently seen in a Paris Metro quotidien.

JESUS EL CHE
What Would This Jesus Do? Don't Ask

[Photo hat tip: Carine]

This advertisement is brilliant not in its intended message but in the revealed message.

The intended message is to promote travel to a popular London pub and after-hours bar called Redchurch, so named because situated on Redchurch Street in placid, gentrified Bethnal Green, a hotbed of culottism. Redchurch accepts American Express, Mastercard, and Visa. Children and babies are admitted.

The revealed message is the advertiser's dead-on read of the Parisian prospect.

Advertising does not trade in hard ideas. It creates a cloud of associated soft concepts. The ad shows the Christ to play on "church" and smartly kits Him out with the Korda Che beret* to play on "red". Yet neither of these associations are relevant to the advertised destination, Redchurch. The advertiser has not made these associations arbitrarily.

The advertiser knows the Parisian prospect has probably never heard of Redchurch the bar, thus its presentation can be complete fancy, thus the Che-like Jesus. He also knows the Parisian prospect adores Che (an adoration wilfully ignorant of "the butcher of La Cabaña") and, like the EU official above, disdains Christianity and the heroes of Christianity (and here). Thus a Che-like Christ, a Prince Of Peace who has thrown in with the bougie left and its muzzy romance of guerilla socialism. The Parisian prospect will find such a deconstruction irresistible and hops the next Eurostar to see this London curiosity for himself.

Ticket sold. [Pause.] Such are the guiles of the advertising trade.

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* The beret of the Guerrillero Heroico.

PFFT (What is this?): Co-opting Jesus 5 | Sanitizing Che 5 | Selling tickets 3½ | Rayonnement français 0

Pave: Air France Thrill Ride

Le jour 357 de Sarko

We take these allegations extremely seriously. We are investigating.

AF spokesman
(infra)

AIR FRANCE AD: FLYING BADLY
The Thrills Are Free

NEAR MISS PILOT 'SHOWING OFF TO BOY IN COCKPIT'
People Blessed Themselves And Prayed Aloud, While Children Cried
As An Air France Flight Lurched Through The Sky.

May 7, 2008 (Telegraph) - Passengers at the front of the plane claimed that they saw one of the cabin crew escorting the French boy, aged about 13, in to see the pilot.

Soon afterwards the aircraft banked sharply to the left, then pitched to the right.

After the boy returned to his seat, alarms could be heard in the cockpit and the plane suddenly climbed steeply, the passengers allege.

Shaun Robinson, 40, from Rossendale, said the Airbus A320, carrying 143 passengers, had "rocked and rolled" like a fairground ride.

Suddenly the pilot made a sharp turn to the left, without warning, and then back again, obviously showing the young French boy how he flew his plane. Gasps could be heard throughout the rest of the cabin.

Moments later, the pilot threw his plane into a steep climb. We could hear alarms sounding. The two crew members sitting in front of me had terror written across their faces and were gripping their chairs.

Air France is the national carrier for France. Epitomizing the French character, it is for many visitors the first introduction to the French experience.

PFFT (What is this?): Bienvenue en France ! 0 | Rayonnement français 0

Pave: Let'em Rip!

UPDATE 05.07.08: Here, apparently, was the healthiest man in France, Joseph Pujol (1er juin 1857-1945), le Pétomane. He delighted French audiences with his healthful -- and professional -- nether breeze. His act combined the arts of the flautist and the flatulist and included demonstrations of pneumatic skill and a ventilation of the French national anthem. It was all good clean fun, as M. Pujol was also a devotee of the high colonic, as many as five in a day. Front row center as refreshing as a summer wind.

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Le jour 356 de Sarko

Do not fear the microbe.

Popular French wisdom on hygiene

BURP, FART, SWEAT
Health Regimen Tailored To France

THROW CAUTION TO WIND, FRANCE TOLD
A French Doctor Is Urging His Countrymen To Give Free Rein
To Flatulence, Sweating And Other Bodily Taboos
To Reduce The Risk Of Cancer.

PARIS May 2, 2008 (Telegraph) - In his book, Le Grand Ménage (Spring cleaning), Frédéric Saldmann invites them to embrace the stereotypical British view of the French and to have a relaxed attitude to bodily functions.

He calls for a "May '68" of the body – an emancipation for belching, breaking wind and sweating profusely. "Eliminating" the two litres of gas produced a day by the average Frenchman "is a natural process", he writes, adding that retaining it can be harmful to the intestines. The French, he adds, should "dare to fart".

Dr. Saldmann also warns against compromising the natural bloom in the oxters with anti-perspirants. Not only do anti-perspirants bottle up toxins, but the good doctor assures his compatriots that a strong personal pong is a natural turn-on. [Pause.] And yet, stinky France is not turned-on (and this).

[He] says his countrymen should feel free to belch at will and certainly after each meal. This, he says, is the best way to reduce the risk of getting a hiatal hernia, an ailment which affects almost a third of French people. Keeping air in the stomach leads to more heartburn, which increases the risk of cancer of the oesophagus. The rise of this disease in France, he says, is due to "the burp that we no longer do".

Whatever the benefits of a degraded personal atmosphere, for those who require a little society, Pave recommends the more conventional practices of daily bathing and the unhurried stool in a well-ventilated toilet.

PFFT (What is this?): Daring farts 4 | The burp en vogue 3¾ | Rayonnement français 0

Pave: Busted Front Redux

Le jour 352 de Sarko

“YOU CAN'T PAINT MERDE.”
Marine Le Pen,
vice-présidente du Front national
PARIS December 17, 2006 (Guardian)

The cash-strapped Front National is auctioning off must-have Le Pen discards.

FRANCE'S LE PEN SELLING
BULLET-PROOF CAR ON eBAY

PARIS April 30, 2008 (Reuters) - French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen is looking to make a bit of extra cash by putting his old bullet-proof car up for sale on eBay.

... Asked why the car was up for sale, a National Front spokesman said:

Money, money, glorious money.

PFFT (What is this?): Selling sh*t 4 | Rayonnement français 0

Pave: La France Numéro Un !

Le jour 351 de Sarko

They were asking me to pay taxes on money I didn't have. I had no choice but to leave the country.

Denis Payre,
French entrepreneur and tax exile,
explaining one solution to the French wealth tax
PARIS July 16, 2006 (WaPo)

It's an old saw -- and one we subscribe to -- that governments do only two things well: wage war and tax. In France's case, the government only manages to do one thing well.

2008 TAX MISERY & REFORM INDEX

April 7, 2008 (Forbes) - The misery score is the sum of the taxes shown in the colored bars, at the highest marginal percentage in each locale. It is our best proxy for evaluating whether policy attracts or repels capital and talent. The countries at the top of the chart impose the harshest taxes while those at the bottom are the most tax friendly. The Reform column reflects a reduction in misery (a negative number highlighted in red) or an increase in misery since we began tracking.

STILL NUMBER ONE!
"France Reigned Supreme As The Most-Taxed Nation
[Out Of The 66 Indexed] With A Misery Score Of 166.8
For The Past Two Years."*

[Hat tip: Hervé]

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* Three years by our count, 2006-2008. France has held the number one position on the Forbes Tax Misery Index every year since its inception in 2000: 2000 (193.1), 2001 (181.6), 2002 (181.2), 2003 (179.4), 2004 (174.8), 2005 (174.8), 2006 (166.8), 2007 (166.8), and 2008 (166.8).

PFFT (What is this?): Doing one thing well 5 | Rayonnement français 0

Pave: Allah Behind Bars

Le jour 350 de Sarko

The question of discrimination and justice is one of the key political questions of our society, and still, it is not given much importance.

Sebastian Roché,
Directeur de recherche,
Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
(infra)

The most important thing is to say there is no correlation between Islam and delinquency.

Jeanne Sautière,
director of integration and religious groups
for the French prison system, giving the official
position of overlooking the obvious
(infra)

IN FRANCE, PRISONS FILLED WITH MUSLIMS

SEQUEDIN, France April 29, 2008 (WaPo) - On a continent where immigrants and the children of immigrants are disproportionately represented in almost every prison system, the French figures are the most marked, according to researchers, criminologists and Muslim leaders.

"The high percentage of Muslims in prisons is a direct consequence of the failure of the integration of minorities in France," said Moussa Khedimellah, a sociologist who has spent several years conducting research on Muslims in the French penal system.

... As a matter of policy, the French government does not collect data on race, religion or ethnicity on its citizens in any capacity, making it difficult to obtain precise figures on the makeup of prison populations. However, demographers, sociologists and Muslim leaders have compiled generally accepted estimates showing Muslim inmate populations nationwide averaging between 60 and 70 percent.

French governments perpetuate this phony concept of a Republican France without social demography. They go on to argue that a Republic without social distinctions is without social discrimination. There is no evidence of discrimination -- no statistics, no numbers, no charted trends -- because by law such evidence cannot be collected. [Pause.] That is a neat French trick. No one but Republicans warehoused in the banlieues. No one but Republicans in French prisons. No anti-Semitism, just Republicans attacking Republicans.

The prison system has only 100 Muslim clerics for the country's 200 prisons, compared with about 480 Catholic, 250 Protestant and 50 Jewish chaplains, even though Muslim inmates vastly outnumber prisoners of all other religions. "It is true that we haven't attained full equality among religions in prisons yet," said national prison official Sautière. "It is a matter of time."

... Prison officials say it is too expensive to provide halal meals. "We'd like to buy fresh meat, but we can't," said [Aurélie Leclerq, 33, director of the Lille-Sequedin Detention Center], whose prison office is decorated with plush bears.

Muslim inmates said they sense other religious snubs. Christians are allowed packages containing gifts and special treats from their families at Christmas, but Muslims do not receive the same privilege for the Ramadan holy days. "We're careful not to call them Christmas packages because Muslims would ask for Ramadan packages," Leclerq said. "We call them end-of-the-year packages. We can't use a religious term or some people get tense."

That is what the French call nuance.

Prison officials rejected requests by The Washington Post to visit some of the system's older, more troubled prisons. [WaPo was only allowed a walk-through France's newest prison, "the sprawling, three-year-old Lille-Sequedin center".]

Other Pave posts on French prisons here and here and here.

PFFT (What is this?): Republican prison population turns to Mecca 4 | Rayonnement français 0

Pave: Obamania In France

Le jour 348 de Sarko

Le Monde reports France is ready to elect a black president. [Pause.] But not for France.

EN FRANCE, LE CANDIDAT OBAMA FAIT BATTRE TOUS LES COEURS
[CANDIDATE OBAMA, FRENCH HEART THROB]

26 avril 2008 (Le Monde) - Si les Français votaient pour l'élection présidentielle américaine, Barack Obama l'emporterait haut la main. Un très distingué Comité français de soutien à Barack Obama rassemble des personnalités telles que Pierre Bergé, Yamina Benguigui ou Olivier Duhamel, mais aussi des députés de droite comme Axel Poniatowski. Le charismatique Obama fait rêver les Noirs comme les Blancs.

[If the French voted in the U.S. presidential election, Barack Obama would win with flying colors. A very distinguished French Committee supporting Barack Obama brings together personalities such as Pierre Bergé [industrialist, socialist, 2007 Ségolène Royal booster], Yamina Benguigui [film maker/documentarian, socialist, member of the Conseil de Paris] as well as Olivier Duhamel [jurist, French constitutional scholar, professor, politician, editor, socialist], but also members of the right such as Axel Poniatowski [mayor of Isle-Adam, député for the 2e circonscription of Val-d'Oise, a L'UMP]. The charismatic Obama is a dream come true for blacks as well as whites.]

[Hat tip: ¡No Pasarán!]

What is so patently phoney about the Le Monde lede is were Barack Obama running for president in France, well, he wouldn't be running -- much less harvesting a majority of French votes.

The sizeable minorities of Maghrébins and sub-Saharan Africans in Metropolitan France have zero elected political representation at the municipal, regional, and national levels. Yet Le Monde would have us believe the French are ready to vote for Mr. Obama. [Pause.] Yes. As long as he stays in America.

See our earlier post here on the likelihood of Obamania in France.

It is shameful for France. I am ashamed every time I go to Britain or the US. When I tell people that such a huge minority [of French Maghrébins and sub-Saharan Africans] has no political representatives they are dumbstruck. And France is a country that presumes to give lessons to the world!

Zair Kedadouche,
former footballer, former advisor to the Jack Pack,
and author, decrying an electoral system
that shuts out French minorities
June 6, 2002 (BBC)

Remember until eight or nine months ago, we had an all-white government. France is in no way an example.

Christine Ockrent,
journalist, broadcaster, executive director of France Monde,
and author of La Double Vie de Hillary Clinton,
describing France's qualifications for lessons on race relations
PARIS February 26, 2008 (IHT/Bloomberg)

Here is a theory. Racism is endemic in France (and here and here and here and here). Anti-Americanism is endemic in France (and here and here and here and here). The French vote for a black American president indulges both prejudices. In the eyes of French bigots a black president would diminish America in way that France will never be diminshed, and French nativist contempt for French minorities could be fastened onto the more general French contempt for America. [Pause.] Let's see what the franchouilles do with that.

PFFT (What is this?): Mr. Obama clinches the French vote 5 (chez l'Amérique)/ 0 (chez la France) | Rayonnement français 0

Pave: Quote Of The Day: La France était un peu endormie

Le jour 346 de Sarko

Depuis 25 ans, la France était un peu endormie. Le monde change. Le monde a changé. La France ne s’est pas adaptée au même rythme que les autres.

[For the past 25 years France has been asleep. The world changes. The world changed. France did not adapt at the same pace as others.]

Sarko,
Président de la République,
de son intervention télévisée
PARIS 24 avril 2008 (Figaro)

[Pause.] Yes. Nailed that.

PFFT (What is this?): Hard truth for sleepyhead France 4½ | Rayonnement français 2½

Pave: Bring Back The Royals!

Le jour 346 de Sarko

Among the great missions of the Louvre is the development of the museum’s collections, with a particular focus on works of art and precious objects belonging to members of the former French Royal family. The crown jewels are important among the nation’s treasures and we are thrilled to see the brooch of Empress Eugénie returning to France.

Henri Loyrette,
président directeur général, Musée du Louvre,
thrilled by the repatriation of royal swag
(infra)

BLING-BLING REPUBLIC
The Republic's Tax Dollars At Work

RARE FRENCH JEWEL RETURNS HOME

April 23, 2008 (JCK) - The Louvre was able to negotiate the return of a 141-ct. diamond brooch, part of the French crown jewels, 121 years after it was sold at auction from the same museum.

The brooch was reportedly purchased for approximately $10.8 million. It was recently estimated by Christie’s to be worth $6 million to $8 million.

... The brooch was created by François Kramer for the wife of Napoléon III, Empress Eugénie [Spanish countess, Eugénie de Montijo—Doña María Eugénia de Guzmán Portocarrero, Countess of Tèba] (1826-1920). On May 12, 1887, the French Crown Jewels were sold at public auction by order of the Third Republic, in the Salle des Etats of the Louvre. The buyer, for $135,000, was the jeweler Emile Schlesinger acting for Caroline Astor of New York.

After one hundred twenty-one years and two or three Republics, Republican France gives up the grudge.

PFFT (What is this?): Republican collectibles ½ | Royal swag 4 | Rayonnement français 0

Pave: France, No.1 Destination For Convicted Politicos

Le jour 345 de Sarko

On the lam? Can't beat the rap? [Fanfare.*] France awaits!

CROOKED EX-OFFICIAL IS GRANTED
POLITICAL ASYLUM IN FRANCE
April 24, 2008 (DFP)

FRANCE GRANTS POLITICAL ASYLUM
TO GEORGIA'S FORMER DEFENSE MINISTER

TBILISI, Georgia April 23, 2008 (IHT/AP) - Georgia's former defense minister, who was convicted last month of extortion in his home country, has been granted political asylum in France, his lawyer said Wednesday.

... The Tbilisi City Court in March sentenced [Irakli] Okruashvili to 11 years in prison for allegedly blackmailing a local businessman. Okruashvili was arrested in Germany in December at the request of Georgia, which accused him of abuse of power. He was freed on bail and fled to France, after he claimed he would be killed if extradited to Georgia.

Okruashvili threw Georgia into political turmoil in September when he accused [President Mikhail] Saakashvili of plotting to murder a prominent businessman [Badri Patarkatsishvili]. Okruashvili was then arrested, but freed on a multimillion-dollar ( -euro) bail after he retracted his allegations. After he left for Germany, a Georgian court ordered that he be returned to custody.

Mr. Okruashvili makes a damning assortment of indictments against the Saakashvili government:

Daily repressions, destructions of houses and churches, robbery of citizens, and murder -- and I want to underline murder -- have become routine practices of our government.

The accusations extend back to the time Mr. Okruashvili was an official in this same government, and he admits to his commission or support of the crimes at the time. Also, "[Okruashvili] went as far as to say he had received personal orders from the president to eliminate opponents, [but] has yet to offer evidence to back up his accusations."

Asked if any evidence were forthcoming , Mr. Okruashvili ducked the question:

Like I said, everything should happen in due time. I am now going to do positive things, instead of continuing the war of compromising evidence. However, if this is what the government wants, I will be ready.

Normally the "due time" for evidence is coextensive with the indictment.

Opposition leaders accuse Saakashvili of stealing** the Jan. 5 election in which he won re-election with 53 percent of the vote.

There is only one explanation for a lost election nowadays. The election was stolen -- even when the loser lacks the votes to prove it.

Since he was first elected in 2004, Saakashvili has helped transform Georgia into a country with a growing economy and aspirations of joining the European Union and NATO.

We mention in passing that Mr. Saakashvili is a good friend of the United States. [Pause.] Which is not to suggest this influenced France's disposition to his arch rival. After all Mr. Okruashvili is a convicted felon, that alone earns him a warm bienvenue en France.

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* Hat tip to Iain Patterson's shrine site, marseillaise.org, for the music.

PFFT (What is this?): Crookland 2½ | Rayonnement français 0

Pave: More Frenchness, SVP: Anglovision Redux

Le jour 342 de Sarko

When one has the honour of being selected to represent France, one sings in French.

Alain Joyandet,
secrétaire d'État chargé de la Coopération
et de la Francophonie
(official government language bully),
detailing one of the hardships associated with French honors
(infra)

I just want to please people.

Sébastien Tellier,
French singer, songwriter, and Anglo-controversialist,
expounding on his philosophy of the cave
(infra)

France, French honor -- saved by the cave. See our earlier post for background.

TELLIER SURRENDERS TO FRENCH EUROVISION DEMANDS

April 18, 2008 (Guardian) - French minister Alain Joyandet, a member of the council of ministers, the equivalent of Britain's cabinet, is amongst those who have condemned the track [scil., "Divine", M. Tellier's Eurovision entry] - which includes only two lines in French.

... Now Tellier, in true French fashion, appears to have surrendered. "If it makes everyone happy, of course I'll make an effort," he finally announced yesterday.

... But while he is capitulating to the public's demands, Tellier doesn't seem too happy with the situation:

If I had been asked to do a song expressly for Eurovision, I clearly would have done something in French. I'm not dense.

[Hat tip: U*2 at ¡No Pasarán!]

As ¡No Pasarán! comments:

French politicos have not advanced an iota with regards to proposed reforms but they find the time for this stuff.

Ah, ¡NP!, this is just the sort of thing that actually moves the duffs of the French state.

PFFT (What is this?): Singing for France 2½ | Important business of state 0 | Rayonnement français 0

Pave: Plenty Of Hate In France, V

Le jour 342 de Sarko

Is every garbage can fire in France an "odious act"? The Interior Minister suspects so.

OVERNIGHT ARSON SLIGHTLY DAMAGES
MOSQUE IN SOUTHERN FRANCE

TOULOUSE April 20, 2008 (IHT/AP) - Firefighting officials say a mosque in southern France was slightly damaged in an overnight arson attack.

Fire and rescue officials in the Haute-Garonne region say the fire broke out early Sunday morning after a garbage can was set alight inside the [mosque located in the Toulouse suburb of Colomiers].

... Officials say a dozen firefighters quickly put out the blaze, which slightly damaged a small room in the building.

No one has claimed responsibility for the fire.

Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie* called the blaze an "odious act" and pledged to identify and apprehend those responsible.

The fire officials are saying this is arson, so it is probably so as the professionals are the ones to know. But we can think of several less sinister scenarios that can account for a small blaze without any telltale hate signatures (and here and here and here) and that failed to produce the sort of damage behind malicious arson (and this and this and this) or extortionate arson.

But when these things happen in France, French professionals -- as well as the French government -- are ready to think the worst.

Why is that?

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* A former dimmest bulb in the dark Chirac marquee™ and the on-call party vagina for the L'UMPs.

PFFT (What is this?): High probability of the worst 4½ | Rayonnement français 0

Pave: "La justice prompte, sévère, inflexible"

Le jour 341 de Sarko

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!--Oh! times,
In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
The attraction of a country in romance!

William Wordsworth (1770-1850),
once poet laureate of England and
enthusiast of the French Revolution,
The Friend (1805), 4-8.

The French Revolution is oft celebrated as the first big noise of modernity. [Pause.] In many respects this is -- sadly -- true. Pave correspondent Hervé sent us the below "First Republics" counterpoint quotations, which got us thinking about the French Revolution.

[Hat tip: Hervé]

America has made do with its one Republic, its one establishing constitution.

France has been tinkering with her Republic from the get-go -- there have been five Republics, interpolated with two empires, various communes, syndicalism, and a tributary autocracy (that Vichy thing).

All of the above sanctioned in law by a dozen plus constitutions. Here, from our comments of January 17, 2004:

The French have had between 12-15 constitutions, depending on how you sort them out, since the 1789 proclamation of the Constituent Assemblée constituante (1791 [the First Republic was proclaimed in 1792], 1793, 1795, 1799, 1802 [La Constitution du 16 Thermidor An X, proclaiming Napoléon Bonaparte Premier consul à vie], 1804 [Senatus-Consulte Organique du 28 Floreal An XII, establishing the emperor], 1848 [establishing the Second Republic], 1852 establishing the Second Empire], 1875 [formalizing the Third Republic], 1945 [establishing a French provisional government], 1946 [establishing the Fourth Republic], and 1958 [establishing the Fifth Republic]).

In addition there have been two constitutional charters (1814, 1830) and sandwiched between them a constitutional act regularizing imperial rule (1815).

The Vichy government was legally established under the Third Republic's governing constitution by Constitutional Act No.2 of 07.11.40, Article II of which effectively junked the establishing document. The Vichy government was then regularized by Constitutional Act No.7 0f 01.27.41.

The French constitution then is not so much a document of establishing and perduring national principles of government as a catch-up codification of the contemporary politics in play.

The George Washington quote is from his letter to the Annual Meeting of Quakers, 1789, affirming freedom of religion, some 13 years before Thomas Jefferson famously affirmed the separation of church and state, and 126 years before the French state extended the same courtesy in law to its citizens. By way of contrast, three years after freedom of religion was enshrined in the United States Constitution, Robespierre invented a state religion for Republican France (le culte à l'Être Suprême) and presided over its first (and only) national celebration (la fête de l'Être suprême, June 8, 1794).

The Robespierre quote is from an address to the National Convention on February 5, 1794, and continues:

It is said that terror is the strength of despotic government. Does ours then resemble the one with which the satellites of tyranny are armed? Let the despot govern his brutalized subjects through terror; he is right as a despot. Subdue the enemies of liberty through terror and you will be right as founders of the Republic. The government of revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny.

To read this rationalization is astonishing. Terror is not some unfortunate and passing accident of government. It is the rightful and ongoing business of a vigilant government. Astonishing, but Robespierre's thinking is deeply stained into the psyche of modern statism, where the abstracted state reaffirms itself by means of forever vanquishing an opposition, real, imagined, or invented.

There is no pretending what Robespierre was about. John Kekes picks up our story at City Journal:

Leading the betrayal of the Revolution’s initial ideals and its transformation into a murderous ideological tyranny was Maximilien Robespierre, a monster who set up a system expressly aimed at killing thousands of innocents. He knew exactly what he was doing, meant to do it, and believed he was right to do it. He is the prototype of a particularly odious kind of evildoer: the ideologue who believes that reason and morality are on the side of his butcheries. Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot are of the same mold. They are the characteristic scourges of humanity in modern times, but Robespierre has a good claim to being the first.

Robespierre:

There are only two parties in France: the people and its enemies. We must exterminate those miserable villains who are eternally conspiring against the rights of man.

The vaunted Déclaration des droits de l'Homme et du citoyen proved to be no protection for the people's party against the twitchy justice of a state eternally beset by eternal enemies. For Robespierre the Declaration was not a bill of inviolable rights, it was a supererogatory dispensation of the state, dispensable at the convenience of the law, which was, of course, whatever Robespierre thought it was on any particular day, at any particular waking moment.

The inconsistency between the Declaration, providing the basis of the constitutional guarantee of equal rights for all citizens, and the actual policies that Robespierre dictated and that his followers enforced, was so blatant as to require an explanation. This Robespierre provided in a speech in December 1793.

Under a constitutional regime little is needed but to protect the individual citizen against abuse of power by the government; but under a revolutionary regime the government has to defend itself against all the factions which attack it; and in this fight for life only good citizens deserve public protection, and the punishment of the people’s enemies is death. [The revolutionary regime] must be as terrible to the wicked as it is favorable to the good.

There was, therefore, no inconsistency between the Declaration and the Terror. Robespierre:

The Declaration of Rights offers no safeguard to conspirators who have tried to destroy it.

The Declaration guided the constitutional regime whose establishment was the ultimate aim. The Terror was merely the means to it, forced on the revolutionary regime by enemies who prevented the realization of the constitutional regime.

This piece of sophistry was then new, but to those who look back on the twentieth century it is depressingly familiar from the use that many murderous regimes have made of it.

Robespierrian terror is terror without flinches, without tears. Olympian in its remove, necessary beyond the claims of justice. [Pause.] Beyond the very citizenry it is said to serve. Beyond the beyond. Unquestionable, unchallengeable, the ready excuse of the enterprising thug-turned-politico.

Every would-be plunderer or ambitious bandit now called himself a "a liberator"; murderers killed for freedom, thieves stole for the people.

Paul Johnson,
journalist, historian, speechwriter, author,
and Medal of Freedom recipient, remarking on
the enduring outcomes of the Robespierrian Republic
Modern Times
(New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2001 rev. ed.)

ROBESPIERRE, UNE STATION DU MÉTRO DE PARIS
Murderous Bossling Honored To This Day In France,
Emulated By Murderous Bosslings Everywhere
[Picture credit: Damien Boilley]

Domestic carnage now filled the whole year
With feast-days; old men from the chimney-nook,
The maiden from the bosom of her love,
The mother from the cradle of her babe,
The warrior from the field--all perished, all--
Friends, enemies, of all parties, ages, ranks,
Head after head, and never heads enough
For those that bade them fall.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850),
his reformed opinion of the French Revolution
The Prelude; Book The Tenth; Residence In France
(1799-1805), 356-363.

PFFT (What is this?): French terror without tears 5 | Rayonnement français 0

Pave: More Frenchness, SVP: Anglovision

Le jour 337 de Sarko

Many of our citizens will not understand why France has chosen not to uphold its language before millions of television viewers around the world.

François-Michel Gonnot,
député pour la 6ème circonscription de l'Oise,
commenting on the English lyric French entry
in this year's Eurovision contest
(infra)

I do think it is a shame that it isn't a French song.

Christine Albanel,
ministre de la Culture et de la Communication,
lamenting the lack of listenable French lyrics
(infra)

FRENCH MP ANGERED BY
SEBASTIEN TELLIER'S EUROVISION ENTRY

April 16, 2008 (EnjoyFrance.com) - French MP Jacques Myard [député de la 5ème circonscription des Yvelines] of the UMP party is furious that the song chosen to represent France in the Eurovision song contest has English words in it. Jacques Myard has called on the company that runs most of France's TV networks to change its mind about accepting the song by Sebastien Tellier.

... Jacques Myard claimed it was not right that, in a European contest, that his country should be using part of the culture of another of its rivals.

Yes, well, since technologies indispensible to the competition -- for examples, the microphone and broadcast television -- are not culturally original with France, it must vex M. Myard that France participates at all.

Hhmmm, wait a minute...Jacques Myard, Jacques Myard... Oh, oh, that Jacques Myard!

FRENCH SINGER STIRS STORM

April 17, 2008 (NYT) - A French singer who plans to sing in English at the Eurovision Song Contest next month in Belgrade, Serbia, has outraged many of his countrymen, Agence France-Presse reported. The singer, Sebastien Tellier, 33, intends to perform "Divine"* with almost exclusively English lyrics, becoming the first French competitor to do so since the contest began in 1956. ... Stéphane Elfassi, Mr. Tellier’s producer:

Out of the 40 countries participating at least 25 will present a song in English.

FRENCH ANGLOVISION
A Nod To French Culture,
M. Tellier Performs In His Underpants

------------------------------------
* A track from the English titled album, Sexuality.

PFFT (What is this?): Dem Anglo-Saxon blues 2½ | Rayonnement français 0

Pave: The Chore of Amour Redux

Le jour 335 de Sarko

The French ask for help for everything!

JS,
French Pave correspondent,
private correspondence
Today

The little French gentleman does not appear up for the job.

FRENCH ASK BRITISH FOR HELP IN BED

PARIS April 13, 2008 (Times Online) - to put a bit of oomph back into their love lives, the French are turning national stereotypes on their head by seeking help from, of all people, les rosbifs.

In a curious reversal of roles, the new craze in France for chic designer boutiques offering tips to couples on how to spice up their sex life is being fuelled by erotic products from over the Channel.

... As an industry once dominated by pornographers becomes gentrified, warm and friendly love stores have been popping up in some of the most fashionable corners of Paris.

... [Anna Ciulla at Les Nuits Blanches] sells many products from Britain. "What Britain has that you don’t find here so much is a good sense of humour," she explained, holding up a British nurse’s uniform. "A sense of humour in bed is really important."

We will forbear the obvious punch line begging to inform why the French are so in need of a sense of humor in bed. [Pause.] Well, here is a clue.

DEFLATED
La dernière frontière de l'ennui

"This is not just for pleasure," [Patrick Pruvot, owner of Passage du Désir] added, brandishing one of the pink vibrators scattered over his desk. "It could help to salvage a marriage."

When love and commitment fail, a pink dildo will fill the breach. The loveless French require so little: two "D" batteries and eight inches of lively latex.

Pruvot, a 40-year-old former advertising executive, is one of a new breed of erotic entrepreneurs catering to what recent surveys have shown is a growing number of French couples complaining of boredom in bed.

Most of the toys he sells are designed in Britain but made in China. The gadget that amuses customers most, however, comes not from Britain but from Holland. It is a remote-controlled vibrator, usually "worn" by the woman and controlled by the man. It has a range of eight metres.

"It’s a great way of livening up a dull cocktail party or a dreary lunch with your wife and your mother-in-law," Pruvot said.

[Hat tip: Hervé]

And here we were thinking that bright intelligent conversation enlivened such occasions. [Pause.] But then here we were thinking the French brimming with intelligent conversation. [Pause.] Yes, well, joke's on us.

PFFT (What is this?): New low in French declinology 4½ | Très drôle 2 | Rayonnement français 0

Pave: More Regulation (For Everyone Else), SVP

Le jour 335 de Sarko

I think Brussels has started to understand.

Jacques Attali,
author of La nouvelle économie française (1978)
and 300 décisions pour changer la France (2008), et al.,
former "conseiller spécial" to François Mitterrand, président,
cryptically remarking on the Commission's grasp
of French thinking
(infra)

FRENCH GROWTH ADVISOR ATTALI CALLS FOR
TIGHTER EUROPEAN CONTROLS FOR BANKS

PARIS April 14, 2008 (Forbes/Thomson Financial) - Jacques Attali, leader of a working group set up by French president Nicolas Sarkozy to propose ways to boost economic growth in France, has called for tighter controls at a European level for banks, in an interview with La Tribune.

Attali said the European commission had welcomed the working group's report.

The French recommending greater fiscal impositions by the Commission is, of course, a burden for others, not for France. France is a good citizen member state when good citizenship advantages France -- otherwise get stuffed (and this and this and this and this, to link but five).

PFFT (What is this?): More regulation for EU sucker states 4 | Get stuffed 5 (projection) | Rayonnement français 0

Pave: Merci, la France

Le jour 332 de Sarko

Pan·gae·a n. -- A hypothetical supercontinent comprising all the landmasses of the earth before the Triassic Period. Continental drift broke up Pangaea into Laurasia and Gondwanaland, both of which subsequently broke up into today's continents.

May 10th is Pangea Day, a day its organizers hope "the world comes together through film". [Pause.] Well, probably not. But it has produced films with unusual pairings of one country's citizens singing the anthem of another country.

We were a bit surprised to find France singing The Star Spangled Banner. In English. And moved by the sincere effort through all four verses, through its octave and a half. All the more affecting because, as in America, it is sung best when sung by the non-professional, who makes up in heart what he or she lacks in range or skill. Or so we believe.

LA BANNIÈRE ÉTOILÉE
View Video Here

[Hat tip: Hervé]

Pave extends its thanks to all the participants, to everyone who made a contribution: Tristan Abgral, Bana Abouricheh, Bruno Allouche, Carmen Atias, Christine Bacnus, Gilles Barbault, Antoine Bonneau, Caroline Breton, Laurent Briet, Stephanie Bruni, Amandine Brunschwig, Laure Carrale, Florian Couveinhes, Bruno Droux, Violaine Etienne, Mariano Favetto, Caroline Ganne, Valentine Gomes-Ferenczi, Sylvie Guittard, Florence Jego, Marie Mélodie Herbet, Stephanie Hue, Vincent Hurtel, Anne Lasnier, Anne Solenn Le Bihan, Johannes Leonardo, Jean Louis Machine, Ian Madison, Flavio Manriquez, Olivier Mignot, Romain Montfort, Ghislaine Peltier, Karine Petite, Pascal Pique, Olivier Pracht, Valerie Renaudat, Jacques Rognant, Karine Schmidt, Sophie Sienne, Michele Troise, and Antoine Vallette.

Thank you, France.

It's good to remember there are still good things from France.

PFFT (What is this?): A good thing from France 5 | Thank you, France 5 | Rayonnement français 5

Pave: Hyped Economy VII

Le jour 332 de Sarko

It's not good news, but it's not a catastrophe.

Éric Woerth,
ministre du Budget, des Comptes publics
et de la Fonction publique and master of meiosis,
explaining why today's disaster is better
than tomorrow's catastrophe
(infra)

Forget 2008. That's busted. Time to switch to 2009 happy talk.

FRANCE'S LAGARDE SEES FRENCH GDP GROWTH
BETWEEN 1.75 PCT AND 2.25 PCT IN 2009

PARIS April 10, 2008 (Forbes/Thomson Financial) - French economic growth next year is expected to be between 1.75 percent and 2.25 percent, finance minister Christine Lagarde said Wednesday at a hearing of the National Assembly's finance commission.

That rather misses the mark.

FRANCE'S SARKOZY COMMITS TO
2.5-3 PCT GROWTH TARGET FOR 2009

PARIS September 21, 2007 (Forbes/AFX/Thomson Financial) - Nicolas Sarkozy last night set a growth target of 2.5-3 pct for 2009 in a bid to 'achieve full employment'. Sarko:

As regards growth: for 2007, it has nothing to do with me; for 2008, we'll try and boost it and for 2009, that will be mine. We need to see growth of between 2.5 and 3 pct to achieve full employment. I've committed to these targets.

And the growth shortfall is sure to be worse than Mdm. Lagarde's forecast as the government consistently misses the high-cast.

• For 2003, forecast growth 2.5%, actual growth .5%, off by 80%

• For 2004, forecast growth 2.5%, actual growth 2.1%, off by 12%.

• For 2005, forecast growth 2.5%, actual growth 1.4%, off by 44%.

• For 2006 forecast growth 2.75%, actual growth 2%, off by 27%.

• For 2007, forecast growth 2.5%, actual growth 1.9%, off by 24%.

The minister reiterated the government's new economic growth target for this year of between 1.7 percent and 2.0 percent. Originally the government planned for growth of 2.25 percent.

The government may unrealistically plan for 2.25% growth (a working number it had until recently affirmed and re-affirmed), but it fraudulently talks it up as 3%.

This is a neat French trick. Here is another.

PFFT (What is this?): Is the French government lying about growth? 3½ | Rayonnement français 0