Frank Moulet's load of crap

Back in 1996, Parisians developed a strange habit in the subway. After the deadly terrorist attacks of 1995, people used to check there was nothing under their seat. Who could have blamed them? Who would have dared to say they were paranoid making sure they weren’t about to become the victims of another terrorist attack?

In 2001, several people in France took advantage of the anthrax crisis in the U.S. to send envelopes with white powder in them (generally sugar or flour) as a joke or as revenge.

Of course, most of the time, authorities were mobilized unnecessarily. Following those false alerts, some post offices went on strike to protest the risk of handling potentially-infected letters.

Then French Health Minister Bernard Kouchner indicated that they expected such hoaxes that he termed "acts of imbecility" as much as "incivility".

What is the law in France regarding such acts? According to the French penal code (article 322-14):

The communication or revelation of any false information with a view to inducing a belief that any destruction, defacement or damage dangerous to other persons will be or has been committed is punished by two years’ imprisonment and a fine of € 30,000.
The same penalties apply to the communication or disclosure of false information creating the belief that an incident has occurred and which is liable to cause the needless intervention of the rescue services.

But "creating the belief that an accident has occurred" in an American airliner is just a "bad joke" for some French journalists. Le Monde’s columnist Eric Fottorino, in a column in which he describes Kerry’s French cousin, Brice Lalonde, as an opportunist has-been politician, even dreams of the possibility that such jokes could be allowed:

Let’s assume that Kerry throws Bush. Thanks to Brice, we’ll be able to make false bomb alerts in America without risking going to jail?

Easy, Eric. First, Kerry will have to, in fact, "throw" Bush and this is not done yet, thank God!
Then, I’m not sure Kerry would appreciate French people having fun at his fellow citizens’ expense. And after all, may I remind you that, apparently, Kerry doesn’t even want America to know about Lalonde. So dream on, Eric!

And of course, we have Frank Moulet and his French lawyer who think such comments shouldn’t be prosecuted and punished at all.

"If efficiency means that he will have to get down on his knees, that he will acknowledge something that he didn't do to get back his dignity, then well, he'll get it back" said [Moulet’s] French lawyer, Olivier Morice. "And when he is back in his country, he will say what he thinks about these methods, methods of another time".

What about Moulet’s "dignity"? Is acknowledging an act, that you pretend not to have committed, in order to be freed the way to dignity?
We have been flooded with articles about Moulet in the French media (here, here, here, here and here) and we also now have to suffer seeing him on TV. A couple of days ago, he was the guest of a well-known TV program that titled his story "20 days in hell" and in which he joked about the 7 minutes it took him to poo in the AA plane’s bathroom, the very reason why a stewardess became suspicious. He talked about it as his "work" (Just don’t ask. French finesse) and admitted to saying "my shit don’t explose" after claiming that he couldn’t speak or understand English.
Did you get back your dignity Frank? Not just yet.

In the press, we can read about the "dreadful conditions" in which Moulet was kept, how "scandalous" it is, how Moulet "suffered a lot" in prison (there’s an entire Le Monde article about Moulet’s Rykers Island nightmare), how he slept only "ten hours in twenty days", how he couldn't help crying.
May I come to the conclusion that Frank Moulet, appropriately, after the on-board flash of wit – ahem - he is so proud of, was shit-scared?

And of course, there’s all the whining. Dignity, huh?

Frank Moulet (who could have played the leading role in the intellectual French movie ‘RRRrrrr’) has thanked his French support committee and his French lawyer (no word for his American lawyer appointed by the court, thank you very much), joked upon arriving in France ("What is the shortest way between holidays and jail? American Airlines") right after being "very aggressive" with the French policemen who came to help him. And he gave his support to French terrorists jailed in Guantanamo:

I’m thinking about the French [held] in Guantanamo that are suspected of terrorism and we don’t even know if they are alive…

Still looking for the dignity in all that.

Best of all, Frank "RRRrrrr" Moulet gives us the reason for the bad treatment he had to suffer in the US: anti-French feelings.

What is anti-French, Moulet, is to ridicule and shame an entire people by irresponsibly making silly comments aboard an airliner whose company was the target of a deadly terrorist attack 2 years and 4 months earlier.
What is anti-French is to stupidly insist the Consulate and the Foreign Affairs Ministry didn’t want to recognize that the consequence of your stupidity was simply some anti-French feeling, despite the fact that, visibly, the Consulate and the Foreign Affairs Ministry did everything they could to help, including lending the money for the fine.

And now Mr. Frank "RRRrrrr" Moulet is thinking about suing American authorities. He begged people, on TV, to help him pay his ticket back home (dignity, remember?) but he wants to sue American authorities?

Your stupidity is doing harm to the French who travel and to France in general. For this, the French should be the ones suing you.

Moron.