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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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 Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 1:14 am Post subject: France: a 3-month "grand debate" - on Frenchness |
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France launches a three-month "grand debate" on what it means to be French.
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It has been billed as a quest for the soul of the Gallic nation: a voyage of discovery, with Nicolas Sarkozy at the helm, to discover the je ne sais quoi that makes French people French.
But, as the government today launched a three-month "grand debate" on what unites the country, it was accused of exploiting social divisions for cynical political gain.
Proclaiming the need to redefine the values of France in the 21st century, �ric Besson, minister for immigration and national identity, unveiled a participative project that he said would allow French people to decide what their "collective future" should be.
Tackling subjects ranging from a ban on the burka to the singing of La Marseillaise in schools, the debate is to be held via a series of public meetings involving local politicians, union leaders, teachers and other pillars of the French republic. A website set up to host discussions on the subject had already received 3,000 contributions by early this afternoon.
When asked what they thought of the debate, 60% of respondents to a CSA poll for Le Parisien newspaper this week said they thought it was a good idea. It has been welcomed by many in Sarkozy's traditional fan base, who see in it a return to the conservative agenda they supported in the 2007 presidential campaign. Fr�d�ric Lefebvre, spokesman for Sarkozy's right-wing UMP party, identified the need to fight for the values of "la douce France" ("sweet France") in a world in which "globalisation, which every day erases a little more of the characteristics of each nation, is so unrelenting".
Max Gallo, a leading French historian, rejoiced in the discussion, setting out his "10 cardinal points" of the national character, which ranged from gender equality to la�cit�, France's particular brand of secularism.
But others claimed this romantic veneer did nothing to disguise sinister nationalistic undertones. Rather than making concrete attempts to help smooth France's fraught process of integration, particularly of the country's 6 million Muslims, the government was indulging in tub-thumping patriotic rhetoric, they said. The Communist party went as far as comparing Sarkozy with the head of the Vichy state, saying the project marked "the most nauseating kind of P�tainism".
For many the nub of the problem is the lumping together of identity and immigration. The ministry of immigration and national identity, responsible for enforcing the government's drive to toughen up French borders and increase forced removals, has been the object of much criticism since Sarkozy created it in 2007.
"[The debate] is unbearable," said Patrick Weil, a political historian and author of a book on French identity. "If you want a ministry to discuss the issue of national identity, which is anyway absolutely absurd, you could give it to education or culture � but to put it under immigration is to say that the problem lies there."
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 3:10 am Post subject: |
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| Humphf. It sounds a bit too much like the Brits whining about the Welsh, the Irish and the Scots having a flag but the 'real' Brits can't have theirs. |
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youtuber
Joined: 13 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 3:02 pm Post subject: |
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It's a good idea for France to try and maintain its identity.
However, what many people think France should be, and what it is, are 2 very different things.
I think that's why so many people end up travelling to Paris, and are shocked, for example, to see so many Africans.
France elicits and tries to project an image that is over 40 years old, which is quite opposite of today's reality.
Oh well, no one likes the truth I guess. |
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eperdue4ad
Joined: 22 May 2006
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| Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2009 7:46 pm Post subject: |
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A debate, that's pretty darn French. One which goes on for three months, yeah, that sounds like the French to me  |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 7:02 am Post subject: |
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http://www.newsmax.com/timmerman/Sarkozy_radical_Islam/2009/11/13/285914.html
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French President Confronts Radical Islam Head-On
French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to start a dialogue with his countrymen about their national identity, a subject that would not have raised eyebrows 50 years ago but has engendered a fierce political debate today.
What's more, he demonstrated that he is willing to wage a head-on battle against the forces of political correctness.
Recalling the worst moments of the Nazi occupation during World War II, Sarkozy said the French discovered that they had a national soul only when they were about to lose it.
Sarkozy suggested that France could be on the verge of losing its soul because of a multiculturalism that tolerates radical Islamic fundamentalism.
Sarkozy warned that many of his fellow citizens have lost touch with the values that gave rise to the republic through a blind embrace of secular culture. No one should confuse the separation of church and state as the denial of religion or religiosity, Sarkozy insisted.
�There is not a single free thinker, Freemason, or atheist who doesn�t feel the tug of a Christian heritage that has left so many deep furrows in the French mind-set,� he said.
At the heart of the identity crisis plaguing today�s France is a significant immigrant population that refuses to become French, and a multicultural left that has allowed them to live isolated in ghettoes for decades, where many have fallen prey to Muslim preachers of hate.
About 10 percent of the French population is of Muslim origin. Most French Muslims emigrated from North Africa to France after Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia won their independence in the 1960s.
Although many have assimilated into French secular society, which Sarkozy applauded, others openly seek to transform France into a Muslim nation and have won allies in the multicultural left.
�France does not demand that you give up your history or your culture,� Sarkozy said. �But France demands of those who would link their fates to hers to also share her history and her culture. France is not hodgepodge of communities or individuals. . . Becoming French means accepting a form of civilization, values, and customs.�
Sarkozy�s definition of those values left no ambiguity from which direction he felt the danger was coming: �France is a country where women are free. France is a country where church is separate from state, and where the beliefs of each person are respected.
�But France is also a country where there is no room for the burka, and where there is no room for the subjugation of women under any circumstance or pretext.�
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ytuque
Joined: 29 Jan 2008
Location: I drink therefore I am!
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| Posted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 5:03 pm Post subject: |
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| One of the few western leaders standing up for western culture. |
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DWAEJIMORIGUKBAP
Joined: 28 May 2009
Location: Electron cloud
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| Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2009 9:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Humphf. It sounds a bit too much like the Brits whining about the Welsh, the Irish and the Scots having a flag but the 'real' Brits can't have theirs. |
Lol you are so thick. Welsh and Scots and N.Irish are Brits ya dunsky. |
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DWAEJIMORIGUKBAP
Joined: 28 May 2009
Location: Electron cloud
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| Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2009 9:45 pm Post subject: |
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France does not demand that you give up your history or your culture,� Sarkozy said. �But France demands of those who would link their fates to hers to also share her history and her culture. France is not hodgepodge of communities or individuals. . . Becoming French means accepting a form of civilization, values, and customs.�
Sarkozy�s definition of those values left no ambiguity from which direction he felt the danger was coming: �France is a country where women are free. France is a country where church is separate from state, and where the beliefs of each person are respected.
�But France is also a country where there is no room for the burka, and where there is no room for the subjugation of women under any circumstance or pretext.� |
I'm with him 100% and would feel so damned relieved and happy inside if Britain's polititians would follow a simmialr line.
So what they took 3 months for a conference - I bet the coffee, cheese and wine at lunch time were damned good. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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PIGFACESOUPWITHRICE
Joined: 17 Nov 2009
Location: Electron Cloud
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| Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 4:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Cheese and wine. Nicee one. |
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nautilus
Joined: 26 Nov 2005
Location: Je jump, Tu jump, oui jump!
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| Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 5:22 am Post subject: |
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Britain also has a large population of African immigrants.
The ones in Britain are integrating...because they mostly do not come from Islamic countries.
France was the colonial power in muslim-dominated North Africa...Britain was the colonial power in the south. Crucial difference.
50 years from now France will be a muslim nation and there will be no more debate. |
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