Category Archives: France

That’s not how it works.

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Those silly Hellenic types, for all this time they’ve been doing the democracy thing, (well except for when they were part of various occupations, empires or under the control of their own military dictatorships) and they’ve somehow formed the opinion that just because you’ve voted for something it means you stand a better than average chance of getting it.

Fools.

Now, I can’t comment on the integrity of Greek politicians, but I’m certainly not naive enough to think just because a particular candidate for PM gets in that s/he’s actually got the intention of delivering upon their promises, but I can’t blame the Greeks for chucking out the political parties that sold their nation’s sovereignty. The fact that they’ve decided to back a group that wants a return to the pre-crash days of money for nothing and your chick(pea based dip)s for free is neither here nor there, it’s their country and their decision to make.

Not everyone is of that opinion though:

Germany’s Angela Merkel has made clear that Greece’s reforms must go on.

Well how many people in Greece voted for Merkel? As mad as I think they are for wanting to carry on without paying the credit card bill, they would be just as mad to carry on with the status quo.

The arrogance of these people who think they have the right to dictate to a nation how they must conduct themselves is amazing. The Greek people have decided and that is an end to it. Who the hell do you think you are, Frau Merkel? Even if Europe needed a supreme overlord, I bloody doubt it would be you, you’ve your own election coming up, and seeing how leaders have been toppled all over Europe I don’t much fancy your chances of holding onto the big chair.

More to the point, she’s gone wading into French politics as well, Hollande has made it quite clear that France has had enough of all this austérité and will go back to pissing cash away like a sailor on shore leave.

Angela doesn’t approve.

Mrs Merkel said she would meet France’s next president next week “with open arms” but told a news conference that “we in Germany are of the opinion, and so am I personally, that the fiscal pact is not negotiable”.

Do as you’re told, Froggies. One of the most amusing things about the whole financial situation is that France thinks it is bigger than the markets, they are very, very wrong and they will find this out to their cost. Hollande’s plan to institute a French ratings agency is downright hilarious, the fact that he would actually expect the global markets to give it even the merest shred of attention is nigh on incontinence inducing.

People criticise France for looking out for themselves. I do not and never have, I applaud them for it. Their ignoring of rules, directives and diktats whilst remaining within the machinery of the EU is a policy of amazing footwork, I only wish we would do the same. I do not criticise their self-interest just because we don’t have the gumption to do the same. A degree of Gallic arrogance is something to be aspired to on occasion.

There is little doubt in my mind that the policies of Hollande will be the ruination of France, but once again like a family addicted to benefits, the French public just won’t accept the fact that there’s no money, it is almost like Chekov’s Cherry Orchard on a national scale, a grand old family fallen on hard times with no intention of, and no idea how to go about, rectifying the situation because they honestly believe something will magically turn up.

They are deluded in the extreme. But I’m delighted to see him win. Because they will hasten the demise of the Euro and the EU.

For ages Nigel Farage has been talking about how we’ve been shackled to a drowning man, I just wonder what will happen first? Will Germany come to the same conclusion and realisation that while they can trample all over Greece, their war guilt will never let them do the same to France, or will France storm off in a huff like a washed up old diva who hasn’t got her own way?

Things are about to get very interesting.

A Fail of Two Cities.

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(Once again apologies for the paucity of posting, have been exceptionally busy recently).

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I don’t like the BNP. I disagree with pretty much every single policy they have, barring one. I believe (and I stand to be corrected) that they espouse withdrawing from the EU. On that policy they and I have common ground.

The fact that I don’t like the BNP should not detract from the fact that neither do I like the Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dems or the Greens. It isn’t a question of degrees of disliking, it is a simple formula; if the number of policies a party has that I agree with is fewer than the number of policies a party has that I disagree with, then I do not like them. For some reason it seems to be OK for me to dislike the big three as long as I dislike the BNP more. Well I don’t, I hold them all in equal disdain.

It may have escaped your notice, but I doubt it, that we are not far from the London Mayoral election. From the coverage it is getting in the national press you’d think it was an election for Mayor of the British Isles, but no, it is just for one city. Indeed tomorrow sees the election for French President. This is geographically closer to me being just over forty miles from my front door, whereas London is fifty. The two are equally important to me, that is to say not at all, I don’t have a vote and neither of the victors will be passing legislation that effects me, so Londoners can elect Pierre the Pig Farmer from Perpignan if they like and Jean Frog can elect Ken Livingstone, I don’t care.

However, here is the difference between London and Paris. The French equivalent, in as much of being certain to battle for third place, of Brian Paddick is Marine Le Pen, the leader of the ‘far right’ Front National. I don’t know if she is from the far right, she certainly seems more moderate than her father, but she is for EU withdrawal, so she’ll be branded far right whatever. So scared is Sarkozy of shipping huge amounts of his support to the FN that he has done the unthinkable (in this country) and tried to encroach on their territory by making tough noises on immigration and so forth.

In the sort of earnest political debate programmes that France specialises in, Le Pen has been given equal billing, and an equitable amount of time has been spent in examining her policies. She’s got the right amount of nominations and is therefore as legitimate as any of the other candidates for the job.

Ninety miles north of Calais and it’s a very different story. You see the candidates are pulling out of a debate on BBC London because Carlos Cortiglia is taking part. Who he? Well the man with the least British name in history is the BNP candidate for London Mayor. He has fulfilled the same criteria as every other candidate, and yet for some reason the other candidates have decided that he must not be allowed the same exposure and scrutiny as the others.

Why?

Announcing his withdrawal, Mr Livingstone said: “The far right want to destroy our democracy and stand for the elimination of our basic rights. They cannot be treated as a legitimate part of politics.

Absolutely Ken, true to form there. How can we have democracy when people are allowed to stand as an equal in an election and exercise their right to free speech? Irony, much?

Despite being so wrong that I find it startling even for him, at least Ken qualifies his stance. The Greens can’t even manage that:

A Green Party spokesman also said Ms Jones “would not share a platform or a debate” with the BNP’s candidate Carlos Cortiglia.

That’s it. No discussion. I have decided it is so. The BNP will be frozen out of the process because I say it is the right thing to do.

Meanwhile the Tories and LimpDims have decided to pretend that they weren’t sure if they were going anyway. Perhaps they were washing their hair that night?

Mr Johnson’s campaign team, meanwhile, said they were offered a debate “with all four candidates” but had not yet confirmed because of an existing “time clash”.

The BNP’s involvement was “not discussed”, a spokeswoman for the Conservative mayor said, but added: “Boris would not share a stage with the BNP.”

Lib Dem Brian Paddick has withdrawn too, but a spokesman said it was not a result of the BNP’s participation.

What are they scared of? Racism isn’t contagious and surely the best way to discredit the BNP is to listen to what they have to say and then defeat their argument. It’s a novel concept, it’s called debate. Perhaps they’re concerned because old Carlos has paid his taxes, or hasn’t been shagging people behind his wife’s back, or didn’t instruct his officers not to arrest people for committing a crime when he was Dep. Asst. Commissioner for the Met?

I find it remarkable on a weekend when people are jumping up and down about the F1 race going ahead in Bahrain because TPTB don’t allow democratic process there, that a majority of people here seem to find a legitimate political party being excluded from the democratic process to be an acceptable way to carry on.

Be careful what you wish for, you may just get it.

Wow Nic, things that desperate?

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I’ve criticised both the current PM and the cretin that came before him for pretending that they can get a grip on immigration whilst remaining subject to EU freedom of movement rules. You simply can’t do it.

However, neither of them, not even Brown at his most unhinged would have done this:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said there are too many foreigners in France and the system for integrating them is “working more and more badly”.

In a TV debate, Mr Sarkozy defended his plan to cut the number of new arrivals in half if he is re-elected next month.

Wow. Really Nicolas? How do you intend going about that then?

He’s finished. Toast. Over. Put a fork in him, he’ done. There’s one thing the French aren’t and that is stupid, they are politically very savvy. They have a great deal more connection with the political process in France than we do. It is true to say that the same old commentators trot out the same old orthodox lines on TV, and have done for donkey’s years. France is almost homogeneous in its political dealings as far as I can make out, and that orthodoxy is lapped up by a sagely nodding public. Certainly the Front Nationale are a player, and despite the BBC’s (reasonably accurate) assessment of them being a far right party, Marine le Pen, daughter of Marie le Pen, has softened the stance of the party somewhat bringing them a deal closer to the centre, and Sarko has to be worried about losing votes to them.

But this really does smack of desperation from Sarkozy, and there’s not a hope in hell of the French public swallowing it. A good number of French would agree with the sentiment, otherwise Le Pen wouldn’t have the support she does, but all of them know that if Sarkozy intends to keep France in the EU, which he most certainly does, then he may as well be promising to give everyone a pet unicorn.

He is really, really desperate.

Is this what they were on about?

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At first I was incredulous, then I became annoyed, then I was insulted, then I started laughing. Now I’m quite sad.

You see when the Euro was announced and launched I was pro-EU. This isn’t a ground breaking revelation, I’m big enough to admit that I was taken in. Even today I can brook no argument against a free trade area with freedom of movement of goods and services. I’m even happy to have freedom of movement of people, although just not with the enormous number of countries there are now in the club, and with certain caveats regarding what happens if you so much as steal a mars bar from the newsagents.

Even though I was pro-EU at the time of the announcement, and what was effectively EU-neutral at the time of the launch of the Euro, I had severe misgivings about it all, I just couldn’t see how a country like Greece could co-exist with a country like Germany, there’s a pronounced difference between the north of England and the south of England with a (fairly) stable and respected national currency, across a whole and very diverse continent? I just couldn’t see how it would happen.

I’ve been insulted for my opinion on both the Euro and the EU, I don’t care, it’s all the Europhiles have left, screaming about rats and dogs like Gaddafi or some other soon to be deposed dictator. It’s water off a duck’s back to me. I take no pleasure from being proven right, none at all, because as much as this is going to hurt us, it will hurt millions more on the continental mainland, and they never asked for this either. It’s very easy to think that we are the only ones, the only faction in the only country that is unhappy with the EU, but we must remember all the others who have had not only the EU foisted upon them, but the Euro as well, they’ve been sold a pup of epic proportions. Thank God we’ve a degree of insulation against this.

The news this evening that S&P have downgraded France (and according to the Sky TV coverage all the other Eurozone countries with the exception of Germany, The Netherlands and possibly Finland) is no cause for celebration. Yes, it is another huge nail in the coffin of the Euro and possibly the EU, yes all bets in France are now off, yes it is going to make Sarkozy’s re-election almost impossible, and no doubt he’ll blame us while in the next breath demanding we ride to France’s rescue as long we don’t make it look like we’re riding to France’s rescue. It’s going to make for great TV as the great and the good see their dreams reduced to dust, but for Jose Schmose this is going to make life very, very uncomfortable.

The fact is that this situation should never have come to pass, and the machinery that has brought this situation about has to fail, it is the only way to escape, but the untangling of national sovereignty from EU machinery is going to take time and is going to be damn ugly.

We will all be better off without the EU and the Euro, eventually, but the few years after the breakdown will be bleak indeed. This bleakness is not cause to pull out all the stops to try and keep the beast alive, it is doomed to die, and the longer we prop it up, the longer and more bleak those bleak years will be when the inevitable happens. All empires fall.

And so it is of another empire that I find myself thinking. Much has been made, and no doubt will be made of the fact that this year marks the end of the Mayan long count. I’ve found the theories surrounding this fact to be quite entertaining, they range from zombie apocalypse or meteor strike bringing around the end of the Earth to the fact that the blokes doing the count just got pissed off with it and knocked it on the head.

Some theorise that the end of the count marks the emergence of a new era. I must admit that I lean heavily towards some Mayan bloke saying ‘look, the bloody Spanish will be here soon, and I’m gasping for a pint, shall we just call it a day?’, however there is something in the air, isn’t there?

Riots in the UK, with the participants not really having any idea why they’re rioting beyond just being a bit pissed off.

Regimes toppling in North Africa and the Mid-East.

The death of the ruler in North Korea with a relatively unknown quantity taking over.

A young and artificially bloated empire starting to crumble as quickly as it sprung up.

The emergence of Ron Paul in the Republican party who, although he is unlikely to win the nomination, will probably see a wider acceptance of his ideals in the party if their nominee is to have any credibility with the wider membership given the support he’s attracting from a very diverse support base.

There’s certainly something in the air, and 2012 looks like it is going to be a very, very interesting year.

And another thought occurs, since the spat where Cameron threatened to use a veto, but didn’t really, against a treaty that wasn’t a treaty really, but was, we’ve heard nothing but talk of ‘solidarity’, it’ll be interesting to see how far this solidarity stretches now that the markets have made the playing field even more uneven in the Eurozone. Germany is going to get leaned on big time by France, and as we know from De Gaulle with the liberation of Paris, if the Germans do come running, they’ll get no thanks for it. The whole show is going to end up in an enormous slanging match as France stamps it’s little foot like some diva, demanding sustenance and yet demanding everyone do as it says. Mark my words, it will be France that will be the end of the EU.

Really? Are you sure? Really?

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The French are really pissed off with us.

Really pissed off.

So pissed off they’ve really started to lose the plot. This is now being reduced to the level of playground insults. I am oddly proud, yet at the same time strangely frustrated that we’re not responding:

The chairman of the French central bank, Christian Noyer, has said ratings agencies should downgrade the UK before France because its economy is weaker.

Is it? Are you sure about that?

French debt: €1591bn or 86% of GDP. France is highly exposed to Italian debt, to the tune of $365 billion, and is owed large amounts from many other eurozone countries

UK debt: €1362bn or 80% of GDP.

Look, I’m not going pretend we’re in a good place, but hell, it could be worse, we could be France.

Madder than Folle Pierre Le Folle, winner of France’s maddest man competition, grasping desperately at straws.

Punish debt with more debt.

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This whole Sarkozy and Merkel thing gets ever more sinister. Mary Ellen Synon gives a pretty bloody good overview of the mechanics, sleight of hand and general anti-democratic way of things.

I also find it laughable that Delors sees fit to lambast the implementation of a system that he was heavily involved in setting up. It’s not his fault, natch, it’s all the fault of the national finance ministers, it was they who strongarmed Greece et al into signing up, even though there was not a hope of them meeting even the laxest conditions. In fact, bugger Greece, Italy would never have met them, either. Come on, Jacques, do you really expect us to believe that if you’d been given carte-blanche that you’d have excluded one of the EU’s ‘big four’ on economic grounds? I think it’s the first time I’ve ever heard the excuse that a little boy did it and ran away.

Really? You seriously want us to believe that the national finance ministers were falling over themselves to jump into the euro, and that if you’d been in charge things would have been more circumspect? You’re fooling no-one mate.

Memo to national politicians: Look at the evidence, you’ll be left to do what you want, as long as what you want to do is what the Commissars want you to do. Even when you’ve done what they want you to do, if it goes wrong you’ll be held up as the blame figure, and if you don’t do what the Commissars want, you’ll be removed from power. Either way, elected or technocrat, you’ll get the heave ho from them eventually because they are spiteful and arrogant, and because they’re dumber than a bag of hair and will make more catastrophic mistakes than a photosensitive epileptic surgeon operating in a theatre lit by strobe light.

Anyhow, back to ‘Merkozy’ as we’re supposedly calling them now. They’ve decided that it’s a great plan for all eurozone countries to submit their budgets to them for approval. Wonderful, someone who comes from a nation of inflationphobes and a man with a Napoleon complex who cannot accept that France is no longer a world Imperial power but at the same time would sell France to an Algerian umbrella salesman if he thought it would make him look tall. And good. But mainly tall. (I understand that France is going to change its name, it will soon cease to be the République Française and will instead be known as l’Allemagne de l’Ouest. Still, what do I care? It’s your country, Pierre.)

Not only that, but they also have plans for countries that break the financial rules (as far as I can make out from the parameters this includes everyone, including France, except Germany and Finland). Yes, if your country is in debt, they have a plan to . . . fine it.

Riiiiiiiight.

So, a country comes and says ‘look, Germany, this budget you set us is probably fine and dandy if you’re a northern European industrial power, but it hasn’t worked for us and we’re broke’ then the answer is to go in and take more money off that broke country to teach them a lesson for being broke? Are you verrückt? Because we all know that no government has any money of its own, it is all taken from the taxpayer. So, in effect, you set the rules, and when they don’t work, you then penalise the people living in that country for your failure.

Way to win friends and influence people.

Can we leave yet?

You might as well just rename it.

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Soooooooooo. Sky News breathlessly report good news that Italy’s bond yield as of about 1700 GMT has dropped to 6.58%. That’s hardly saving us all, Britain’s bond yield stands at about 2.2%, so that’s a huge gap.

However, even more astounding is the gap between the real €uro big boy and their biggest little brother, as the difference between German rates and French rates now stretches to almost 1.5%, and growing. This is what is meant by a two-speed Euro; Germany and everyone else, and as total and catastrophic disaster may be avoided in Italy, settling for just an enormous disaster, the markets nervous eyes flick to the next victim. So the fact that French 10-year bond spreads reached euro-era highs above German yields yesterday could be very bad news.

What makes the news worse is that the powers that be in EU steadfastly refuse to admit that anything that has happened is in any way linked to their actions. Indeed they actively poke fun at those who had the good sense to stay out of their insane project. It smacks of a fallen dictator ranting to tame media outlets about the fate that awaits their opponents, they are just unable to grasp the fact that the whole thing has been a disaster. Not only that, but they then work to make sure that those who are unfortunate enough to live in a country that has buckled under the stress of marching to the beat of the drum of Germany’s industrial might now find themselves living under what is little more than a Viceroy as two new Prime Ministers (Mario Monti in Italy – former EU commissioner and Lucas Papademos in Greece – former VP of the ECB) are pretty much imposed on the countries and are utterly in the thrall of those who have brought about this crisis in the first place.

It seems ironic to me, on this day of all days, that the Euro may just as well be renamed. They may just as well call it the Reichsmark.

Not alone.

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You sometimes get the impression that those of us who wish to be out of the EU are the fringe of the fringe, it’s certainly an impression which is put forward by the media, even if subliminally. You’d think that anti-EU sentiment is the preserve of some sort of bizarre little Englander set, in the minority nationally and at total odds with the population of Europe.

I’ve never accepted the former, this is why successive governments have never given us a referendum on the subject, they’re scared that a vote for getting us out would be carried. They’ll give some excuse about how referenda are not British, whilst then abandoning other British institutions to the EU. I’ve heard people say that it is too complicated for us to understand, this unsurprisingly from a LibDem member who also tried to persuade me that referenda were undemocratic, as people could be persuaded by the antis to vote against our continued membership. Funnily enough I’ve never heard the argument against being that support for our membership was so overwhelming that you might as well hold a referendum on whether we send murderers to prison.

We’re conditioned to believe that if we want to leave the EU, we’re out of step with opinion across the continent, and when all else fails, we’ll just be labelled racists.

I was encouraged with a conversation that I had with a French woman very recently where we discussed membership of the EU.

‘Don’t.’ She spat. ‘Don’t talk to me of the EU. It disgusts me.’ I was a little taken aback, after all, are we not to believe that mainland Europe kneels weeping tears of joy and gratitude in-front of the blue flag with the yellow stars? I thought she was going to give the old reformer line of it being a wonderful organisation which is hampered by poor administration. Not a bit of it.

She went on to explain to me that she was European, in the same way that a Bolivian is South American or a Malaysian is Asian, it certainly wasn’t her nationality though. ‘I am French.’ She stated simply. ‘European is not my nationality.’

She went on to tell me how she missed the Franc and desperately wanted it back, how she felt that any control over her economy had been given away. She told me about how the French tricolor is the most beautiful flag in the world, and how upset she was at it being supplanted by the EUro flag at every turn, a flag she has no emotional link or loyalty to.

She told about how she wanted her country back. Not, she was at pains to add, from the Algerians or West Africans, but from those who have stolen it away from the people of France irrespective of ethnicity. She commented that she didn’t hate Germany or England, why should she? But she was French. She said ‘I am human, but it doesn’t mean I hate elephants and tigers.’

‘There are many of us’ she said with a sigh. ‘But they will not let us be heard. We grow in number. I think we are the majority, but it is the farmers and the city resident liberals who elect the politicians, the farmers have been bought and the Parisiens hate the rest of France, they think they are France.’

This may not be representative, but I wonder how many people in Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Poland and everywhere else think this, and how poorly they are represented in government.

Then I look at Libya, Syria, Yemen and fear the worst.

The cracks widen . . .

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I’ve always indulged my Trek geek side and drawn comparisons between the EU and Ceti Alpha V. Ceti Alpha V is a planet, which through an ingenious plot device, becomes exposed to the ‘Genesis Device’, a missile which is used in terraforming a planet, making it inhabitable in a very short period.

The problem being that as it whips an inhabitable ecosystem up in double quick time, shortcuts were taken and the planet disintegrates in double quick time. The moral of the story being that things like this cannot just be thrown together, there has to be a natural evolution and the imposition of man’s will will lead to things falling apart.

The EU is the Genesis Device to the physical continent of Europe. We’re seeing an artificially constructed economy fall apart at the seams, like tectonic plates forced together ripping themselves apart to follow the course that the physics of the planet intended.

Now we see two of the old apex predators, shoehorned into the new ecosystem turn on each other. France has effectively closed the border with Italy, furious that Italy has acted like a good European country by laying out the welcome mat for anyone who cares to turn up on the doorstep. Italy has been perfectly happy to dole out temporary residence permits, secure in the knowledge that the Francophone and Francophile Tunisians will head for France as quick as their legs will carry them. Poor France, they never asked for this, and they’d certainly never turn a blind eye at a press of humanity trying to cross their border to another member state, would they?

If you listen to the EU mandarins, the nation state is dead. France obviously doesn’t think so. Nor do the people of Finland, who look like acting in the manner of a glacier and sweeping all before them. The parties who have had the country sewn up for so many years don’t seem to like it one bit, but then that is the default setting of the Europolitician, the electorate’s job is to vote them in, keep quiet and be thankful for anything they are lucky enough to get. Looks like the Finns have had enough of this, and if their wishes are not listened to this time round, well, the main EU poodle parties are just delaying the inevitable.

No doubt the BBC and other EU and publicly funded media outlets will decry them as fascists and nationalists, following the good old example that Uncle Joe set out, they’ll try to scare us with tales of the bogeyman, without realising that the vision they promote of a 21st Century Europe is far, far scarier than anything UKIP or True Finns could ever be or do. The further east you go, the fresher the memories are.

We’ve no doubt seen a good portion of the public of Iceland look at their recent referendum on whether they should allow themselves to be mugged by the UK and the Netherlands with one eye on their application to join the EU, and I’ve heard whispers that the Croats are re-evaluating their position on joining as well.

The political continent is starting to tear itself apart. The apparatchiks can stamp their feet as much as they like, but European history tells us that there is a tipping point. Whether it is Cromwell, the storming of the Bastille or the Winter Palace, the stringing up of Mussolini or the overthrow of Ceaușescu, once that tipping point is reached, you can do nothing about it. It is true to say that what replaces that which went before may not be better, and may even be worse, but that is the danger with revolutions, it does not invalidate the lack of credibility of the regime which came before.

In his quarters aboard the Enterprise, Spock had a painting of a scene from ancient human mythology – the explusion from Eden. It was there to serve as a reminder that all things end.

Looking past the decoy.

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There were breathless reports in the British media yesterday about the actions of two women who went out defy the ban on the wearing of face coverings in France. The reports on BBC radio were of the tone that these women were being very silly and that the ban was a good thing.

My French ain’t great, but as luck would have it, I was in the country yesterday and French radio was carrying a lot of vox-pops that suggested the general population was mystified at best by the ban, and in a couple of interviews the reaction was hostile.

Now, I don’t like the burqa, I think it is a hateful item of clothing which disconnects the wearer from the rest of society, it also suggests that all women are sluts and all men are rapists. It is the physical embodiment of one of the things that turns me off from religion, the mania for collecting people whilst dictating their actions and thoughts and telling them they are worthless. I also hate socks worn with sandals and the old blazer and jeans combo, but because, like the veil, they don’t actually do any harm, I am not calling for their prohibition.

But of course the story is a bit of a decoy. You see, the law in France doesn’t ban the burqua or the niqab, what it does is ban all face coverings in public. Everyone is prohibited from covering their face in public in France now; this means that Old Holborn’s little walk would be illegal. Well, when I say everyone, that isn’t quite accurate. You and I would be breaking the law by going out with a face covering, whether the reason for doing so is malicious or not, but for agents of the state, it is perfectly acceptable for them to go out dressed thus:

The odd, non-assimilationist, muslim women wearing the burqa, the section of society that the rest doesn’t trust because their behaviour is so different to everyone else, have been used as a smokescreen, a decoy, to prevent attention from falling onto the fact that every private citizen is being restricted here.

It isn’t jsut that; as the Torygraph correctly reports:

But Alexis Marsan, a public order official, said they were solely given warnings for taking part in an illegal gathering.

Five men and another women were also held for taking part in the demonstration.

Whereas in the UK, it is illegal to hold a demonstration without permission within a certain radius of parliament, which is bad enough, in France it is illegal to hold a demonstation anywhere without permission. This is what was being reported in a very matter of fact way on French radio, that these people had been arrested for an unauthorised demonstration.

The BBC also reported on their TV news that the pair were spirited away to a police station to ‘have their papers checked.’ It should be noted that any resident of France is obliged to carry their Carte d’Identitie or Carte de Sejour at all times and you can be stopped and checked at any time, for no particular reason, I don’t know if you can be obliged to go to the police station for your papers to be checked for no good reason, but given the reputation of the gendarmerie and the paramilitary CRS for being robust, I’m not too sure I’d be asking too forcefully.

So, just across that short stip of water we have a country where you cannot demonstrate against the state unless the state gives you permission to do so, where you cannot wear a face covering, for example a rubber mask of Sarkozy or De Gaulle, and where you can routinely be swept up off the street to have your ‘papers’ checked.

Am I the only one who finds this disturbing?

Normally, I’d be saying that this is a matter for the country in question, but reports are that Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands have plans along similar lines, and you can only wonder how long it will be before the same comes in over here, either through our own parliament or as the result of a dictat from Brussels.