The France thread

[ed]

Acceptable only if you make a head shot

[Giz]

Then it’s...

...

Wait for it

...

ex-cargot

[asthmatic camel]

Acceptable only if you make a head shot

I only miss a head shot if Mrs. Camel yells at me unexpectedly.

[Witness]

Witness will have to give advice if this is the generally accepted method of executing Escargots.

https://i.imgur.com/YCqeda5.jpg

[asthmatic camel]

I'd kind of like that as my kitchen table, Witness. It'd take too much effort to talk Mrs. Camel into accepting the concept, I fear. :)

[Witness]

https://i.imgur.com/EDtGvfG.jpg

From: Sacre bleu! France as you've never seen her before (more pics)

[Witness]

Nearly two months ahead of schedule for the removal of the great organ of Notre-Dame by the Atelier vauclusien Quoirin

The delicate operation carried out by the Quoirin organ workshop and its partners in Saint-Didier was completed in record time. The work began on August 3 and required scaffolding nearly 30 meters high. Meticulous preparation saved time.

A gigantic work because this great gothic [sic] organ built in 1733, is composed of 8,000 pipes divided into 115 stops, which makes it the largest instrument in France by the number of stops. The team of the Atelier Vauclusien had so precisely planned this dismantling of an organ that they know it very well that everything has just been completed two months ahead of schedule: "We had to prepare a lot of things beforehand to make sure that it went well," explains Pascal Quoirin, because the working conditions on site are difficult. And it was so well prepared that we were much faster than expected.

We had to remove all the pipes from the organ. There are still 8,000 pipes. They were placed in special insulating boxes because they cannot be placed just any way. They have to be standing upright, otherwise they can collapse. There are a lot of precautions to be taken, just as with an object of art".

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/societe ... 1607966554

[Witness]

French QAnon:

https://i.imgur.com/3XopwXY.jpg

The Christmas tree symbolizes the Illuminati pyramid
– Star of the Ancient Gods
– Illuminati pyramid of power

:mrgreen:

[Witness]

https://i.imgur.com/rYPKGZd.jpg

:mrgreen:

[Giz]

“ survey reveals a huge 49 per cent of secondary-school teachers have self-censored on issues including sexuality and the Holocaust. This is a 13 per cent increase compared with a similar poll two years ago.

This is worrying news, but it comes as no surprise. The brutal and disgusting murder of Samuel Paty was a blatant attempt to crush dissent on religious issues. Many teachers are now terrified to speak out in case they become the next victims of this violent, totalitarian Islamism .”

https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/01/0 ... o-silence/

[Witness]

The brutal and disgusting murder of Samuel Paty was a blatant attempt to crush dissent on religious issues. Many teachers are now terrified to speak out in case they become the next victims of this violent, totalitarian Islamism .”

19 Nivôse CCXXIX

From what I heard & read, it's not "now": there have always been problems, be it with (non halal or kosher) food at the cafeteria, school travel, sports (swimming notably), history courses (which are very France-centric there), biology (damned evolution)…

As for "terrified" I doubt it is generalized, but being a militant secularist can only bring you problems with pupils and parents – but no pay raise. And aggressive pop-Islam certainly compounds school problems in the derelict zones, being a convenient tool for sowing disorder.

I remind you of this post concerning the historical reasons and the utter failure of the successive French governments.

[Witness]

Paris agrees to turn Champs-Élysées into 'extraordinary garden'

Mayor Anne Hidalgo gives green light to £225m-scheme to transform French capital’s most famous avenue

https://i.imgur.com/0Bwd5x8.jpg

The mayor of Paris has said a €250m (£225m) makeover of the Champs-Élysées will go ahead, though the ambitious transformation will not happen before the French capital hosts the 2024 Summer Olympics.

Anne Hidalgo said the planned work, unveiled in 2019 by local community leaders and businesses, would turn the 1.9 km (1.2 mile) stretch of central Paris into “an extraordinary garden”.

The Champs-Élysées committee has been campaigning for a major redesign of the avenue and its surroundings since 2018.

“The legendary avenue has lost its splendour during the last 30 years. It has been progressively abandoned by Parisians and has been hit by several successive crises: the gilets jaunes, strikes, health and economic,” the committee said in a statement welcoming Hidalgo’s announcement.

“It’s often called the world’s most beautiful avenue, but those of us who work here every day are not at all sure about that,” Jean-Noël Reinhardt, the committee president said in 2019.

“The Champs-Élysées has more and more visitors and big-name businesses battle to be on it, but to French people it’s looking worn out.”

The committee held a public consultation over what should be done with the avenue. The plans include reducing space for vehicles by half, turning roads into pedestrian and green areas, and creating tunnels of trees to improve air quality.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... ne-hidalgo

From what I heard, once the shops close it's a good place to get mugged.

[Witness]

1 Pluviôse CCXXIX

French ex-PM Édouard Balladur goes on trial over alleged kickbacks

Politician, 91, accused of financing failed 1995 presidential campaign with illegal kickbacks in ‘Karachi affair’

Former French prime minister Édouard Balladur has gone on trial accused of financing his failed 1995 presidential campaign with illegal kickbacks from international arms deals.

The 91-year-old rightwing politician is the latest high-ranking French politician to find himself in the dock over the so-called Karachi affair that has poisoned the country’s political life for more than 25 years.

He made no statement to a throng of journalists as he arrived at the court of justice of the republic, which hears cases involving ministerial wrongdoing.

Balladur, who has been charged with complicity in the alleged misappropriation of public funds, has previously denied any wrongdoing, saying he did not know of any kickbacks and was not responsible for the details of the finances in the presidential campaign.

He reportedly told investigators he thought the massive cash injection to his campaign funds came from the sale of T-shirts at rallies and meetings.

The scandal centres on allegations of corruption in connection with two 1990s French arms contracts during the final years of François Mitterrand’s presidency, when Balladur was prime minister.

Three former government officials were among six people found guilty in June of charges involving kickbacks from the sale of submarines to Pakistan and frigates to Saudi Arabia signed between 1993 and 1995. The kickbacks are estimated at around 13m francs, worth almost €2m today, 10m francs of which went as a cash donation to Balladur’s campaign.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... -kickbacks

[Witness]

8 Pluviôse CCXXIX

Vietnam War: French court to hear landmark Agent Orange case

A French court is set to hear a landmark case against more than a dozen companies that supplied the US with the notorious chemical Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.

The case was brought by Tran To Nga, a 78-year-old French-Vietnamese woman who covered the conflict as a journalist.

She accuses the chemical firms of causing harm to her and her children.

It is the first time civilian victims of Agent Orange have had their cases heard in court.

The highly toxic defoliant was sprayed by US forces to destroy jungles and uncover the enemy's hiding places from 1962 until 1971.

It contained dioxin, which is one of the most toxic chemicals known to humans, and has been linked to increased rates of cancers and birth defects.

Vietnam says several million people have been affected by Agent Orange, including 150,000 children born with severe birth defects.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55795651 for details.

[Giz]

Hard hitting legal action from France:

“A French court found its government guilty of not meeting its commitments to the Paris climate accord.

In what was dubbed the “first major climate trial in France,” the court declared that the French government was guilty of inaction but only ordered it to pay a symbolic fine of 1 Euro to the four nongovernmental organizations that brought a lawsuit against the government.”

[Witness]

4 Ventôse CCXXIX

‘Stakes are high’ as QAnon conspiracy phenomenon emerges in France

After rising to the fore in the US during the most fraught presidential campaign the country has seen for decades, the QAnon phenomenon has emerged in France – prompting President Emmanuel Macron’s government to order a multiagency inquiry on conspiracist movements scheduled to report back at the end of February.

The French state agency responsible for tackling sectarian movements, MIVILUDES, has received some 15 reports over recent weeks raising the alarm about the rise of QAnon in France, Le Figaro reported. The agency described the development of the movement as “highly concerning” in an internal communication seen by the French paper.

As she commissioned an inquiry by the police and MIVILUDES, Minister for Citizenship Marlène Schiappa expressed the same sentiments: The development of “new conspiracist groups” on French soil is “very worrying”, she told France 3 in January – underlining that the government “has its eye on” QAnon.

The QAnon phenomenon encompasses “a few hundred thousand” adherents, Tristan Mendès France, an expert on conspiracist movements at Paris-Diderot University, told Le Figaro.

The website DéQodeurs is a major French gateway to its world. The site’s centrepiece is a big screen at the top of the homepage broadcasting a video titled “We are the people” – which has also garnered more than 57,000 views on YouTube since its publication on January 27, even though the site removed DéQodeurs’ dedicated channel in October.

https://www.france24.com/en/france/2021 ... -in-france

---

Heating Up Culture Wars, France to Scour Universities for Ideas That ‘Corrupt Society’

The government announced an investigation into social science research, broadening attacks on what it sees as destabilizing American influences.

Stepping up its attacks on social science theories that it says threaten France, the French government announced this week that it would launch an investigation into academic research that it says feeds “Islamo-leftist’’ tendencies that “corrupt society.’’

News of the investigation immediately caused a fierce backlash among university presidents and scholars, deepening fears of a crackdown on academic freedom — especially on studies of race, gender, post-colonial studies and other fields that the French government says have been imported from American universities and contribute to undermining French society.

While President Emmanuel Macron and some of his top ministers have spoken out forcefully against what they see as a destabilizing influence from American campuses in recent months, the announcement marked the first time that the government has moved to take action.

It came as France’s lower house of Parliament passed a draft law against Islamism, an ideology it views as encouraging terrorist attacks, and as Mr. Macron tilts further to the right, anticipating nationalist challenges ahead of elections next year.

Frédérique Vidal, the minister of higher education, said in Parliament on Tuesday that the state-run National Center for Scientific Research would oversee an investigation into the “totality of research underway in our country,’’ singling out post-colonialism.

In an earlier television interview, Ms. Vidal said the investigation would focus on “Islamo-leftism’’ — a controversial term embraced by some of Mr. Macron’s leading ministers to accuse left-leaning intellectuals of justifying Islamism and even terrorism.

“Islamo-leftism corrupts all of society and universities are not impervious,’’ Ms. Vidal said, adding that some scholars were advancing “radical” and “activist” ideas. Referring also to scholars of race and gender, Ms. Vidal accused them of “always looking at everything through the prism of their will to divide, to fracture, to pinpoint the enemy.’’

France has since early last century defined itself as a secular state devoted to the ideal that all of its citizens are the same under the law, to the extent that the government keeps no statistics on ethnicity and religion.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/18/worl ... -wars.html

[Witness]

6 Ventôse CCXXIX

Reaction to the gub'ment's proposal:

"The problem is not so much "Islamo-leftism" as the militant diversion of teaching and research".

The investigation of "Islamo-leftism" at the university must be entrusted to a body independent of the ministry, estimates a group of 130 academics.

On February 16, the Minister of Higher Education and Research, Frédérique Vidal, created the event by alerting to the presence of "Islamo-leftism" at the university and asking that a mission to assess this risk be entrusted to the CNRS.

We are pleased to note that, certainly with some delay, our minister has finally understood the existence of a problem, contrary to the Conference of University Presidents, which responded to this announcement with an appalling communiqué of corporatism and denial of reality - a communiqué that should take away its right to claim to represent the "university community". However, we cannot support the proposal as presented by the Minister for two reasons.

The first reason has to do with the perimeter of the problem to be solved: in October 2020, after the refusal of several organizations and unions to qualify the assassin of Samuel Paty as an "Islamist", current events clearly pointed to "Islamo-leftism" as the immediate object of legitimate concern.

And those who, today, claim that this term was created by the right or the extreme right and that this concept does not refer to "any scientific reality" are simply demonstrating a lack of culture or bad faith, since they ignore or pretend to ignore that it was forged, already twenty years ago, by the politician and historian of ideas Pierre-André Taguieff, director of research at the CNRS, on the basis of precisely documented historical analyses, to which his book La Nouvelle Judéophobie (Mille et une nuits, 2002) testifies in particular.

Today, however, focusing on this term constitutes an error of analysis: there is indeed a problem within the university arena, but it is not so much that of "Islamo-leftism" as that, more generally, of the militant deviation of teaching and research. For there is an alarming plethora of courses, articles, seminars, and colloquia that are nothing but militancy disguised as pseudo-science with smoky theories ("state racism"), flashy neologisms ("whitewashing") and great operations to discover the Moon, presenting for example as luminous scientific advances the idea that our mental categories are "socially constructed" (but what is not in human experience?) [rest behind paywall]

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/20 ... _3232.html

Some are fed up with the cacademic SJWs. :mrgreen:

[Giz]

The home of postmodernism has had enough?

[Witness]

The home of postmodernism has had enough?

Now that its purity has been tainted by its circuit through the USA. :mrgreen:

---

https://i.imgur.com/NbuUne5.jpg

[Giz]

The home of postmodernism has had enough?

Now that its purity has been tainted by its circuit through the USA. :mrgreen:

---

https://i.imgur.com/NbuUne5.jpg

Only a matter of time.

We put pineapple on pizza.
Burrito Sushi.
Tomato in carbonara.

You think French philosophy would be unadulterated?

[Witness]

Well, I've seen Koreans add whisky to their wine, to "strengthen" it. [shudder]

[Witness]

13 Ventôse CCXXIX

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy sentenced to jail for corruption

Sarkozy found guilty of corruption and influence peddling but is unlikely to spend time in prison

When the verdict came, it reduced the Paris court to a stunned silence: Nicolas Sarkozy was guilty of corruption and influence peddling, and sentenced to three years in prison, two of them suspended.

France’s president from 2007 to 2012 had played an “active role” in forging a “corruption pact” with his lawyer and a senior magistrate to obtain information on a separate investigation into political donations, the leading judge declared, and there was “serious and concurring evidence” of collaboration between the three men to break the law.

The conviction and sentence were dramatic, unexpected and historic. Sarkozy, 66, had repeatedly declared his innocence and dismissed the charges as an “insult to my intelligence”.

It is, however, unlikely he will spend a day in jail. His lawyer has announced he intends to appeal, a process that would lead to a new trial, and a one-year prison sentence can be served outside jail under certain conditions, including the wearing of an electronic bracelet or limited home confinement.
...
While Sarkozy was not banned from holding public office, the verdict, delivered on Monday afternoon, is likely to quash his hopes of returning to public life in time for next year’s presidential election. His centre-right Les Républicains (LR) party has been struggling to come up with a credible candidate since Sarkozy’s former prime minister François Fillon was engulfed in scandal during the 2017 presidential race, opening the way for Emmanuel Macron to win.
...
French detectives began monitoring Sarkozy’s communications in September 2013 as part of an investigation into claims he had received an illegal and undeclared €50m donation from the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi to fund his successful 2007 presidential campaign.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... corruption

[Witness]

15 Ventôse CCXXIX

Irony as Saharan dust returns radiation from French nuclear tests in the 1960s

https://i.imgur.com/0R2H7Ou.jpg

A view of Lyon, France, taken on February 6, 2021, as dust from the Saharan coloured the sky red.

Dust from the Sahara Desert blown north by strong seasonal winds to France did not only bring stunning light and sunsets - it also carried abnormal levels of radiation.

That's according to French NGO Acro (Association for Control of Radioactivity in the West), which monitors levels of radiation.

The radiation is not considered dangerous for human health but it did arrive in France with a big dollop of irony.

Acro said it comes from nuclear tests carried out by France in the Algerian desert at the beginning of the 1960s, when the North African country was a French overseas territory.

It claims a “boomerang” effect has brought back caesium-137, a product of nuclear fission created in nuclear explosions.

Acro said it did tests on recent Saharan dust that it collected in the area of Jura, near the French border with Switzerland.

“Considering homogeneous deposits in a wide area, based on this analytical result, Acro estimates there was 80,000 bq per km2 of caesium-137,” it said in a statement.

https://www.euronews.com/amp/2021/03/01 ... -the-1960s

The building on the hill is the Fourvière basilica, a nest of traditionalists.

[Witness]

French billionaire politician Olivier Dassault killed in helicopter crash

French billionaire Olivier Dassault was killed on Sunday in a helicopter crash, a police source said, with President Emmanuel Macron paying tribute to the 69-year old conservative politician.

Dassault was the eldest son of late French billionaire industrialist Serge Dassault, whose namesake Dassault Aviation, builds the Rafale war planes and owns Le Figaro newspaper.
...
The private helicopter crashed on Sunday afternoon in Normandy, where he has a holiday home, according to a police source. The pilot was also killed.

A lawmaker for the conservative Les Republicains party since 2002, Dassault was considered the 361st richest man in the world alongside his two brothers and sister, with wealth of about 6 billion euros ($7.15 billion) mostly inherited from his father, according to the 2020 Forbes rich list.

He stepped down from his role on the board of Dassault due to his political role to avoid any conflict of interest.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-peop ... AZ0M9?il=0


And in other news:

Samuel Paty: French schoolgirl admits lying about murdered teacher

A French schoolgirl has admitted to spreading false claims about a teacher before he was murdered last year.

Samuel Paty was beheaded in October after showing students cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

The girl, whose complaints sparked an online campaign against Paty, has now admitted that she was not in the class.

Mr Paty's killing stunned France and led to an outpouring of support at memorial ceremonies and marches around the country.

The 13-year-old girl, who has not been officially named, originally told her father that Paty had asked Muslim students to leave the classroom while he showed the cartoon during a class on free speech and blasphemy.

According to evidence given by the girl seen by French media she said: "I didn't see the cartoons, it was a girl in my class who showed me them."

"She lied because she felt trapped in a spiral because her classmates had asked her to be a spokesperson," her lawyer, Mbeko Tabula, told AFP news agency.

The girl's father filed a legal complaint against the teacher and began a social media campaign over the incident based on his daughter's account. He identified Paty and the school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, west of Paris.

Prosecutors said shortly after the killing that there was a "direct causal link" between the online incitement against Paty and his murder.

The perpetrator, 18-year-old Abdullakh Anzorov, was shot dead by police shortly after the attack.

It then emerged that the campaign against the history and geography teacher had been based on a distorted account of what had happened in class days earlier.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56325254

[Witness]

28 Ventôse CCXXIX

France to return Nazi-looted Klimt to rightful Jewish heirs

https://i.imgur.com/sodnwTV.jpg

The French government announced Monday that it will return a Nazi-looted Gustav Klimt landscape painting to its rightful owners more than 80 years after it was stolen from a Jewish family in Austria in 1938.

The colorful 1905 oil work by the Austrian symbolist painter titled “Rosebushes under the Trees” has been hanging in Paris’ Musee d’Orsay museum for decades.

French Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin told a Paris news conference that “the decision to return a major work from the public collections illustrates our commitment to the duty of justice and reparation vis-à-vis plundered families.”

The oil work will be returned to the family of Nora Stiasny, a Holocaust victim who was dispossessed during a forced sale in August 1938.

Bachelot-Narquin said that French authorities hadn’t initially identified the painting as being stolen by the Nazis, and its provenance only recently came to light after French government-led investigations on the issue.

“It is in recent years that the true origin of the painting has been established,” she said, adding that it was “the only Gustav Klimt painting owned by France.”

“‘Rosebushes under the Trees’” is a testament to the lives that a criminal will has stubbornly sought to eliminate.”

Thousands of artworks looted by the Nazis across Europe wound up in French museums after the Allies defeated Nazi Germany in 1945. Though many have been returned, French authorities have stepped up efforts in recent years to find homes for the scores of hanging heirlooms that remain unclaimed.

https://apnews.com/article/paris-painti ... 9fef3a5c5c

[Giz]

From the Spectator, it appears that lacite may soon be la sortir:

“the ideology that began in universities is now spreading to schools and wider society in France, as two recent surveys revealed. The first, conducted last November in the wake of the murder of the teacher Samuel Paty by an Islamist, canvassed more than one thousand 18 to 30 year-olds on a number of subjects. 61 per cent described Islamophobia as a 'reality' and 57 per cent believed laïcité is often deployed to oppress Muslims. In contrast, among wider French society 87 per cent think that laïcité is under threat from Islamic extremism.

The second survey was conducted last month among 15 to 17 year-olds. It reported that half of those surveyed believed religion should not be mocked, the same percentage that said religious symbols should be permitted in school. “

[Witness]

14 Germinal CCXXIX

French left tears itself apart over ‘non-white’ meetings

The clash has reignited the debate about the growing influence of US-style identity politics.

PARIS – French left-wing parties have spiraled into a bitter fight over whether white people should be asked to shut up – or be banned outright – during meetings about minority issues.

The controversy erupted after revelations that a left-wing student union, called UNEF, organizes meetings that are off-limits to white members.

Anne Hidalgo, Paris mayor and Socialist presidential hopeful, stepped in Wednesday after a candidate from the same party, Audrey Pulvar, failed to condemn such meetings.

“The field of politics is not a therapy session, it’s the domain of the universal, where we seek unity, and defend our secularist values,” Hidalgo said on BFMTV.

Pulvar, a Black former news anchor running under the Socialist banner in the upcoming regional elections, said on Sunday that white people should not be banned from discussion groups on minority issues, but that “they can however be asked to keep quiet and be silent spectators.”

Asked whether she would have said the same thing, Hidalgo said “obviously not.”

The clash over non-white discussion groups has reignited a debate in France about the growing influence of U.S.-style identity politics, and how it challenges the country’s existing political traditions.

Pulvar’s comments incensed the far right and the right, with Valérie Pecresse, a rival at right-leaning Les Républicains, accusing Pulvar of promoting “an ‘acceptable’ shade of racism”.

But they also sparked anger among the old guard of the Socialist Party, which is seeking to rebuild itself after a stunning defeat at the 2017 elections.

For many on the left, the universal values of égalité, fraternité, liberté should transcend religious or ethnic alliances, and more integration and assimilation, not less, is needed in the fight for social justice. This faction does not understand the new guard coming up through organizations such as UNEF.

Pulvar’s words are “more than clumsy, they are regrettable, it doesn’t correspond to our common ideas, nobody should be asked to keep quiet,” said Olivier Faure, the leader of the Socialist Party on French television channel LCI.

“Ultimately, [non-white discussion groups] lead to segregation and that is something I cannot agree with,” said Richard Yung, a Socialist senator. “We should be able to talk together, disagree, even oppose each other in the same room.”

https://www.politico.eu/article/french- ... -meetings/

[Witness]

20 Germinal CCXXIX

Macron announces closure of elite school that hothoused French leaders

The grande école, or ENA, has been the pathway to power for top civil servants and four presidents

Emmanuel Macron has announced the closure of the École Nationale d’Administration, the elite French finishing school for the country’s leaders, where he himself studied.

Known as ENA, the grande école has been the hothouse for France’s top civil service and a pathway to power in the public and private sectors. Four French presidents, including Macron, have passed through its doors as have dozens of ministers and business leaders.

Founded by Gen Charles de Gaulle in October 1945 with the idea of breaking the upper-class hold over France’s higher echelons, ending nepotism and making the civil service more democratic, it has instead become a byword for an establishment elite and been accused by critics of encouraging groupthink.

Macron told a gathering of state officials, including ambassadors, prefects – and a number of énarques, as graduates of the school are called – that it would be replaced by a new establishment called the Institute for Public Service (ISP). However, potential students would still be required to pass a tough entrance exam and follow a specific study syllabus.

Another change will mean that the top-ranking graduates will no longer have automatic access to the best administrative jobs until they have shown their worth in other official roles.
...
While the number of students from privileged families was 45% in the 1950s and 60s, this had risen to about 70% between 2005 and 2014, while those from working-class families fell to about 6%.

Macron’s decision to shut ENA was reportedly prompted by the gilets jaunes protest movement that began in 2018 and was sparked by a sense that the country’s leaders were out of touch with ordinary French people, especially those living outside the cities.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... presidents

A revolution! :mrgreen:

[Giz]

I have 5 republics, am I bid a sixth? Going once, going twice, sold to the generals in the back row?

“Twenty retired generals, as well as serving officers, signed the ferocious rebuke
Incendiary letter claims France at risk of 'disintegration' at 'hands of Islamists'
Defence Minister Florence Parly warned 'these are unacceptable actions'
She added that those serving officers who signed letter would be disciplined “

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... untry.html

[Doctor X]

The French generals who did not surrender are sanctioned?

Curious.

– J.D.

[Giz]

The French generals who did not surrender are sanctioned?

Curious.

– J.D.

They didn’t act in the hallowed tradition of the French armed forces.

[ed]

Nearly two months ahead of schedule for the removal of the great organ of Notre-Dame by the Atelier vauclusien Quoirin

The delicate operation carried out by the Quoirin organ workshop and its partners in Saint-Didier was completed in record time. The work began on August 3 and required scaffolding nearly 30 meters high. Meticulous preparation saved time.

A gigantic work because this great gothic [sic] organ built in 1733, is composed of 8,000 pipes divided into 115 stops, which makes it the largest instrument in France by the number of stops. The team of the Atelier Vauclusien had so precisely planned this dismantling of an organ that they know it very well that everything has just been completed two months ahead of schedule: "We had to prepare a lot of things beforehand to make sure that it went well," explains Pascal Quoirin, because the working conditions on site are difficult. And it was so well prepared that we were much faster than expected.

We had to remove all the pipes from the organ. There are still 8,000 pipes. They were placed in special insulating boxes because they cannot be placed just any way. They have to be standing upright, otherwise they can collapse. There are a lot of precautions to be taken, just as with an object of art".

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/societe ... 1607966554

The last time the Great Organ left the cathedral was when I exited the premises in 1986.

I'll be here all week

[Witness]

“Twenty retired generals, as well as serving officers, signed the ferocious rebuke
Incendiary letter claims France at risk of 'disintegration' at 'hands of Islamists' […]
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... untry.html

Haven't looked into that. Presumably a bunch of old brass who fought in Algeria and with sympathies for Le Pen (the daughter).

Official position: the army is politically neutral.

[Giz]

“Twenty retired generals, as well as serving officers, signed the ferocious rebuke
Incendiary letter claims France at risk of 'disintegration' at 'hands of Islamists' […]
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... untry.html

Haven't looked into that. Presumably a bunch of old brass who fought in Algeria and with sympathies for Le Pen (the daughter).

Official position: the army is politically neutral.

Some more details in today’s Guardian:
———————————————————
At least 18 soldiers who signed an open letter warning of the risk of “civil war” in France and the need to fight the “perils” of “Islamism” and “anti-racism” are to face military sanctions, amid a bitter row between the government and the far-right.

The open letter, published by rightwing magazine Valeurs Actuelles, warned of the “dangers” of “Islamism and the hordes from the banlieue” and accused anti-racism groups of creating “hatred between communities” with their support for tearing down statues of French figures from colonial times.

The letter – signed by at least 18 soldiers, including four officers, and a number of retired military figures, – said “lax” government policies would result in chaos, requiring “the intervention of our comrades on active duty in a perilous mission of protection of our civilisational values”.

The armed forces chief of staff, Gen François Lecointre, said each soldier would go before a senior military council and could be “de-listed” or “put into immediate retirement”. Hervé Grandjean, the defence ministry spokesman, said on Thursday that by “openly criticising the government or appealing to comrades to take up arms on national territory”, the signatories had clearly broken military rules.

The letter sparked fury from the French government as the far-right leader Marine Le Pen said she understood the sentiments and called on the signatories to support her politics and her bid for the French presidency in 2022.

With a Harris Interactive poll on Thursday for LCI TV showing that 58% of French people agreed with the sentiments in the letter, the tone was set for an increasingly bitter political debate a year before the 2022 election.
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[Witness]

↑ So it appears most of these old farts aren't really retired as we understand it, but form a kind of reserve cadre (with full pay), ~ 1 % of them being actually "drafted" from time to time for heavy-duty missions like promotional gigs or giving a talk.

A tradition going back to the 19^th century. :mrgreen:

[Hotarubi]

viewtopic.php?f=26&t=57877

[Witness]

French soldiers warn of civil war in new letter

A new open letter has been published in France warning of the threat of civil war and claiming to have more than 130,000 signatures from the public.

The message, published in a right-wing magazine, accuses the French government of granting "concessions" to Islamism.

"It is about the survival of our country," said the text, said to be issued anonymously by soldiers and appealing for public support.

The French government condemned it, as well as a similar letter last month.

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin called the latest letter a "crude manoeuvre" and accused its anonymous signatories of lacking "courage", AFP news agency reported.

The letter to the government last month came from semi-retired generals. The minister in charge of the armed forces, Florence Parly, said they would be punished for defying a law that forbids reservists or serving members of the military from expressing opinions in public on religion and politics.

However, far-right leader Marine Le Pen, a candidate in next year's presidential election, spoke out in support of the estimated 1,000 servicemen and women who backed the April letter.

The new text was published late on Sunday by Valeurs Actuelles, although the numbers and ranks of its original signatories - said to be active members of the military - remain unclear.

The authors of the letter describe themselves as part of a younger generation of soldiers who have served in Afghanistan, Mali and the Central African Republic, or joined domestic anti-terrorism operations.

"They gave their skin to destroy the Islamism to which you are giving concessions on our soil," they wrote.

Because of their anonymity, it is impossible to gauge how far the writers of this new letter represent the rank-and-file of the armed forces. Online petitions where no-one has to give their name cannot be regarded as firm evidence of anything.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57055154

[Witness]

France Bans Gender-Neutral Language in Schools, Citing 'Harm' to Learning

In a decree sent to schools across France, the country's education ministry aimed to end the use of midpoints that designate both masculine and feminine endings to words. As the Telegraph reported, in the French language, nouns reflect the gender of the object they are referring to and the masculine ending is usually dominant.

For example, a group of friends including five women and one man would be written as "amis" but a midpoint would change the spelling of the word to "ami.e.s."

The education ministry's decree seeks to end the use of the midpoint in words, stating that it create confusion in learning the language.

In the decree, Hélène Carrère d'Encausse, perpetual secretary of the French Academy and Marc Lambron, current director of the French Academy, stated that the use of gender-neutral language in schools "harmful to the practice and intelligibility of the French language."

The decree sent to schools across France stated that "so-called 'inclusive' writing should be avoided, which notably uses the midpoint to simultaneously reveal the feminine and masculine forms of a word used in the masculine when it is used in one sense."

"In addition, this writing, which results in the fragmentation of words and agreements, constitutes an obstacle to reading and understanding the written word. The impossibility of verbally transcribing texts using this type of writing hampers reading aloud as well as pronunciation, and consequently learning, especially for the youngest," the decree stated, which was translated by Google.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/fr ... r-BB1gzxbA


Sad, no more butchering of the language to spare feelings. :mrgreen:

[Witness]

3 Prairial CCXXIX

France's constitutional council rejects controversial move to restrict images of police

France's constitutional council rejected on Thursday a controversial provision of the country's "global security" law which made it an offence to maliciously share images that identify operating police officers.

The new legislation had sparked widespread protests throughout the country. It also drew criticism from human rights group and journalists, who feared it would curtail press freedom and lead to less police accountability.

The rallies prompted the French government to announce a "complete new rewrite" of the contested article, which had originally been approved by the country's Senate.

The overhauled Article 24 said it was an offence to disseminate images of national police officers or gendarmes if there was intention or "provocation" to identify them.

The offence was punishable by up to five years in prison and a €75,000 fine.

In its decision, the constitutional council said the legislator had not sufficiently defined the elements constituting the offence and therefore "disregarded the principle of the legality of offences and penalties".

Reacting to the decision on Twitter, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said he would make proposals to the prime minister to "improve" the provisions that were rejected by the constitutional council.

Police unions, which supported the reform, regretted the rejection of the provision.

https://www.euronews.com/2021/05/20/fra ... -of-police

[Witness]

25 Prairial CCXXIX

France is sending a second Statue of Liberty to the US

New Yorkers have a surprise gift to look forward to for this Independence Day: a second Statue of Liberty sent by France. This new bronze statue, nicknamed the "little sister," is one-sixteenth the size of the world-famous one that stands on Liberty Island. On Monday, during a special ceremony, the smaller sibling was lifted and loaded into a special container at the National Museum of Arts and Crafts (CNAM) in central Paris, where it has been installed since 2011 in the museum's garden. It will be erected on Ellis Island, just across the water from the original, from July 1 to July 5.
The statue, over 450 kilograms (992 pounds) in weight and just shy of 10 feet tall, was first made in 2009. It is an exact replica of the original 1878 plaster model preserved by CNAM.
"The statue symbolizes freedom and the light around all the world," said Olivier Faron, general administrator of the CNAM. "We want to send a very simple message: Our friendship with the United States is very important, particularly at this moment. We have to conserve and defend our friendship."

https://i.imgur.com/bTYBeWL.jpg

https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/s ... index.html