Allez !

As the rioting season commences across the channel, what better time to visit La Belle France?

So we're off to the land of T.T. Omeyer. Blogging will be light unless a Fon hotspot pops up.

Bad Timing

I suppose publishing a piece on how Socialist candidate Dominique Strauss-Kahn may be a bit of a lad with the women (but the sophisticated French electorate won't let that bother them) on Friday the 13th was always tempting fate.

"There was a fuss last year when a young French author, Tristane Banon, described her encounter with him. She explained that she had interviewed him for a book about public figures and their missteps, and claimed she had to fight him off physically. She said she hadn't made a complaint at the time, because she didn't want to be "the girl who had a problem with a politician".This side of DSK's life has almost become folklore in France. In 2009, humourist Stéphane Guillon even dedicated his comedy slot on the popular morning radio show La Matinale de France Inter (the French equivalent for Radio 4) to this particular side of the politician:

"Exceptional measures have been taken at Radio France in order not to awaken the Beast. Here are the measures, as detailed by the trade unions. I quote: 'In order to guarantee the safety of the personnel, female workers are asked to wear long, unrevealing and anti-sex clothes. High heels, leather pants and chic lingerie are banned. The head of information, who will greet DSK, will wear a burqa. Dark corners like the toilets, car park, some cupboards, have been momentarily closed off." He added: "But no panic. We have put bromide in his coffee ... and we have two cameras, the usual one on the table and a second under it.'."

Will DSK's reputation matter in the election? Do we, female voters, care about male politicians' sex lives? We all heard the stories in the news, and it is true that he might not be really popular among feminists. But the answer is no. As old-fashioned as it might seem, French voters tend to judge politicians according to their projects...We will have to keep an eye on him. But not in his bedroom."

Or, as another Guardianista put it a while ago, "Womaniser? He's just French".

Well, either the author has very bad timing, or ("puts on tinfoil hat") someone in Chateau Sarkozy has very good timing.

He was taken off an Air France flight by officers from the Port Authority of New York and turned over to Manhattan police, according to a spokesman from the agency. Plainclothes officers boarded the flight at 4.45pm, moments before take-off, and took the 62-year-old out of the first-class cabin and into custody. He had been due to meet German chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday. "It was 10 minutes before its scheduled departure," said John Kelly, a Port Authority spokesman.

Port Authority officers were acting on information from the New York Police Department, whose detectives had been investigating a brutal alleged attack on a woman employee at the Sofitel New York on West 44th Street in the heart of the city's theatre district. The 32-year-old woman told police that she entered Strauss-Kahn's room at about 1pm on Saturday and he emerged from the bedroom naked, threw her down and tried to sexually assault her (a/c/t this story he's alleged to have done more than try - not to mention this story - LT), NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said. She broke free and escaped the room and told hotel staff what had happened who called the police. When New York City police detectives arrived moments later, Strauss-Kahn had already left the hotel, leaving behind his mobile phone and other personal items. "It looked like he got out of there in a hurry," Browne added.

In the UK an extremely wealthy economist and lobbyist with a reputation as a sexual harasser wouldn't necessarily be top of the list when choosing a Labour leader (Labour leaders are supposed to lay the groundwork during office for self-enrichment after office) - but they do things differently in France, where Socialist leaders are quite happy to use the Security Services and tax authorities as private enforcers of their personal interests.

"Among other verifiable events, Hallier's telephone conversations were continually eavesdropped on by the Elysée palace from 1985 onward. He and any potential publisher were hounded by tax inspectors dispatched to instill the fear of "God" (Mitterrand's nickname) into them, his apartment burned, etc."

Those Damn Normans

Coming over here, slaughtering our nobles (who in their turn had slaughtered many Romano-British nobles), building their castles on our monastic cemeteries - and hanging onto their ill-gotten gains...

Telegraph :

"People with "Norman" surnames like Darcy and Mandeville are still wealthier than the general population 1,000 years after their descendants conquered Britain, according to a study into social progress. Drawing on data culled from official records that go back as far as the Domesday Book as well as university admissions and probate archives, Gregory Clark, a professor of economics at the University of California, has tracked what became of people whose surnames indicated their ancestors had come from either the aristocratic or artisanal classes. By studying the probate records of those with “rich” and “poor” surnames every decade since the 1850s, he found that the extreme differences in accumulated wealth narrowed over time. But the value of the estates left by those belonging to the “rich” surname group, immortalised in the character of Fitzwilliam Darcy, in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, were above the national average by at least 10 per cent. In addition, today the holders of "rich" surnames live three years longer than average. Life expectancy is a strong indicator of socio-economic status."

But not always :

"Throw up your chin a moment, so that I may catch the profile of your face better. Yes, that's the d'Urberville nose and chin—a little debased. Your ancestor was one of the twelve knights who assisted the Lord of Estremavilla in Normandy in his conquest of Glamorganshire. Branches of your family held manors over all this part of England; their names appear in the Pipe Rolls in the time of King Stephen. In the reign of King John one of them was rich enough to give a manor to the Knights Hospitallers; and in Edward the Second's time your forefather Brian was summoned to Westminster to attend the great Council there. You declined a little in Oliver Cromwell's time, but to no serious extent, and in Charles the Second's reign you were made Knights of the Royal Oak for your loyalty. Aye, there have been generations of Sir Johns among you, and if knighthood were hereditary, like a baronetcy, as it practically was in old times, when men were knighted from father to son, you would be Sir John now."

"Ye don't say so!"

"In short," concluded the parson, decisively smacking his leg with his switch, "there's hardly such another family in England."

"Daze my eyes, and isn't there?" said Durbeyfield. "And here have I been knocking about, year after year, from pillar to post, as if I was no more than the commonest feller in the parish…"

Well Strike A Light

Last week I speculated that Cameronian foreign policy had given us the worst of both worlds, alienating Gaddafi but not injuring him, and had doubts about Aussie blogger and balance-sheet whizz John Hempton's view that the French were determined to protect their oil interests :

"Now he's (Hempton - LT) making me think again. Could it be that Cameron and Sarkozy have a cunning plan ? It would run contrary to Cameron's current performance, but the past is not necessarily a guide to the future and I suppose it's just theoretically possible. I'd like it to be true, but I think I'm entering into the realms of fantasy, as Captain Mainwaring would say."

As Angela Merkel and the EU machinery, led by one Cathy Ashton, led a chorus of disapproval, and the great and good told us that Russia and China would veto the idea anyway, the whole thing seemed unlikely (in any sense) to get off the ground.

Blimey.

"Well, the prime minister went out on a limb with Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president. They were so isolated at last week's European Council in Brussels that an adviser to Cathy Ashton, the EU high representative for foreign affairs, said those in favour of military intervention were guilty of "headline grabbing desperation".

A week, as the old Harold Wilson cliché goes, is a long time in politics. And so six days after the German chancellor Angela Merkel blocked any mention of a no-fly zone from the EU summit communiqué, the UN has authorised one."

Well I never. It's a whole new ball game from here on in, with plenty of possibility for chaos and confusion even should Gaddafi now lose. He's capable of owt. The resolution permits "all necessary measures" to impose a no-fly zone, protect civilian areas and impose a ceasefire on Kadhafi's military. I'd have thought that could include strikes on his ground forces.

I don't think we'll be seeing similar action in Bahrain. And here's a handy map of Libya's oil infrastructure.

French Rioting Season Commences

"Youths" were (relatively) quiet in France last summer, although seasonal traditions such as the New Year car-burnings are still well-supported.

Every summer, like King Arthur's men at the feast of Pentecost, the youths await a sign - some strange portent or happening after the schools break up which means that the car-burning season may commence. That sign has now been given :

Karim Boudouda, 27, was one of two men believed to have held up a casino, escaping with more than 20,000 euros (£17,000). He was killed in a shoot-out with police following the robbery. Violence flared after his memorial service. Mr Boudouda, 27, had three previous convictions for armed robbery. The other suspect escaped and is still on the run.

And the season commences :

The incident begun in the early hours of Saturday morning when rampaging youths stoned a tramway and attacked it with baseball bats and iron bars. The gangs then set cars on fire and opened fire against officers. The officers returned fire.

Shooting at the police is fast becoming as integral a part of the season as a flambéed Renault :

Four young men found guilty of shooting at the police during riots on the outskirts of Paris in 2007 were jailed for between three and 15 years early Sunday. Defence lawyers denounced the sentences as “extremely harsh” and claimed that political considerations had influenced the cases.

Enfants de la Patrie (again) ?

I've written about this sort of thing before. Now even the Indie is noticing :

"No," he said. "I'm not watching the match. I never watch France play football. The team disgusts me because they are not really French."

What did he mean, I asked (although I knew exactly what he meant). My neighbour mumbled something about not liking the team because they didn't sing the Marseillaise before matches (something that has not been true for more than a decade). What he really meant was that there were too many non-white faces in the line-up (seven out of 11). I pointed out that every single France player in the now infamous main de Dieu World Cup qualifying team was born in France and mostly in Greater Paris. He looked embarrassed, made a "so what" hand gesture and walked away.

That same night thousands of young people from the poorer suburbs of Greater Paris poured on to the Champs Elysées to celebrate the fact that their country had qualified for the World Cup finals in South Africa next summer. These were French kids, born in France, but they were not celebrating France's morally-challenged victory over Ireland. They were celebrating – boisterously, and at times violently – Algeria's victory over Egypt in Algiers.

Guardian :

As the evening went on, more than 12,000 Algerians poured on to the Champs Elysées, which was closed to traffic as youngsters danced on the roofs of cars, chanting "One, two, three, Vive l'Algérie", and throwing fireworks into the dank November night. "I can't believe it," I was told by Samia, a 20-year-old student. "I've never seen anything like it. It's not just about football. It has to be about something else."

About midnight it became clearer what that something else might be. Armed police had by now gathered around the Arc de Triomphe, trying to break up the crowds. They were met with taunts, stones and fireworks. The party soon degenerated into a riot and the cries of "Vive l'Algérie" were replaced by the familiar battle cry of "Nique la police" (**** the police). The police responded with teargas and baton charges.

There were 60 arrests, and similar scenes in Lyon and Marseille. The violence carried on and by Friday morning the police reported that more than 200 cars had been burnt in the suburbs of Paris.

You have to remember that the same night France had cheated their way past Ireland to qualify. Yet the centre of Paris belonged to (violent) young French citizens who identified as Algerian.

Couldn't happen here, of course :

"You can cry now miserable Egyptians! We proudly defeated and humiliated you and we have now qualified for the worl cup 2010 in South Africa. You are the most hated people in the Arab world! Worse than jews."

Mr Indie - a chap called John Lichfield - seems to have been mugged by reality :

I have lived in France for almost 13 years. I adore France and I adore the French. I have to admit, however, that I have found the events of recent days – Sarko's crusade, Henry's handball, my neighbour's comments, the celebrations by French-born Algeria fans and the brutal response of the CRS – rather unsettling.

Eleven years ago, I was one of those who wrote admiringly of the Brown-White-Black France which won the World Cup. I, and many others, suggested that their victory might soften race relations in France; that other brown and black French kids might be encouraged to feel French; that white French kids would grow up with brown and black French heroes.

Since then, we have learned better.

Guardian ditto :

The sourness surrounding the Algerian victory seemed such a long way away from the famous "rainbow" French team of 1998 that beat Brazil in a glorious World Cup final at the Stade de France... This moment was hailed as the beginning of a new era in French cultural life. Eleven years later, that moment seems to belong to a very distant past. Indeed, the divisions in French society seemed to have hardened since then.

Laban doesn't think the lessons to be drawn are any different from last time :

So what, you may say. Why should we care about what happens in a far-away country of which we know little ?

Because their problems are ours. There's a terrible symmetry between the children and grandchildren of immigrants to France, much more radicalised, violent and discontented than their grandparents, and those to the UK.

French Rioting Season Starts

story

Some muddy boots from the curate's hall

OK, so we've known for ages that France's youth of North African heritage aren't integrating tebbily well.

More straws in the wind :

They are born in France and called Louis, Laurent or Marie but they want to become Abdel, Said or Rachida. Such requests from immigrants’ children for name changes are mounting in the French courts and worrying a state that lays store on melding a single national culture.

In a sign of a new assertiveness, children with families from Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco are reversing the old custom in which immigrants from the old colonies gave French names to their children.

Driven by a feeling that they do not belong to their Gallic Christian names, the applicants are meeting resistance from judges who are reluctant to endorse what they see as a rejection of France.

Under France’s strict administrative laws, an official change of first name requires court consent. Until 1992 parents could only register their babies with names from an approved list.

“The way I look is out of sync with my name,” said Jacques, 25, who wants to adopt a name from his parents’ native Algeria. He rejected the standard view that a French name overcomes the persisting reluctance of French employers to recruit nonwhite minorities.

“There is a double-take when I send a job application and then turn up for the interview. They hesitate, as if the person they have summoned could not be me,” he said.

There is abundant evidence that, despite antidiscrimination laws, French employers discriminate against job-seekers with foreign names. Nadine, who is in her forties, failed to convince a Paris court to let her go back to Zoubida, the name she had before naturalisation. “I want to return to my roots,” she told Judge Anne-Marie Lemarinier, according to Le Monde newspaper.

“My name change makes me feel guilt towards my family.” The judge replied: “Madame, I can understand that you want to identify with your community but the law does not have to bend to people’s moods.”

Frédéric Grilli, a Melun lawyer who acts for applicants, said that there was a connection between the desire to claim Maghebrin (North African) identity and France’s three-year-old ban against girls wearing Muslim headscarves in state schools.

Dominique Sopo, president of SOS Racism, a campaign group, said that France’s policy of integration was failing. “It rejects, stigmatises and consigns to the ghetto. This incites a retreat into community identity,” he told The Times.

“There is an enormous gap between political speeches on integration and the reality. But who can believe that changing a name can change something? It is sad to have got to that point.”

Another immigration scam. Damn clever these Chinese. You'd think such clever people could just read up to pass the 'citizenship tests', but no :

A criminal gang used elaborate James Bond-style spy gear to help Chinese immigrants cheat on citizenship tests. Two men have been jailed after using hi-tech hidden cameras, transmitters and surveillance gadgets to tell candidates sitting the exams the right answers. The Life in the UK test is the last step towards earning citizenship and those who pass are then entitled to apply for a British passport.

But there are fears unsuitable candidates may have earned the right to settle here thanks to a highly sophisticated scam to cheat the questions. Participants, who did not understand English, went in to a test centre in Wimbledon library, south west London, armed with a hidden shirt buttonhole camera, microphone and earpiece.

In a scam akin to a scene in a James Bond movie, two fraudsters sat outside in BMW car packed with hi-tech equipment and a laptop and directed them to tick the right answers via the secret link. When police first came across the pair they thought they were running a cashpoint fraud, skimming the cards of unsuspecting users. But it emerged they were helping Chinese nationals undertake the multiple choice immigration tests in the nearby building. Police fear the gang were earning thousands of pounds and a sophisticated network that could be spread across the UK.

In the Life in the UK test, applicants are asked a series of multiple choice questions about day to day life and traditions in the country. It is supposed to allow them to demonstrate they have a basic command of English and knowledge of the country they are hoping to settle in. But it has been open to abuse. Last year four men were quizzed over claims of a nationwide scam at a centre in South Yorkshire to help immigrants achieve British citizenship status.

In the latest case, Sergeant Dominic Washington, of Merton Borough police, said those behind the elaborate scam made thousands of pounds profit. He said: "When we first arrived at the scene it was very confusing as to what exactly was going on. However, working with colleagues from across the borough and the Met we believe that we have uncovered an established criminal enterprise that may be in operation in other parts of the country. We will now be educating colleagues about this type of crime, and hopefully its raised profile and extra vigilance from police will deter others from getting involved."

Steven Lee, 36, and Rong Yang, 28, of Redhill, Surrey, were jailed for eight months at Kingston Crown court earlier this week after they were found guilty of facilitating a breach of immigration law. Two Chinese men who took the test, Ka Hung Pang, 52, of Horsham, and En Zhuang, 38, of Deptford High Street, were sentenced to 180 hours community work for deception.

Remember the new phenomenon (strangely prevalent in certain towns) of 'cash for crash" fraudsters ? The guys who brake sharply in front of you, supply witnesses to the accident, and who all turn out to have been injured in the bump ?

It looks as if a toxic mix of cash-for-crashers and ambulance-chasing persoanl injury solicitors (those "if you've been involved in an accident - and it wasn't your fault - call us" adverts in local radio and Classic FM), plus the happy fact that whiplash injuries are self-reported, is spurring a boom in personal injury claims for whiplash.

Over 430,000 people claimed for whiplash in 2007, up by a quarter in the last five years. These claims cost nearly £2 billion a year in compensation.

Treating whiplash injuries now costs the NHS approximately £8 million a year in consultation fees.

The UK is the whiplash capital of Europe: 75% of motor personal injury claims are for whiplash, compared to an average of 40% throughout the rest of Europe.

Many drivers and passengers are at risk: 75% of drivers are unaware how head restraints should be correctly positioned.

They have to say that last bit. After all, some of these claims might even be kosher. The ABI report (pdf) reflects this ambivalence - outrage at the ripoff tempered by the knowledge that you can't start calling all the punters crooks. There's lots of stuff in it about getting the headrest set up properly. But the key bits are :

"Over 432,000 people make a whiplash claim every year – equivalent to one in every 140 people in the UK. This is six times more than the total number of people who make workplace injury claims every year. And the problem is getting worse – the number of people with cause to make a whiplash claim has increased by 25% over the last five years, so it is no surprise that whiplash now leads to nearly £2bn per year in compensation payments – accounting for 20% of the typical car insurance premium."

That means my family's stumping up about £200 pa in whiplash claims. Admittedly our premiums are high because our eldest is a driver.

At the same time that whiplash claims are rising, the Government’s road casualty statistics suggest that our roads are getting safer ... We must also consider why, though, we seem to have such a greater tendency to get whiplash than the rest of Europe. Do we really have weaker necks? Part of the answer must lie in our failing personal injury compensation system and our no-questions-asked approach to whiplash ... it is important that it is not always assumed that everyone in a car collision is likely to get whiplash, and that GPs take this into account in their more rigorous approach to handing out sick notes.

Translation - "these ******** are ripping us off - or more precisely, ripping the non-claiming motorist off - after all, we just raise the premiums. The personal injury firms and the 'injured' are conning us - and the GPs are turning a blind eye"

This increase in whiplash claims contrasts with the Government’s road casualty statistics, which indicate that the number of ‘slight’ injuries from road traffic collisions is falling ... Whiplash claims form a much higher proportion of personal injury claims in the UK than elsewhere in the EU.

Translation - "therefore it's likely that most of the claims are fraudulent"

"The diagnosis of whiplash injuries is dependant on self-reported symptoms .."

Translation - "So if you say your neck hurts you'll get the money ... the solicitors are coaching the claimants - not that they need much encouragement .."

The current level of legal costs is completely disproportionate. For every £1 paid by insurers in personal injury compensation, an additional 88p is paid to claimant representatives in motor claims under £5000. The majority of whiplash claims fall in this bracket;

It (the current system - LT) encourages the practice of solicitors paying for details of those involved in road collisions. Once the solicitor has paid a ‘referral’ fee to organisations that collect such information, the solicitor has a vested interest in ensuring a claim materialises.

Translation - "Like a large number of claimants, the solicitors are crooks who are in it for the money. They're making nearly as much as the claimants"

Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB) estimates that those detected fraudulent claims based on ‘staged’ accidents represent 5% of whiplash claims, costing the insurance industry between £75 - £110 million per annum.

So the 'cash-for-crash' industry is a £100 million pa industry. And we're paying them through our premiums.

In addition there are opportunistic fraudulent claims, which are less easily detected and therefore difficult to measure.

If whiplash is diagnosed on self-reported symptoms, once word gets round you're dependent on the general level of honesty in a society. Oh dear.

Enfants de la Patrie ?

I see that the French National Anthem has been dissed yet again by young Frenchmen of Tunisian heritage at a home soccer international - despite the singer (Grace Jones' little sister in a hoodie) being as street and multiculti as one could wish for.

It follows the dissing of the French National Anthem by young Frenchmen of Moroccan heritage at a home soccer international.

Not to mention the dissing of the French National Anthem by young Frenchmen of Algerian heritage at a home soccer international - such patriots that they invaded the pitch and stopped the game when France went 4-1 up.

There seems to be a problem here. Any native Froggie saying "these guys aren't Frenchmen" would be rightfully denounced by one and all as a hideous racist. Trouble is, the guys whistling the anthem would agree with him.

I don't know. It's not as if the French football team doesn't reflect the faces you see on the streets of Paris (if not of Sourdeval). After the 1998 World Cup they were hailed by the usual suspects as the fair face of multicultural France.

Reading the comments there seem to be a fair few people saying 'you deserve it for massacring x thousand people in 19nn'. I don't know much about France's colonial wars, except that the Algerian one was exceedingly dirty and unpleasant, apparently including torturing to death and dumping in the Seine (plenty of torturing to death on the Algerian side, too). Nonetheless, if there was so much resentment, maybe it was unwise of previous French governments to move so many resentful chaps across the tideless ditch.

Except that ... these aren't (mostly) the chaps who moved. They're the children and grandchildren. The chaps who moved were generally OK. But the interaction of unease, welfare, an increasing cultural vacuum (though not on our scale) and post-colonial guilt have bred people who hate and despise the country they live in.

Sarkozy responded angrily, saying that games would be stopped at once if it happened again. But they're already having second thoughts, having perhaps considered what would happen if they released 50,000 peace-loving and disappointed soccer fans onto the Paris streets without having first got the CRS into position.

Making threats that you can't back up generally doesn't intimidate, but emboldens an opponent.

So what, you may say. Why should we care about what happens in a far-away country of which we know little ?

Because their problems are ours. There's a terrible symmetry between the children and grandchildren of immigrants to France, much more radicalised, violent and discontented than their grandparents, and those to the UK. One can never be sure, but if there were national anthems at cricket matches is it not likely we'd see the same thing at England v Pakistan ?

Born In The Wrong Time

When Nicolas Sarkozy announced that one of his first reforms would be to remove the restrictions on Sunday trading which make a French Sunday so much like an English Sunday 50 - or even 30 years back, I thought that his government was going to follow in Margaret Thatcher's footsteps, liberalising and deregulating. Note that I do not necessarily think either of these are necessarily good in themselves. The Thatcher years were when our modern culture - or lack of - entrenched itself, and while this was by no means all her fault, the toxic synergy between her determination to win the economic war and her total defeat in the cultural war produced pretty much the British social landscape we see today. I'd hate to see France go the same way.

Another of Mrs Thatcher's reforms liberalised credit and started a thirty-year house price inflation, which has left us in a situation where someone on average earnings often can't afford to buy a house at all. Younger readers (are there any ?) may find this hard to believe, but before Mrs T, to get a mortgage from any financial institution you had to have been saving with them for several years, you needed at least 10% of the value, and the mortgage was restricted to, at the very most, three and a half times earnings. One person's earnings. The process was, fiscally and morally, conservative.

If this is true, the crash has intervened to save Sarkozy from producing his very own French version of the sub-prime mortgage debacle.

Sarkozy, 2007 :

"French households today have fewer debts than any other nation of Europe. Now, an economy that does not have sufficient debts is an economy that does not believe in the future, that has doubts about its abilities, that is afraid of tomorrow. For this reason I hope to develop mortgage credits for families and to ensure that the State intervenes to guarantee access to credit for sick people. I propose that those whose salaries are modest be permitted to guarantee their loan through the value of their home.

We must reform mortgage credits. If mortgages were easier to obtain, banks would focus less on the ability of the person to pay back his loan and more on the value of the property mortgaged. This would benefit directly all those whose revenues fluctuate, such as temporary employees and a great number of independent workers."

As Anne Kling, the source for this story, puts it :

"Voilà l’exacte description du processus qui a conduit nos chers amis américains au fond du gouffre financier" - which I loosely translate as "that's exactly how the Septics ended up in the merde".

I wonder what other toxic ideas are whirling round the Sarkozy cranium ? Can't he just stick to, in the immortal words of Jackie Ashley, trotting beside his delightful wife "with the dazed-codfish expression of a man who's just swallowed a suitcase of happy pills" ?


(via)

A Couple of Daisies From The Curate's Lawn

Peter Hitchens said in "The Abolition of Britain" that "Britain is the only virgin in a continent of rape victims".

'Twas Bastille Day on Monday, and the troops of the Republic paraded in front of the presidents of Syria, Palestine and Egypt.

Also that day a colleague returned from his holiday in the Vendee - the pretty bit of France just below Brittany, and site of the first truly modern massacres - a blueprint for future genocides.

When the Catholic people of the Vendee rose against the anti-clerical French Revolution, a policy of extermination was decided on by the young Republic - and ruthlessly carried out. Perhaps half the population were killed.

The French general Francois Joseph Westermann penned a letter to the Committee of Public Safety stating “There is no more Vendée. It died with its wives and its children by our free sabres. I have just buried it in the woods and the swamps of Savenay. According to the orders that you gave me, I crushed the children under the feet of the horses, massacred the women who, at least for these, will not give birth to any more brigands. I do not have a prisoner to reproach me. I have exterminated all. The roads are sown with corpses. At Savenay, brigands are arriving all the time claiming to surrender, and we are shooting them non-stop... Mercy is not a revolutionary sentiment."

"Mercy is not a revolutionary sentiment". We were to hear those words a few more times in the next couple of hundred years.

"Not one is to be left alive." "Women are reproductive furrows who must be ploughed under." "Only wolves must be left to roam that land." "Fire, blood, death are needed to preserve liberty." "Their instruments of fanaticism and superstition must be smashed." These were some of the words the Convention used in speaking of Vendee. Their tame scientists dreamed up all kinds of new ideas - the poisoning of flour and alcohol and water supplies, the setting up of a tannery in Angers which would specialise in the treatment of human skins; the investigation of methods of burning large numbers of people in large ovens, so their fat could be rendered down efficiently. One of the Republican generals, Carrier, was scornful of such research: these 'modern' methods would take too long. Better to use more time-honoured methods of massacre: the mass drownings of naked men, women, and children, often tied together in what he called "republican marriages", off specially constructed boats towed out to the middle of the Loire and then sunk; the mass bayoneting of men, women and children; the smashing of babies' heads against walls; the slaughter of prisoners using cannons; the most grisly and disgusting tortures; the burning and pillaging of villages, towns and churches.

They really were modern men and women, those revolutionaries.

Back in the UK, some confusion in Guardianista land. Is, as Poll Pot asserts, everything getting better and better, thanks to those dedicated social workers ? Or, as Jeremy Seabrook would have it, is everything getting worse and worse - thanks to the evil forces of capital ? We'll let you be the judge.

Dalrymple. What is Poverty? is an old piece, but completely relevant to the debate.

She Knows Whereof She Speaks ?

Guardianista Jackie Ashley (Mrs Andrew Marr) gets the claws out in a somewhat tasteless Grauniad piece. Apologies for what follows :

There has, however, been one female political heroine of the past few days. I refer, of course, to Carla Bruni, now Mrs Sarkozy, who has had the British media lying on their backs drooling, gurgling with delight and with a certain suspicious bulge in their collective trousers. Yup, agreed, she's quite a girl ...

She has it all: the smile that manages to be both demure and debauched, the perfectly judged Parisian dress sense, the Audrey Hepburn-esque tilt of the head. No Hollywood blockbuster could cast such a perfect adult-fairytale princess as Carla. My grouch isn't with her. I do think that Nicolas Sarkozy looks just a trifle silly trotting alongside her with the dazed-codfish expression of a man who's just swallowed a suitcase of happy pills; but Carla is only exercising a power that has been familiar since the dawn of time. No, it's that the adulation was so unrestrained ..

Hmmm. I recall spotting this in the Times Court and Social column the other day :

The President of the French Republic and Madame Nicolas Sarkozy arrived at Windsor Castle today on a State Visit to The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh ...
The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh gave a State Banquet at Windsor Castle this evening in honour of The President of the French Republic and Madame Nicolas Sarkozy ... The following had the honour of being invited :

... Professor and Mrs Mervyn King, Mr Andrew Marr and the Hon Jacqueline Ashley ...

So the Hon Jacqueline Ashley was in pole position when it came to the trouser and adulation monitoring. The trouble is, significant other Andrew Marr has previous when it comes to trouser control, Guido Fawkes reporting that he fathered a child a few years back with Times journalist and Felicity Kendal lookalike (from some angles anyway) Alice Miles.

Her writing seems straight from the heart in those few paragraphs. Gone is the usual nuLab feminist boilerplate. You can't but wonder if she knows whereof she speaks. Did Andrew Marr get a spoon over the knuckles and a whispered instruction to get his tongue off the table and put his eyealls back in ?

"Youths"

Those mysterious French youths are at it again.

As this french lefty site reports :

"... youths vandalised a bakery in a northerly Île de la France region centred on Paris and subsequently attacked the police who responded with lead bullets and molatov cocktails ..."

Tragically it wasn't the police responding with lead bullets, it was the "youth" attacking the police with "lead bullets" - shotguns to be exact.

I must remember this useful line - it's better then the traditional "it's awful, but ..."

The violence should indeed be denounced, but the sentiment... not at all.

Is it possible that this site is a comedy site ? Probably just bad English, but what can you make of :

"Both Successive Socialist and right wing governments have neglected this problem of social deprivation and should be lauded for their behaviour."

French Rioting Season Opens

A little late this year, the traditional autumn riots are upon us. The rioters being the usual suspects.

And We're Off !

May 7, 2007 - 7:15AM

Riot police fired tear gas at stone-throwing protesters gathered in central Paris today to demonstrate against the presidential election victory of right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy, an AFP journalist said. The clashes took place on the Place de la Bastille where about 5,000 supporters of the defeated Socialist candidate Segolene Royal had gone to await the election results. Up to 300 rioters, some of whom were masked, made running attacks on riot police who took up positions at the entrance to boulevards leading onto the square. Earlier a small crowd of protesters, brandishing black and red anarchist flags, set fire to an effigy of Sarkozy in the square before tearing it limb from limb and then stamping on it.

Be fair though - these are traditional French Leftist rioters (the kind who say the Right are 'full of hate'), not 'racaille'. I imagine a lot of police will be on duty tonight.



UPDATE - strange. The graphic (from Le Monde) seems to show Sarkozy as winner in the industrial North - which I'm sure the Guardian describes as the socialist heartland - and the east, while Royal seems to be ahead in ... well, the touristy, less vibrant bits - Brittany, Bordeaux, the Southwest.

Have I got the reactions correct ? (O-level French)

Mme Royal appelle à "continuer ensemble"

The lovely Sego said she will continue to wear the same outfits.

François Bayrou et l'UDF félicitent Nicolas Sarkozy

Bayrou and UDF congratulate Sarkozy.

Jean-Marie Le Pen : "les électeurs auront le président qu'ils méritent"

Le Pen : 'You'll get the President you deserve !"