Attention Canadian seal hunters

[To protect your European markets from the slanders of "animal rights" activists, like Brigitte Bardot, maybe what you need to do is train and send some appropriate immigrants to France.]

...No one should be beyond the law, not even a national celebrity and symbol of sacred beauty. On the other hand, when the law, in order to appease offended ears, starts trying to throw its present or former beauties in jail, for merely defending, in words, a vision of the sacred, it could be a sign of national suicide:

A Paris prosecutor on Tuesday called for former French actress Brigitte Bardot to pay a 15,000-euro (23,000-dollar) fine and be given a suspended two-month prison sentence, for inciting hatred against Muslims.

In December 2006, the former sex symbol wrote a letter to France's then interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, claiming Muslims should make animals dizzy before sacrificing them at the Aid al-Kabir holiday.

She outraged French anti-racist groups by saying "I've had enough. These people have been dragging us by our noses, destroying us and our country by imposing their ways".

Bardot, now 73 and suffering from arthritis, was absent from Tuesday's court hearing. Instead she wrote to the court saying, "I'm sickened by how these organisations are harassing me."

She added: "I will not shut up as long as no blackouts are carried out" on animals before they are ritually killed.

Bardot, who has been an animal rights activist for 20 years, has a string of similar convictions. In 2004 a Paris court fined her 5,000 euros for inciting racial hatred in her book "Un Cri Dans le Silence" (A Cry in the Silence).

The court is due to announce its decision on June 3.

I heard yesterday that the French are also making it illegal for the fashion industry to use overly skinny models, in an attempt to curb anorexia and bulimia.