All swell that tell swell.

And you thought free speech was dead in Britain.

The Guardian, February 13:

When I found out that Geert Wilders was planning to come to Britain and that Baroness Cox and Lord Pearson wanted to show his film, I wrote to the Home Office, the leader of the House of Lords and Black Rod to say that his presence would lead to the incitement of religious and racial hatred, which constitutes a public order offence.

Lord Nazir Ahmed, http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/024846.php

Here's the good news for all you who had little faith:

From The Guardian, April 24, 2004:

Mr Le Pen is to be the BNP's guest of honour at a fundraising dinner in the West Midlands, where he will address a gathering of Britain's far right for the first time in more than a decade.

The details of his visit have been closely guarded in an attempt to prevent anti-racism protesters disrupting the event. But the Guardian has learned that the £50-a-head dinner is scheduled to take place tomorrow evening in Oswestry.

Earlier this week George Galloway, MP for Glasgow Kelvin, called on the government to stop Mr Le Pen entering Britain. But the home secretary said yesterday that Mr Le Pen was a French national and was therefore entitled to travel. "He is a European citizen, he has the right to travel around Europe."

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/024840.php

It's all right as rain. See? A vicious racist can get into Britain to talk to vicious racists. What's the problem?

Nazir Ahmed, Baron Ahmed (born 1958)is a Labour member of the House of Lords, having become the United Kingdom's first Muslim life peer in 1998. Many of his political activities relate to the Islamic community both in the UK and abroad, and he has often attracted controversy. In December 2007, he was involved in a fatal road crash, and in December 2008 pleaded guilty to a charge of dangerous driving, which carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison. On the 11th of February Melanie Phillips (columnist) claimed that Lord Ahmed had threatened to "bring a force of 10,000 Muslims to lay siege to the Lords if Wilders was allowed to speak"[1] . This claim was later denied by Lord Ahmed. [2]

[....]

On 19 June 2007 Lord Ahmed criticised the honouring of Salman Rushdie with a knighthood because of what Lord Ahmed saw as Rushdie's offensiveness to Islam.[12] He was reported to have said, "It's hypocrisy by Tony Blair who two weeks ago was talking about building bridges to mainstream Muslims, and then he's honouring a man who has insulted the British public and been divisive in community relations."[13] "This man not only provoked violence around the world because of his writings, but there were many people who were killed around the world. Forgiving and forgetting is one thing, but honouring the man who has blood on his hands, sort of, because of what he did, I think is going a bit too far." He also said on BBC Radio 4's PM programme that he had been appalled by the award to a man he accused of having 'blood on his hands'.[14][12]

[....]

On 25 December 2007, Lord Ahmed was injured in a crash on the M1 motorway near Rotherham in which Martin Gombar, 28, was killed. ...

On 1 December 2008, Lord Ahmed appeared at Sheffield Magistrates' Court in connection with a charge of dangerous driving. Lord Ahmed admitted sending and receiving five text messages on his phone while driving shortly before the crash, and pleaded guilty to the charge before him. He was banned from driving until his sentencing. On 22 December, Sheffield Magistrates' Court referred the case for sentencing at the crown court on 19 January due to its "aggravating features".[21] This was later put back until 25 February.[22] Lord Ahmed faces a maximum of two years in jail.[23]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baron_Ahmed

Melanie Phillips doesn't think highly of him. Go figure. She can still write books though. But Londonistan, that she can't find a publisher for in Britain.

French election vote breakdown

There was much uncertainty during the lead-up to today's presidential election in France; one could even be forgiven for indulging in a measured amount of optimism... was France waking up, shedding its flirtation with nihilist socialism?
Then this morning came the voting results to torpedo such positive daydreams. Reality is that France is in a lot of trouble.

The official website for France's Minister of the Interior lists the entire voting breakdown, candidate by candidate, department by department. Here is some overall voting data:

On the left:

Ségolène Royal, PS ("Parti Socialiste", Socialist Party): 9,402,797 (25.83%)
Oliver Besancenot, LCR ("Ligue communiste révolutionnaire", Revolutionary Communist League): 1, 494,446 (4.11%)
Marie-George Buffet, PCF ("Parti Communiste Francaise", French Communist Party): 705 487 (1.94%)
Dominique Voynet, "Les Verts" (Green Party): 570 240 (1.57%)
Arlette Laguiller, LO ("Lutte ouvrière", Worker's Struggle): 486 495 (1.34%)
José Bové: 479,125 (1.32%)
Gérard Schivardi, PT ("Parti des Travailleurs", Worker's Party): 123 305 (0.34%)

Out of the total 36 395 644 votes cast, left-leaning candidates totals come to 13,261,895, or 36.45% of the total vote.

On the right:

Nicolas Sarkozy, UMP ("Union pour un mouvement populaire", Union for a popular movement): 11 323 599 (31.11%)
Jean-Marie Le Pen, FN ("Front National", National Front): 3,824,258 (10.51%)
Philippe de Villiers, MPF ("Mouvement Pour La France", Movement for France): 815,789 (2.24%)
Frédéric Nihous, CPNT ("Chasse-Pêche-Nature-Traditions", Hunting-Fishing-Nature-Traditions): 420,097 (1.15%) (sounds libertarian, so I'm including them with the right-wing party totals until I'm advised otherwise)

Out of the total 36 395 644 votes cast, France's equivalent of conservative candidacies received 16,383,743 votes, or 45.01% of the total vote.

Now, I've left one candidate out of these calculations: the "third man" (you'd think that was his Party name, as the French media refer to this expression so frequently when citing him), François Bayrou, candidate for the UDF ("l'Union pour la démocratie française", Union for french democracy). Considered a "centrist" candidate, his platform seemed to lean much more to the left than the right. With a final tally of 6,750,006 votes, his supporters could swing the election in the second round. His 18.55% block is up for grabs, since Bayrou, in his consession speech, failed to recommend either Sarkozy or Royal.
Listening to the various consession speeches this morning streaming over the net, there seemed a common theme within each respective side of the political spectrum. Neither Le Pen or de Villiers made recommendations for their conservative supporters to vote for Sarkozy in the second round. Meanwhile the leftist candidates tended to be more strategic in their consession speeches, urging voters to choose Royal "with no illusions", but out of desperation to beat the "right".
I think it's a safe bet that the next election will probably not see another 84.6% turnout rate, as France's right of center voters may not feel there is sufficient difference between the remaining candidacies of Sarkozy and Royal. Still, while not the best of choices, there's still difference enough between the likely success of each candidate's taking the helm of the ship of state.
Let's hope that the center-right can accept Sarkozy as the lesser of two evils, and return to the polls in sufficient strength to save France from perpetual civil unrest, rapid economic decline, and Segolene Royal.

Claude Reichman's latest article on the French Presidential elections

Claude Reichman, spokesperson for the Blue Revolution, the French movement dedicated to promoting economic and social reform in France, has a new article out on the current French presidential elections. He addresses the urgent need for significant reforms in their system, and surveys the likelyhood for their implementation following the election.
[translated by myself; clarifications or corrections welcome]

Presidential elections: a marionnettes show

The four principal candidates for the presidential election are partisans of rupture. None announce themselves as part of a continuity. None dare post a track record. And why! Of the four, only Jean-Marie Le Pen at least has coherence going for him. In the case of rupture, he has been lauding it since the creation of the Front National, over thirty-five years ago. Yet for a track record, he doesn’t have one, since he’s never been in power. But the others!

M. Sarkozy is the heir of RPR["Rassemblement pour la République"], of whom its glorious jewel, Jacques Chirac, has vigorously massacred France’s chances throughout his forty years of political life. Mme Royal is the heir to the socialist party, of whom their glorious jewel, François Mitterrand, plunged France into the chaos of deficits, debt, economic collapse, uncontrolled immagration and moral perversion since that party was created thirty six years ago and their first party leader became president of the Republic twenty six years ago. As for M. Bayrou, he is the heir of Union for french democracy [UDF, "Union pour la Démocratie Française"], created thirty three years ago for supporting the actions of its glorious jewel, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who, in order to guard our nation against socialism, judged it prudent to hurry towards it, just like the fool who throws himself into water in order not to get wet.

Therefore, each being the inheritors, whether they want it or not, of disastrous track records, M. Sarkozy, Mme Royal and M. Bayrou ask us to believe they are capable of a rupture that nothing in their pasts has made the least bit predicted. At least if they had a program! But no, nothing. Roaring words but empty of sense, unrealizable promises without any actual break with the economic, fiscal and social system that strangles France for the last third of a century, in short, just hot air. And it seems that the presidential campaign enthralls the French. Have we become this people without memory that Tocqueville had once perceived when he said that "in a democracy, each generation is a new nation"? It truly seems so.

Yet [,consider this]. There is conscious memory, and there is that which, huddled up within the deepest depths of the cortex, shelters remembrances both sorrowful and grandiose, the craziest of hopes and the most ancestral of fears, the unappeased desires and the most violent impulses. And it is this memory that waits to deliver its terrible exhalations, just as it always had in previous centuries when the nation was in danger.
Therefore, our candidates for the presidential election are but marionnettes in a scenario that overtakes them. When the great breath of history blows over our country, from the inmost depths of the people must rise a man or woman in whom France may recognize itself and to whom France will confide its destinies. For a limited time only, of course; for the rule demands this time once more that the savior is to be dismissed as soon as their mission is fulfilled, so that the people may once again danse a jig of regained happiness and unconcerned joy.

What can you do, happy people have no history. It is true everywhere, even in a nation with a history such as ours, at the same time glorious and tragic, and who primes itself to invest itself with new dramas that their leaders, unconsciously, have so well prepared for them.

Glory, therefore, to the next elected leader of the nation. If they knew what was in store for them, they would flee as fast as their legs could take them. Yet our political class, because they have appropriated for themselves the monopoly of popular representation and have therefore sheltered themselves from every true sanction, for such a long time now, can no longer even know that actions have consequences. A few decades ago, there was a theatrical play that became very successful. It was called "La facture" ["The bill"]. It seems that, together, we are prepared to reenact it. And this time no one will find it funny.

[The play Mr. Reichman refers to is a comedy about a woman that everybody likes, so well in fact that she fears the day she feels she will receive "the bill" for her good fortune.]

French mayor whores his vote to the highest bidder

Candidate: Would you vote for me if I gave you a million dollars?
Mayor: Sure!
Candidate: Would you vote for me for twenty bucks?
Mayor: Hey, what kind of a public official do you think I am?

All of France now knows what French Mayor André Garrec is; they're just haggling over his price.

First, some background to this story. You need to know a curious fact about the French Presidential election system, and I turn to one of my favorite blogs, French Election 2007, for this concise summary:

In order for a candidate to be on the ballot, they must have received the support /signatures of 500 elected officials around France. There is of course a finite number of elected officials in France, but this still allows for the potential of dozens of candidates in the first round of voting.

A handful of would-be French candidates, such as the high-profile campaign of controversial firebrand Jean Marie Le Pen, have been unable, at this date, to secure their required number of 500 signatures. While I'm certainly not going to lose any sleep if that piece of... ahem, if that candidate fails to obtain his required 500 sponsorships, there are some other candidates definitely worthy of support, for instance our preferred choice, Phillipe De Villiers (who, as far as I know, still needs the coveted 500 names himself!)

Now we can introduce you to His Honor, André Garrec, mayor of the small Normandy village of Noron-la-Poterie (population: approx 300), and his justification for turning tricks in order to participate in his country's process for determining which fellow French citizen will emerge with the stewardship of their nation. Courtesy of French news magazine, Liberation: [my translation from the original french]

In face of the difficulty for several candidates to obtain the 500 precious signatures, the mayor of a Normandie village has found a [profitable?] scheme:
he will grant his to the highest bidder.
…
[Mayor André Garrec] explains his approach: in order to put an end to the solicitations from representatives of dozens of candidates, he decided that “until the 14th of March”, that is two days before the deadline for handing in sponsorships, he will grant his signature [his patronage] “to the highest bidder”. The mayor has specified that he is not doing it “for myself personally, but for three [charities? “associations”, in the original French] and for the school” in his community.
“If I get a check from a candidate, it will be shared equitably.” Garrec has not discussed the legality of his initiative which he must have taken on his own, but must nevertheless feel that it is approved by the majority of his constituents.
….

One constituent, in particular, is quite vocal in his support for the mayor's absence of principles. From a news story in yesterday's french news site 20minutes.fr, "I am putting my conscience aside": [my translation]

[The mayor's] project is supported by the mayoral deputies contacted by 20minutes.fr. “He is right [to do this]", says Guy Richet, 2nd deputy who leans socialist. “The candidates make us all puke and badger us with their letters. Obviously, they have a lot of cash to waste. As for us, we want to get some of it!”

[I'm up for debate as to whether Mr. Richet's french expletive, "...nous font tellement chier..." is accurately translated as "..really make us all puke"]

Today there were some new developments on this story, again courtesy of the news site 20minutes.fr .... someone has put in a bid for the mayor's, er, services: [my translation from the original french]

[Garrec] has confirmed to 20minutes.fr that he has received a financial offer from a member of the Front National to sponsor Jean-Marie Le Pen. FN’s European deputy Ferdinand Le Rachinel visited the mayor’s home and offered him “in friendly payment” four cheques for 250 euros each, towards three charities in the community and the kindergarten school. The checks would be in the name of “Mr and Mrs Le Rachinel” and not in the name of the FN.
…
André Garrec, who has not yet received any other offers from other candidates, said he would wait for the “end of the auction” on March 14 before he would give his sponsorship. If no other candidate outbids him, the mayor will grant his signature to Jean-Marie Le Pen “without any remorse”.

So it seems that, barring any last minute campaign spending, the good mayor of Noron-la-Poterie, hizzonor Garrec, will have secured the equivalent of $1,550 Canadian dollars worth of charity for his little community's children and dispossesed. What if some lunatic candidate ends up winning the election, what would then befall his nation? Well, if the mayor's got his wad of cash, today, why would he care what happens to the rest of his fellow countrymen, tomorrow; he's adamantly just looking out for his own. Besides tomorrow is such a long way away.

What if the candidate who ends up becoming France's next President, causes such unprecedented trouble for France, that every single blessed citizen of Noron-la-Poterie in favor of their mayor's act of prostitution are thrown out of work and onto the dole so prized by his honor Mr. Garrec... What then? Any remorse then?

If his little hamlet is so hard up for financial aid, forcing the mayor to shop his wares at the national street corner, maybe he and his constituents could spare a thought as to WHY their condition is so desperate, and see which candidate might come closest to steering things right.

France is dying because far too many of its citizens live, like Mayor Garrec, without remorse. May Canada learn from France's mistakes.

Le Pen speaks about Christianity, islam... and Dresden

Firebrand French presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen was interviewed by the Christian publication La Croix this week, and reveals himself as somewhat equivocal about islam... and, it seems, nazis. [translations by myself]

...Le Pen states that “religions fill an irreplaceable role because they bring an element of stability to society"... “the decline of religious practice reinforces today a latent materialism, which no doubt explains the decadence of social behavior.”

Questioned on the trial of the mohammed caricatures published in Charlie Hebdo magazine, ... m. Le Pen suggests that “without a doubt, islam shows itself more reactive than the Christian religion does when it is mocked or maligned.”

“The islamic world seems more dreaded than is the Christian world. It is true that the islamic religion obeys a precept of conquest, which is no longer the case of the Christian religion”, he says.

He says also that “the dynamism of islam results less from its proselytizing than from demographic pressures. It naturally borrows the religious channel since this benefits from a certain complaisance or indulgence.”

“In any event, in France, the demands made for mosques are born from the considerable increase in the number of muslim immigrants, who are today approximately six million, it is said. Islam is dangerous when it is dominant”, he added.

The French christian blog Le Salon Beige highlights some further quotes from the same interview:

“[Islam] in its essence [has an] immense difficulty in separating [church and state]… secularism is the means to make common law respected by all religions… [While] some bend naturally, it is not the case with islam, which will no doubt need to be recalled to order.”

[Meanwhile Yahoo France selects Le Pen's answer to a question on the Sept 11 attacks for its lead: "Le Pen minimizes the Sept 11 attacks" ]

“3,000 deaths, that is as many as a month in Iraq” and “it is much less than the bombings of Marseille or of Dresden at the end of the Second World War.”
He suggests that these bombings “also were terrorist acts since they explicitly targeted civilian populations in order to make the military surrender.”

So the terror attacks on 9-11 are like the bombing of Dresden? What kind of ally will France remain for North America should we find this kind of relativism within its president?

From the interview I sense that Le Pen can clearly see the dangers of radical islam, but does not see them as present dangers. He seems to be saying that if things get out of hand we'll take care of the problem then... nothing that can't be solved. I shudder to think: what kind of "solution" could we expect from someone who sees the objective of liberating Europe from its Nazi death grip as of equal value as knocking over New York's World Trade Center?

A few months ago, Claude Reichman described the gloomy scenario that such extremist solutions are likely to lead to:

The real danger that France is courting is not the clash on the near horizon, but the state in which she will find herself when she gets out of it.
Our nation might just as well sink into a terrible civil war as give herself a new public-approved ruling class which will heave it outside the sinkhole it has fallen into.