Riots in France

You see, my dearest Lord, it's actually Finn's thread - and if he wants to talk about ... whatever ... here, I've no problems.

It's an quite aside, I think: two - historically incorrect - matters derive from the German participation at the so-called Boxer Rebellion: Germans to the front and the derogatory nickname Huns.

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

Now the French president has nine days to promulgate the law. He can also ask to the Parliament for the second consideration, in application of the article 10 of the Constitution.

Any bets on what he will do? Does he have the power to veto the law? I suspect returning it to parliament for a seconfd consideration would, in effect, kill it.

I hope Chirac sticks to his guns and promulgates the law. To do otherwise would compound the injury to France. An idiotic labor regulation which itself causes unemployment, among the young particularly, would be preserved, and the government would worsen the situation by capitulating to a mob and self-serving labor unions on an issue that is central to France's economic and social future.

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georgeob1 wrote:

Walter is indeed very polite, but he knows how to make his points despite it. But he was more restrained than you - as you said. I just don't think the offense was so great. (Equivalent things said about my country here are so frequent as to go unnoticed.) We all have arsehole tendencies that show themselves occasionally. I think there were several sources of flatulence in the elevator.

I say this with no malice at all towards either you or walter. I consider you both to be friends.

I personally think that a) the offense was so great and that b) it was totally uncalled for. Sure, in the course of a discussion it happens then and again that certain countries portrayed in a less than favorable light. I guess we all do it, every now and then.

But saying, like Finn did, "Well, I can call you this, or this, or that [insert number of derogatory terms], because it's historically correct" is just waaaaay beyond that. Would you find it okay if somebody said "Well, I can call you Nigger, because you people have been called that before!"? For me, that's basically the same level, and I have to say that I found it more than slightly insulting.

I appreciate LE's efforts to stick up for Walter very much. No quarrel with you, George, because you show that people can disagree almost all the time without insulting each other - I enjoy discussions with you a lot.

But Finn - nah.

IMO, an apology would be in order.

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Lord Ellpus wrote:

Just wanted to stick up for Walter, who was working hard on this thread and was mugged by a pillock.

Walter 1 Pillock 0.

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This will put Chirac into a difficult situation.

He is very unpopular with the majority of people, so passing this law will only increase their hatred of him.

He will, I predict, put on his noble face and pass the hot potato back to be revised, stating that the people deserve a better deal (or words to that effect).

A few conditions will be added, giving SOME job protection in the first two years.....a typical French compromise.

He will receive the revised bill, sniff a gallic sniff, shrug his gallic shoulders, and pass it into law.

It's what they set out to do in the first place, IMO.

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Just an aside re. Chirac, to demonstrate how much the ordinary person dislikes him, I give you this.....

At the time of the French vote on the EU constitution, my bro asked all his French workmates how they would be voting. Most of then said they would vote against it, for various reasons.

He then asked them how they would vote, if Chirac promised to leave office if the vote was "yes".

Every single one of them said that if Chirac would go, they would vote "yes". No hesitation.

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Lord Ellpus wrote:

He is very unpopular with the majority of people, so passing this law will only increase their hatred of him.

His popularity is increasing and increasing the longer the demos go on.

I'm not sure at all what he will do.

Indeed, I was a bit surprised, how and that he backed Villepin all the time.

I don't think, he has to bother a lot about his popularity - he can't be re-elected.
But as a person, I'm sure, he does.

If he really signs this law - as it is - those riots will not only go on but bring France into a real chaos: there's no nation which can demo as good as the French!

And additionally, such would be food for the brutal rioters as well. Not only for the French - these riots would attrack the European chaos seekers from all over the place.

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

His popularity is increasing and increasing the longer the demos go on.

Wrong, totally wrong. I stand corrected.

Only a Frenchman out of five (20 %) relies on him as president, against 78 % which do not rely on him, according to the barometer TNS-Sofres to be published on Saturday in The Figaro.
That's a record of mistrust no other president in the 5th republic ever got.

On the other hand, Nicolas Sarkozy plays the game well: in April, the popularity rating of the interior minister progresses four points to 48 %, while Villepin is losing 11 points in reliable terms and 16 points in quotation of his future.

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This is a poll, published in today's Parisien* about what the French think about Villepin

*The Parisien as well as RTL radio reported (later partly confirmed by school officials) that a couple of German exchange puplils were attacked in suburbian Drancy (département Seine-Saint-Denis) because they were wearing mini-skirts.

On RTL-radio a French pupil said:"They looked like whores. We don't do such here."

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Villepin is a Chirac clone, IMO. The French won't go there again for a while.

Sarkozy is one shrewd bugger, who will win through.

Sorry to hear about those german kids Walter. Strange? Is it a strict muslim area or something?

As far as I remember, French girls like miniskirts as much as girls from any other part of W.Europe.

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Lord Ellpus wrote:

Sorry to hear about those german kids Walter. Strange? Is it a strict muslim area or something?

Right. At least that RTL and Parisien seemed to have indirectly wanted to point at. They gave it a racist touch, somehow.

The school inspector for that district denied that and remembered the long during good pupil exchanges with Germany.
[We had had Italian and French exchange pupils here last week: they looked like the Germans might have looked alike - the French were from the Bretagne, though.(No trousers!)]

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Oh, and no-one was hurt, opposite to that what was published and broadcasted - confirmed by the German school.

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Lord Ellpus wrote:

Villepin is a Chirac clone, IMO. The French won't go there again for a while.

Missed that somehow today :wink:

Frontpage of the Liberation newspaper:

"The shipwreck of the Chirac-state"

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old europe wrote:

[
I personally think that a) the offense was so great and that b) it was totally uncalled for. Sure, in the course of a discussion it happens then and again that certain countries portrayed in a less than favorable light. I guess we all do it, every now and then.

But saying, like Finn did, "Well, I can call you this, or this, or that [insert number of derogatory terms], because it's historically correct" is just waaaaay beyond that. Would you find it okay if somebody said "Well, I can call you Nigger, because you people have been called that before!"? For me, that's basically the same level, and I have to say that I found it more than slightly insulting.

IMO, an apology would be in order.

It is difficult for us all to really understand the sensitivities of other people. I guess one must be in their shoes. The definative use of the term 'Hun' in the China intervention is usually attributed to Wilhelm II - a German (though not a particularly exemplary one).

Where I grew up epithets for other groups were the rule and not the exception. We all knew where the Italian, German. Polish, Jewish and Irish (even Slovenian) and Black neighborhoods began and ended and (among us Catholics) what parishes served what groups. Everyone had mildly derogatory terms for everyone else, and if you answered the question, "What are you?" by saying "American" you had better be tough. Until I was 11 or so I assumed 'dumb Swede" and "dumb Polack" were each single words. At the same time I was familiar enough with the terms "Mick" and "shanty Irish". There was occasionally some real meanness in all that, but usually it was done in an ironic and even light-hearted way. I agree that contemporary sensibilities have become a good deal more ... refined. However I'm not at all sure that is truly a good thing.

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georgeob1 wrote:

The definative use of the term 'Hun' in the China intervention is usually attributed to Wilhelm II - a German (though not a particularly exemplary one).

That's not totally wrong but not true either.

Wilhelm II's speech, where he said German troops should "make the name German remembered in China for a thousand years so that no Chinaman will ever again dare to even squint at a German", led later to the name Hun for German WWI soldiers by British soldiers (because of the Hungarian-style 'Pickelhaube' - which wasn't Hungarian but Old-Prussian).

The US got the name from something else as this wartime poster proves:

http://www.firstworldwar.com/origins/graphics/usposter1.jpg

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And in France, the temperature gets higher ...

The Independent: Chirac presses on with labour reforms despite street protests

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Chirac and Villepin met this morning/noon.

According to official press releases, it was "working meeting" (Elysée: d"une réunion de travail") or something, where thhe two agreed fully on Villepin's proposals ("complet accord, sur proposition du Premier ministre" by Villepin's press office).

This morning/noon, the leaders of all left (opposition) parties met as well, demanding its collection and discussing forthcoming common actions.

-------------------

Pupils from grammar schools/lycees/colleges have blocked several main roads and a couple of stations yesterday:

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Chirac just has made made one of the trickiest decision of his long political career.

Hoping I got it correctly, the French president said, he will sign the law if the government makes two changes:

"I ask the government to immediately prepare modifications over the probation period, which will be reduced to one year"
and
"The right to know the reasons of the dismissal will be registered in the new law".

So the law will be just watered a bit.

This won't bring calm, I suppose, to demonstrations and riots.

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

Wilhelm II's speech, where he said German troops should "make the name German remembered in China for a thousand years so that no Chinaman will ever again dare to even squint at a German", led later to the name Hun for German WWI soldiers by British soldiers (because of the Hungarian-style 'Pickelhaube' - which wasn't Hungarian but Old-Prussian).

Walter, I have clear recollections of reading in various histories references to Wilhelm's actual use of the word Hun in his address to the German troop bound for the China intervention. I don't dispute your quote, and am willing to leave the issue to the vagueries of history. It is true that the epithet entered American usage in the years preceding our entry into WWI (an unfortunate event for us and the world) - we were subject to and swayed by particularly intense (and often sophisticated) British propaganda and a few clumsy German actions (like offering Texas and Arizona to Mexico if they would intervene against us).

I am very pleased to learn that Chirac will sign the law. Cutting the length of the proabationary period from two to one years is an important but not vital concession. I predict the demonstrations will diminish in intensity and the Villepin government will survive the storm. This will be good for France.

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georgeob1 wrote:

Walter, I have clear recollections of reading in various histories references to Wilhelm's actual use of the word Hun in his address to the German troop bound for the China intervention.

I don't doubt your recollection, George.

But it mentioned neither in the official transcript nor in any newspaper report of that speech.

It was mentioned, however, years later, in a past WWI report by the 'Daily Telegraph'.

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Riots in France

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