The French

can you sue for being forced to comply with the law?

^ you can sue, but you would probably get bounced out of court so fast it would make your head spin. Plus they would probably make you pay court costs for a frivolous filing.

Read some Imams talking about the injunction being on drunkenness rather than booze per se for example.

The Koran actually refers to wine as being a divine gift (kinda like Franklin saying beer is proof that God loves us) but also warns against intoxication.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6053380.stm

kind of interesting

"symbols which could strengthen the country's outlawed Islamic opposition"

indeed

2006 though. I don't recall having seen headscarves when I was there in about 1997, but I doubt I was paying particular attention. I understand that there had been no strong tradition of that kind of thing in North Africa, but that it's now pretty common in places like Morocco. Treating it as purely a question of personal choice kind of ignores the fact that it's part of an agenda being pushed pretty hard, and which doesn't necessarily have much time for personal choice itself.

^^^surely just as bad as the taliban running around telling women to cover up? And exactly what I would fear if we had a ban here. And not even face covering veils, but headscarfs?

xps

^^^surely just as bad as the taliban running around telling women to cover up?

fucking hell. yeah sure, just as bad as the taliban "telling women to cover up". similarly, making girls go to school is a bit like banning them from going to school and physically attacking them for trying to.

it's part of an agenda being pushed pretty hard

so are Kit Kats

i.e. yes politics exists and it affects how people behave

xp haha - yeah, I think you know what I meant, obviously not AS BAD as the tabeban...um, what I meant was forcing people to sign something saying they were not going to wear scarfs again was pretty bloody petty minded. OK?

well it would appear that ben ali doesn't like scarves because they suggest affiliation with his political enemies - it's a pragmatic thing and perhaps less petty than it looks (though almost certainly a loser wrt his long-term goals)

not sure why history mayne doesn't like them..

xp And anyway how is telling people not wear a scarf comparable to making them go to school?

btw happy Chandeleur everyone! My children are eating crêpes in school today with their Muslim classmates, in celebration of the presentation of Christ at the temple.

lol

they should adopt the story of the magical intelligent groundhog

xp And anyway how is telling people not wear a scarf comparable to making them go to school?

― Ned Trifle (Notinmyname), Tuesday, February 2, 2010 1:46 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

for me, they aren't.

not sure why history mayne doesn't like them..

haven't said that. i've said that calling the move racist or "islamophobic" is wrong, given that in a number of "muslim states" there are either similar laws, or similar attitudes, in play.

I don't know how that counts as secular, but I do wish I was eating crêpes right now

we are going to slam some crêpes tonight. plus cider. It's the tradition here!

re. secularity: I think it's b/c pretty much no one professes Christianity here, at least not in a "metaphysical" way, that they can sing religious songs in school and it's not supposed to be threatening to anyone. But of course haha yeah right.

Just because they ban or frown on scarves in some Muslim countries doesn't mean that it's not racist/islamophobic when they do it in France. The motivations in the two cases are very different.

xp And anyway how is telling people not wear a scarf comparable to making them go to school?

― Ned Trifle (Notinmyname), Tuesday, February 2, 2010 1:46 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

for me, they aren't.

Well, now I'm just confused because that's exactly what it appears you were saying.

i've said that calling the move racist or "islamophobic" is wrong, given that in a number of "muslim states" there are either similar laws...

I think it could still be those things though, as well?

Anyone opening this thread and hoping for a discussion on camembert is going to be v. disappointed.

Oops xp - what zelda said, then.

Headscarfs, burqas, chadors - Have Your Say

xp And anyway how is telling people not wear a scarf comparable to making them go to school?

― Ned Trifle (Notinmyname), Tuesday, February 2, 2010 1:46 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

for me, they aren't.

Well, now I'm just confused because that's exactly what it appears you were saying.

for some people -- like the taliban, in this instance -- who are pro-covering and anti-school, they are comparable.

but i don't think i was comparing them, though i would say that in the terms of the debate conducted upthread, making children go to school is "tyranny", isn't it? i was saying that comparing the french anti-scarf law with the taliban's pro-burqua law was a bad case of relativism.

I was comparing the Tunisian anti-scarf ban with the taleban's reaction to women not wearing burqas - but yeah, bit over the top I admit.

My understanding is that there's a certain 'rebellious' fashion for ostentatious Muslim modesty that's partly propelled by the pushy secularist injunctions against headscarves etc... I'm not particularly a fan but hten, I'm not a fan of people self-righteously telling other people what to wear. That doesn't make me blind or indifferent to the possibility that people may be socially or familialy coerced it's just that too broad and pat a response legally seems too facile and too categorical. It reminds me of what I think when I see, say, Sarah Palin on the cover of amagazine repping 'for life': 'Great. Good for you. Now why to you want to take the choice away from women instead of trying to persuade them?'

Allez les Bleus imo

It was funny today to hear about how the French are busting up everything in sight to avoid working two more years before retirement and the Brit govmt are promising to get rid of a half million public sector jobs over five years.

I would love UK/Ire to rise up and start blocking fuel depots and airports but its just not us, is it?

xp yeah lol - always funny to see 16 yo high school kids rebelling for their pension rights

The French romance w/revolution/revolt would be merely risible if it weren't so pathetic.

harsh

I would love UK/Ire to rise up and start blocking fuel depots and airports but its just not us, is it?

― cant believe you sb'd me for that (darraghmac), Wednesday, October 20, 2010 6:07 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

happened in the uk in 2000

It's so superficial, baaderonixx, this glamour of uprising and it betrays an undemocratic spirit one finds at either end of the political spectrum in France. It's also mostly feckless; diverting progressive goals into passionate but irrational demonstrations of what amounts to an essentially impotent tantrum may make people feel empowered but it doesn't really empower them.

I agree that it's undemocratic inasmuch as it eschews the ballot box, but I disagree that that's all democracy boils down to. A precondition of healthy democracy is rational deliberation by would-be voters. In my relations with activism in France (largely amongst academics involved in last year's strikes, but also with less "exalted" people), the people involved spend a lot of time discussing things, & this is what allows for political organization. & political organization through rational deliberation leads to a democracy in which it's not just voting for your team, but because you know the candidate, or have participated in an organization in which she's involved.

have no opinion on this particular fight, but for all the revolt and car-tippings, it seems a much more rule-bound society than the uk

its the scale of it that astounds

yeah, I was blown away when I learned that they have laws regard transport strikes, so that usually when they happen (i.e. every other week) there are limits on how they can go.

holding out for this since I gotta fly to France in 10-ish days.

people involved spend a lot of time discussing things, & this is what allows for political organization. & political organization through rational deliberation leads to a democracy in which it's not just voting for your team, but because you know the candidate, or have participated in an organization in which she's involved.

I agree except for the rational part. My expereince of the French is that they like to think of themselves as so cartesian but they're pretty much like human beings everywhere.

it was funny today to hear about how the French are busting up everything in sight to avoid working two more years before retirement and the Brit govmt are promising to get rid of a half million public sector jobs over five years.

I'm a pretty pro-union, left-leaning guy but I had a similar thought. The French population is aging like the rest of us, right? And they have a comparable life expectancy and health outcomes? Do people really see it as oppressive to have to work past 60? Is there some other context I'm missing? Are they anticipating a whole wave of anti-labour legislation?

To be fair, as is often the case, the majority of the demos are now directed against sarkozy rather than the actual pension reform

I can't think of a single person, off the top of my head, whom I would wish to be President.

*ahem*

slock1, you'd really want to be Presdient of France?!

Eleven people, including several children, were injured when they jumped from the third-story window of a suburban Paris apartment building, an official said.

It wasn't known if they jumped on purpose or were forced, the judicial official said. There was no emergency in the building at the time, such as a fire.

The victims are of African origin, possibly from Angola, and an initial investigation suggested they jumped after one of the women involved became hysterical and started shouting she'd seen the devil, the official said.

Two members of the group - a 30-year-old man and a man with a criminal record who jumped out of the window holding a two-year-old child - have been taken into police custody, the official said.

All 11 victims were taken to hospital with multiple traumas. No life-threatening injuries were reported, although a four-month-old baby has been admitted to a Paris children's hospital in a serious condition, the official said.

The apartment building is located in the Paris suburb of La Verriere.

There's, as the kids say, a LOT going on with this french anti-smoking ad pic.twitter.com/bXddZcH3zN

— 🌎🌵the 🚀🌌cosmist 💣✊insurrection 🏴🚩 (@yungneocon) December 26, 2019

UH

Phenomenal

Been watching some French films lately and I wondered aloud where the directors find these strikingly weird-looking guys to star in their movies, and my partner said that’s just how French guys look. Do French guys really all look like that? Really puts their penchant for caricaturing Jews and Arabs and North Africans in a fresh light.

Never particularly noticed that the French have strikingly weird-looking guys starring in their movies. I think it might be more that Americans have strikingly conventional-looking guys starring in theirs.