Truth Out Loud

April 17, 2006

Pay people to obey the law

I may need to plan a trip to France soon. If I do it correctly (illegally without documentation) the French government may foot the bill.

As demonstrations intensify and legislation stalls in the U.S. over the status of illegal immigrants, France has been taking another tack. It's offering cash payments -- the equivalent of about $2,400 per adult and $600 per child -- to illegals who agree to return to their native countries.

Posted by Sid at 12:12 AM | Comments (1) | French Bait

April 09, 2006

Only 25 years for torture and burning women alive in France

Justice is served French style.

French prosecutors called Friday for a 25-year prison sentence for a young man accused of burning a 17-year-old woman to death in a Paris suburb.

Sohane Benziane, a Frenchwoman of Algerian origin, was doused with lighter fuel, set on fire and left to die in the basement of a run-down housing estate in Vitry-sur-Seine near Paris, in October 2002.

At least he had a good reason to mitigate a harsher sentance.

Derrar, who says that he only meant to scare the girl, acted to avenge himself after he was humiliated in a fight with her boyfriend, investigators believe.

The French must be so proud of their humane and enlightened justice system.

Posted by Sid at 08:57 AM | Comments (0) | French Bait

March 24, 2006

French leaders use bathroom like teenage girls

French revulsion at the use of English at an EU meeting resulted in the same response usually reserved by women and particularly teenage girls when important issues arise. I am sure everyone is familiar with the phenomena of female pack trips to the powder room.

Well now French leaders have adopted this same mannerism.

PRESIDENT CHIRAC stormed out of the first session of a European Union summit dominated by a row over French nationalism because a fellow Frenchman insisted on speaking English.

Embarrassed French diplomats tried to explain away the walk-out, saying that their ministers all needed a toilet break at the same time.

There you have irrefutable proof that French leaders deal with crisis like teenage girls.

Posted by Sid at 07:32 PM | Comments (0) | French Bait

February 02, 2006

French surrender free speech in face of Muslim outrage

They can now revise the old joke based on this. French free speech for sale, never used, silenced once.

France Soir originally said it had published the images in full to show "religious dogma" had no place in a secular society.

But late on Wednesday its owner, Raymond Lakah, said he had removed managing editor Jacques Lefranc "as a powerful sign of respect for the intimate beliefs and convictions of every individual".

Mr Lakah said: "We express our regrets to the Muslim community and all people who were shocked by the publication."

Is there any level of groveling to which the French will not lower themselves when they feel threatened?

Posted by Sid at 12:03 AM | Comments (0) | French Bait

November 19, 2005

French Film Festivals in France for French Films

You know your desperate when you propose film festivals to promote films made in your own country. It makes French culture look like it only has a small cult following.

The European Union should establish a programme of "European cinema weeks" to combat the domination of Hollywood movies in theatres, France suggested to a gathering here of EU culture ministers.

In order for Europeans to "see more European films and because 70 percent of films shown in EU movie theatres are American, I ask you to promote European films in the form of 'European cinema weeks'," French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres said in an address late Thursday.

But then if you have "culture ministers" you may as well give up the lost cause. Reminds me of the scene in the movie Armagaddeon where the government official was given a list of demands which included bringing back 8-track tapes.

Posted by Sid at 12:06 AM | Comments (0) | French Bait

November 12, 2005

French Scientist Prefer America

If your an enterprising young French scientist who wants to make it in the world and the French government controlled research opportunities are closed where would you go?

It’s no wonder that many French scientists are heading for greener pastures outside of France. Their destination of choice is the United States, where a talented researcher can work on the cutting edge of his chosen discipline, have more autonomy and earn three times or more what he could back home.

Posted by Sid at 12:52 AM | Comments (0) | French Bait

November 04, 2005

Paris Continues to Burn

So much for superior French culture.

The slums of France were ticking time bombs and everyone knew it.

UPDATE: Wonder if the press will refer to these rioters as freedom fighters like they would if they were in Iraq. At this point they still struggle to even call them Muslim.

Disabled woman set on fire.

Posted by Sid at 12:28 AM | Comments (0) | French Bait

November 01, 2005

Riots in Paris

As much grief as America gets from Europe and particularly France over our ability to deal with Muslims you would think that they had a clue how to deal with the culture clash.

Police fired tear gas canisters and rioters hurled Molotov cocktails as violence hit a poor Paris suburb for the fifth straight night in unrest that officials said on Tuesday had also spread to neighbouring towns.

Not so, in France and much of Europe immigrant Muslim minorities are many times relegated to enclaves of poor workers. These enclaves are considered ticking time bombs of potential terrorist recruitment that have many in Europe concerned.

Posted by Sid at 12:52 AM | Comments (0) | French Bait

October 23, 2005

France Touts Agreement to Bury Head in Sand

I get a great deal of amusement from other countries efforts to block out and hide from the influence of American culture, particularly the French. But when they put together an international agreement to protect their populace from our influence in spite of our huge popularity, particularly in the internet age you have to chuckle.

For the French establishment, indignant at failures to resist invasion of "Anglo-Saxon" - which usually means English speaking - entertainment, the treaty amounts to a "manifesto for an alternative globalisation".

The Left-of-centre French daily Le Monde gloated that the "incredible mobilisation" by Unesco members had for once left the US alone.

This week, a group representing record shops launched a campaign against a France Telecom plan to make tracks from Madonna's new album available to mobile phones.

The courts even ruled that the First World War film, A Very Long Engagement, starring Audrey Tautou, was not French enough to qualify for state subsidies.

Rival French film makers objected because most of the production budget was met by Warner Bros through its French subsidiary. Yet the film was made in France and in French, with a French cast and production team, providing work for 2,200 people.

My guess is that for a film to be truly "French" it probably needs to be government subsidized from the start.

Posted by Sid at 12:41 AM | Comments (0) | French Bait

August 12, 2005

French Leaving for Greener Pastures in America

This must be a misprint. Everyone knows France is a model to be emulated.

FRANCE is facing an unprecedented new-generation exodus as many of its disillusioned younger people leave in search of a better life abroad.

French organisations offering help to those seeking to emigrate have reported an increase in requests for assistance from young people.

Fed up with a country they describe as rigid, racist and old-fashioned, French youngsters are opting for a new start in Britain, Canada, America or New Zealand where they can find housing and jobs more easily than in France.

Unemployment among the under-25s in France stands at 23.3 per cent, and 40 per cent of 18-30 year-olds describe their financial state as "difficult".

[Emphasis mine] Maybe the French know something the Democrats and American left don't. Read it all, it explains many of the employment practices that make employment in France a joke.

Posted by Sid at 11:43 AM | Comments (0) | French Bait

August 04, 2005

Those Wacky French Corpse Collectors

This gives me creeps just thinking about it.

Investigators probing the shocking discovery of hundreds of fetuses and stillborn babies stored in a Paris hospital morgue are likely to find that the practice is widespread in France, a top medical specialist said Wednesday.

A day after officials said 351 stillborn babies and fetuses were kept at Saint-Vincent-de-Paul Hospital's morgue -- some for two decades -- more than 100 worried families called a hotline to inquire about their cases, hospital authorities said.

Investigators were probing how such a breach of French law could have happened, and why. But one top geneticist and medical ethicist said he was not surprised.

"I think that there are fetuses and stillborn infants in all maternity wards at university hospitals," Dr. Axel Kahn, a member of France's national ethics committee, told The Associated Press. "Once, it was the norm ... Researchers who needed them for their work asked obstetricians not to dispose of them."

Two decades?

One woman's search for the remains of a fetus she had aborted in 2002 led to the discovery, Le Parisien reported.

"I wanted to verify that my child was cremated, like they said he would be," 27-year-old Caroline Lemoine was quoted as telling the paper. Following repeated requests for the date of cremation, the hospital acknowledged it had not disposed of the body.

"They told me 'Your son has not been cremated, his body is still here,"' said Lemoine, who had the abortion after doctors said her pregnancy was not viable.

"At last I knew the truth," she said. "My mourning came to an end."

The mom is basically saying "I wanted to verify that my child whom I had destroyed had been cremated so my mourning could end?" I don't know what in this article I should weep over first.

Posted by Sid at 12:01 AM | Comments (0) | French Bait

July 31, 2005

French Ad Exec Calls French Losers

One day after Paul Krugman at the New York Times tries to sell us on learning from the French, Maurice Lévy calls his fellow Frenchman "losers", "narrowed" and "stunted" for much of what Krugman was praising. Does this mean Krugman wants Americans to be losers as well?

Maurice Lévy, the head of the media giant Publicis, whose company owns Saatchi and Saatchi and has offices in 100 countries across six continents, said France had failed to get the 2012 Olympics because the world now saw it as a nation of perdants - "losers".

For good measure, he described the 35-hour week as "absurd" and the wails of complaint that followed Paris's loss of the Games to London as "pathetic".

"What I wrote was hard, but true. France is not in a crisis, it's worse than that. A crisis is usually sudden and short, while we are in an endemic situation," he said. "I've just had enough and wanted to say what I felt."

He said that unemployment, at more than 10 per cent, was a "cancer that gnawed at our society", complaining that companies had lost their competitiveness and that job creation had broken down.

In an interview last week at his office on the Champs Elysées, he said his article had received acclaim from across the political spectrum. "I've had a lot of calls from politicians, business leaders, economists and journalists from the Left and Right of the political spectrum who support what I wrote," he said.

Has it come to the point where the true believers in the socialist model live in America. Maybe next time Krugman will look for truth rather then support for his fantasies. How Krugman can continue to try and sell failure as success amazes me.

Posted by Sid at 12:15 AM | Comments (0) | French Bait

July 26, 2005

French Express Disdain for Lance Excellence

In typical fashion.

"Never to such an extent, probably, has the departure of a champion been welcomed with such widespread relief," huffed L'Equipe, the nation's leading sports daily.

According to their tastes, he was too aloof, too controlling, too corporate, too good and, despite a lack of proof to support doping allegations against Armstrong, too good to be true.

"It's not only the end of an era, but also of a doubt," L'Equipe added.

Posted by Sid at 12:20 AM | Comments (1) | French Bait

June 18, 2005

POLL SHOWS ONLY 35% OF AMERICANS LIKE THE FRENCH

Concern for the drop from the previous level of 50% has led to calls within the French government to reform and initiate new policies to improve French likeability among Americans ...

Then I woke up, and reality reasserted itself.

Only 35 percent of Americans like the French, a drop from 50 percent in 2002, according to the poll, published in the Le Monde newspaper.

Poll info here.

UPDATE: Submitted to Wizbang Carnival of the Trackbacks XVI

Posted by Sid at 11:27 AM | Comments (0) | French Bait

June 11, 2005

French Seeking Arms Parity with US

I ran across this article and was left both speechless and lauging at the same time. And believe me that’s no easy task. Here are some favorites.

When Michèle Alliot-Marie was named France's defense minister three years ago, she was so surprised and unprepared that she had to ask her partner to teach her to march. He taught her in their living room.

Partner?

Europeans need to increase military spending by billions of euros a year to be competitive with the United States in weapons technology.

A loyal ally of President Jacques Chirac, whom she has known for almost 40 years, Alliot-Marie considers Europe to be a multiplier of French influence, and she is convinced that a stronger military is essential to maintaining credibility on the world stage.

"If we want Europe to carry its values of humanity and democracy into the world, we need to not just talk but also act - armed if necessary," she said.

She does realize France has been working extremely hard to undermine American efforts to spread democracy? right? Or by democracy does she mean European socialism?

People say she managed to win over France's most masculine institutions with a mix of courage and charm. But her main lever was cash.

I noticed persuasive reasoning is missing from that mix (beisdes, I thought the French had given up on masculinity). We have a minor mention of Darfur and the Congo but the biggest danger mentioned seems to be the United States. I am not sure who is more messed up in the head Michèle Alliot-Marie or the author. By my reasoning a buildup to protect the EU from mideast terrorism and/or CHINA might be more advisable. Well that is unless the buildup is just "to be competitive with the United States", or do the French plan to spread democracy to the United States? If that’s the case the EU has bigger problems then even I thought.

Posted by Sid at 01:56 AM | Comments (0) | French Bait

June 08, 2005

The new French male ideal

As best I can tell it's Peewee Herman meets Bonzo the clown. I guess the metrosexual is out. More here.

"The masculine ideal is being completely modified. All the traditional male values of authority, infallibility, virility and strength are being completely overturned," said Pierre Francois Le Louet, the agency's managing director.

This has been true in France for decades.

We are watching the birth of a hybrid man. ... Why not put on a pink-flowered shirt and try out a partner-swapping club?" asked Le Louet, stressing that the study had focused on men aged between 20 and 35.

I guess if you want to spread disease like an idiot you may as well look the part.

Posted by Sid at 12:01 PM | Comments (0) | French Bait

June 06, 2005

How to make the French feel better

Have war enactments of actual battles but pretend there were no actually sides so it would not look like the French lost (with a little effort France could have a glorious history). Imagine Civil war enactments where it was red against blue instead of north against south so us here in the south would not have our feelings hurt.

ADMIRAL NELSON saw off the mighty Franco-Spanish fleet at the battle of Trafalgar but 200 years on, he has been sunk by a wave of political correctness.
Organizers of a re-enactment to mark the bicentenary of the battle next month have decided it should be between “a Red Fleet and a Blue Fleet” not British and French/Spanish forces.

Otherwise they fear visiting dignitaries, particularly the French, would be embarrassed at seeing their side routed.

There is an old saying, "Those that forget history are destined to repeat it". What of those that intentionally hide it?

Posted by Sid at 12:54 AM | Comments (0) | French Bait

May 20, 2005

Even Europeans dislike the French

I would like to think the French populace are just like anyone else, some good and some bad. But I have to say that French politics generally sends me into a slow burn. In my opinion the French political class represent everything bad in US government distilled to perfection. Things like corruption, double dealing and back room betrayal are honed to a fine art. And sadly the French population accepts this because they seem powerless to change it for lack of options. They are faced with the lesser of evils in the truest since. Well maybe I was giving the populace too much credit because it seems their neighbors dislike them as well. Maybe the government is truly a reflection of French attitudes.

Language, history, cooking and support for rival football teams still divide Europe. But when everything else fails, one glue binds the continent together: hatred of the French.

Typically, the French refuse to accept what arrogant, overbearing monsters they are.

But now after the publication of a survey of their neighbours' opinions of them at least they no longer have any excuse for not knowing how unpopular they are.

Go here for more.

Posted by Sid at 11:05 AM | Comments (0) | French Bait