Sarkozy over-reacts to French anthem incident

It's not often that I cheer the leader of the French Communist party. But Marie-George Buffet hit the nail on the head this morning with her sensible view of an unhealthy fuss which blew up yesterday over the behaviour of spectators at a football match between France and Tunisia [see video below]

For 24 hours, the top story in France has not been the slumping markets or President Sarkozy's crusade to rebuild the world economy. It has been the fit of indignation, led by Sarkozy, over the fans who jeered the national anthem before the start of the match at the Stade de France on Tuesday night. (News story in today's paper). The crowd that demonstrated contempt for the Marseillaise with loud whistling were mainly youngsters from immigrant families from Tunisia and the other two former colonies Algeria and Morocco.

Their behaviour was certainly deplorable but it was also entirely expected because the same happened  when France played Algeria and Morocco in 2001 and 2007. The Stade de France is in the heart of the "93", the département of Seine Saint Denis, which has some of the worst race-related problems and was home to the ethnic rioting of 2005.

The Government, the Socialist opposition, sporting bodies and almost everyone else in authority has piled in to condemn the spectators. A quick opinion poll by le Parisien found that 80 percent of the country is "shocked". Sarkozy has ordered all matches to be halted immediately if the anthem is booed. The police have been told to arrest the flag jeerers and charge them under a 2003 law that outlaws insults to national symbols. Bernard Laporte, the Sports Minister, upped the ante, saying that France should play no more games against Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco in Paris until the crowds stop dishonouring national symbols.

The Communist leader was one of the few eminent politicians to break ranks with the cross-party outrage. As well as condemning the jeering, people should ask why thousands of young French people boo the national anthem, she said. "Perhaps it is because they are suffering a lot. That they have the impression that they are stigmatised although they are in France, study here and work here."

Everyone knows that the malaise of the second and third generation immigrants leads some of them to act like the fans did on Tuesday night. Sarkozy's hard line plays well to the electorate that admires his zero-tolerance policies but it just makes the kids from the banlieue estates all the more determined to vent their loathing in the stadium. It was after one such incident that Sarkozy, then Interior Minister, introduced the 2003 law on protecting the Marseillaise and the flag.

The acts of collective contempt are of course stupid and counter-productive. The fans spoiled the match (which France won 3-1) and they humiliated two Tunisian-French stars on the pitch -- Lââm, the singer who performed the solo anthem and Hatem Ben Arfa, a France player whose parents came from Tunisia.

Ben Arfa said that he was not upset by the hostile crowd. "I'm not really angry with them," he said. "They need to exist, you have to understand them."

We have had another example of stupid counter-productive behaviour in the '93' zone this week. Luc Besson, the movie producer, has suspended work on a film that he is shooting there with John Travolta and other stars, after local youths burnt ten vehicles that are being used on the set.   

Since posting this item, Le Monde has come out with a tough editorial against the excessive response to the footbal episode. It asks: Is it worthy of the main public leaders to turn a deaf ear to what this jeering expresses: the rage of the banlieues, the feeling of rejection and despair of the young descendants of immigrants, the searing and corrosive failure to integrate them into the community of the republic?

 

[Conservative daily le Figaro splutters, popular tabloid le Parisien says :Marseillaise booed: a real affair of state]

Comments

[MCG]

Charles,

Public events benefit the whole public. They are not a form of psychotherapy for the few.

Indulging hooliganism benefits no one.

MCG

[TigerBoy]

Is this racism?

[alan morgan]

"Whenever they burn books they will also in the end, burn human beings ".
Did Nazism "need to exist "? " Did we have to understand them?"
Was it just an unhealthy fuss to whistle? Where is the comment about the body language? The spoken words?
I think we should be worried.

[rocket]

The Government, the Socialist opposition, sporting bodies and almost everyone else in authority has piled in to condemn the spectators. A quick opinion poll by le Parisien found that 80 percent of the country is "shocked". Sarkozy has ordered all matches to be halted immediately if the anthem is booed.

Yes, it's ashame but

Of course - La pensée unique kicked in. Worse things in the world have happened. This excess of authoritarianism is getting to be too much where a president calls in the head of a sports authority to read the riot act and call for a banning of future matches. It's authoritarianism at it's finest. What is the role of the courts? So if France sponsors another world cup will the match be called off if someone whistles and will that person be carted off to whistlers prison?

Plus I wouldn't be surprised if people booed just to test the government's resolve.

GIVE ME A BREAK!

I can imagine the President of the United States calling in the commissioner of the NFL because people were booing the Star Spangled Banner.

He would be laughed out of office.

But I guess different strokes for different folks.

We had this debate in the US about the flag

http://www.speakout.com/activism/issue_briefs/1144b-1.html

"At the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas, protestor Gregory Lee Johnson burned an American flag in front of Dallas City Hall. Johnson was charged and convicted with desecration of a venerated object. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the conviction in 1988 and the Supreme Court took up the issue the following year. In Texas v. Johnson, the Supreme Court upheld the decision that burning the flag was a form of free speech."

[Jack Montoyo]

This is a lesson for all of Europe and even the US...do we want our country to become this way? The solution is difficult now for the French, for the rest of us let's adopt sensible immigration laws!

[dot king]

So what is a French person?
It's someone who is born in France of French parents, grandparents and so on as far back as you like, then again it's someone who is born in France of immigrant or mixed French-immigrant parents, or again, it's someone who applies for and is granted French citizenship.

In "La Marsellaise" which all these French citizens are required to respect is a line which refers to "sang impur".

Now, I don't necessarily think that all the whistlers and boo-ers at the match the other evening, know these words - and in my experience many French "de souche" don't know the words to "La Marseillaise" either.
But in a modern multi-cultural society should any national anthem refer to the "impure blood" of the invader (ces féroces soldats)? How are immigrants of whatever generation, or naturalised French, expected to interpret these words in application to themselves?

Laporte's solution to relocate international matches between France and Maghrebain teams to the Provinces is nothing short of idiocy (as well as discriminatory). Does he not think provincial cities have similar tensions? And what about the structures to be able to take them? In any case, this isn't just linked to international matches, it happens whenever PSG plays, or at any matches of the "big" teams.

A couple of decades or so ago, I remember reading a book intended for teenagers, set at some unspecified time in the future, where societal tensions had reached such a pitch that the government had organised weekly violence meetings - these took place in football stadiums (stadia?), the game was of secondary importance, the true purpose was to work out tensions and frustrations. Of course there were bodies to clear away after as well as the injured to evacuate. In between "matches" the violence could be "contained".

It was a fiction of course, but I sometimes think that it's beginning to have more than a ring of truth about it.

It has been suggested that Lââm was the one being booed - she can hardly be seen to "represent" either France or Tunisia, and is, in appearance at least, a caricature and an embodiment of the confusion that seems to reign in the relations between France and the Maghreb countries.

[azloon]

[Is it worthy of the main public leaders to turn a deaf ear to what this jeering expresses: the rage of the banlieues, ... the searing and corrosive failure to integrate them into the community of the republic?] Le Monde

my opinion of Le Monde just soared upward (like our symbolic eagle).

but even it misses the real point. this is not about which aggrieved group should be exempt from laws against disrespect of national symbols. its about ANY aggrieved individual or group being allowed, even encouraged, despite offense to some, to put their social wounds on public display.

France, if the u.s. can change its financial system in the face of obvious failures, you can certainly do better than this pitiful demonstration of intolerance.

this is the 40th anniversary of the raising of black gloved hands by african-american sprinters during the u.s. nation anthem at the Mexico City olympics. it was a searing and unwelcome reminder of the failure of the american promise of equality. we have done better since then, with more to do.

CB, your 'A-Sness' is showing, big time. :)

[dot king]

"Ben Arfa said that he was not upset by the hostile crowd. "I'm not really angry with them," he said. "They need to exist, you have to understand them."

CB Article

He can afford to be generous - a professional footballer's paypacket, transfer fees, bonuses etc are the sporting equivalent of a golden parachute - per match.

[Thomas]

Yet another example, I think, of the wrong side of Sarkozy's need to react to everything.

His solutions aren't enforceable, anytime.
The proposal to move out of Paris to other towns is nonsense : Strasbourg or Marseille have their own suburbs, and Laporte was deliberately asserting a complete lie, by telling rugby matches he had played in Marseilles benefited from an excellent mood. (I remember a test match when England was booed by fans ignoring this sport unwritten rules to an extent that made me shameful)
The suggestion not to play friendlies with North-African countries is just the opposite of what lead to these matches - and to Turkey/Armenia, or Ireland/ England at Croke Park for instance - ie a will to use sport as a way to fill the gap between nations. So much for Coubertin's ideal.
And finally, the mere idea of stopping a match when la Marseillaise is being booed sounds insane to me : up to 80 000 folks can be gathered in the Stade de France, most of them having paid for it. (some an awful lot) Among them, not everyone would be nice and gentle, learning that he won't even see a minute of the match. And just a few dozens drunkards or simply irritated guys can provoke a landslide in these situations ; it sounds as if Sarkozy & his government had just never heard of, let's say, Heysel.

I don't even mention the suggestion of spotting by cctv the culprits. 80000 folks in a stadium. If a tenth was to whistle, how would you arrest them, honestly.

So what can we get out of it?
French President and ministers are certainly not completely dumb.
Besides, there's already been a law, voted under Raffarin that is supposed to take measures against such events (a law proposed by a certain Ministre de l'Intérieur, a man named Nicolas sthg). A law that, of course, produced no effect, for it was not enforceable either.
As Sarkozy, followed by Dati, have been voting a law for almost every minor event in France, in fact (a girl dies by getting bitten by her father's dog ? Let's make a law.)
It makes me think that Sarkozy doesn't really want to solve some problems ; his aim is just to use them as a way to boost his popularity when he pops up and plays the great macho show : I'm here, don't worry, I'm gonna do something to protect you.

As for the booing itself, it surely is a shame. Booing a team isn't a smart thing to do.
But hey, being a football fan doesn't require loads of smartness, does it? And I don't think stupidity has been banned by the government, lately.

About these guys who were whistling ; almost everyone has been telling us for their whole life that they were immigrants, they had to integrate themselves into the French mould and so on. While they're mostly French, French-born and raised, having little links with the country of their parents - where they are seen as French when returning for summer.
So after all, if everyone has told them for so long that they were foreigners, it's not hard to see why they came to believe it.
The general surprise and indignation does sound ridiculous, in fact.
Hey, some guys in this departement were burning cars and schools and libraries a few years ago, as a protest against what they saw as far-right politics lead by Sarkozy.
Wondering why the general malaise des banlieues hasn't faded since the same was elected?

There is a distinct smell of colonial past backfiring here - and I generally don't agree with Charles, or some other Anglo-Saxons commentators, when they interpret France's politics under that light.
It seems like it's not acceptable to hear the Marseillaise whistled by former colonies supporters, whereas nobody reacts when it happens in Italy or Israel.
And the law stipulating that it's an offense to insult French anthem and flag does sound distinctly IIIrd republic/Vichy to my ears. These ghosts Chirac had made his task to get rid of, France's new rulers have awakened - in order to harvest the votes of nationalism.

To conclude, I think the government has made a fool of itself by reacting with such strength to what is after all a youngster's joke - the ones from a Tunisian descent were in a stupid challenge with the ones from Algerian or Moroccan roots, as to who would whistle the most - but certainly not a dangerous act.
It has also irritated Tunisia and every successfully integrated Tunisian, for whom it was a joy to see that match happening, by generalizing and failing to ask any of them what they thought of it.
At last, it has shown that it can't think of long-term problems, such as proving these young men who think they're not French that they're wrong.

Sorry for such a long post ; the issue of whistling wouldn't deserve it, but the handling of it by the politicians and journalists says much about what's wrong in France.
Thanks, Charles, for not focusing your post on the former ; it's a pity most mass media didn't dare a single analysis of the latter.

[peter kinsley www.peterkinsley.com]

Calm down. It's only a football match. The angry young have done it before and will do it again. Flags represent Nationalism and become objects of veneration or hatred or protection (American shopkeepers put a flag in the window to stop them being smashed or looted). Some British dare not display the Union Flag or Union Jack as the flag has been "stolen" by The National Front, sympathisers with Naziism and Fascism, hence the plethora of the English, Scottish and Welsh flags at matches (and the Olympics). Irish Nationalists call the Union Jack "The butcher's apron" and Spanish Republicans called the National flag "blood and puss".
Will our "Global community" ever see an Olympics without flags? The Brits have already replaced the perfect Olympic symbol (Five enjoined rings representing the five continents) with an expensive ridiculous mind-blowing mish-mash of a so-called "logo".
To keep the peace and enjoy all sport, why not dispense with national flags and national anthems and show the Olympic flag of brotherhood with the Starred European flag on the stadium, and distribute songsheets of "We Are The Champions") to both sides if they must sing.
Pax vobiscum.

[jamal]

If you did a poll between these fans you would find that some come from St Denis but not all but as usual it's far too easy for you journos to jump on the St Denis 93 band wagon ,change the record it's getting real boring.

[We're using the 93 as a symbol, like the anthem, Jamal. Of course they don't all live in the departement. Journalism simplifies in order to try to convey things in a short space. CB]

[jamal]

Be nice to see you stick your neck out and do a positive write up on St Denis ,a little research would be required but I guarantee you there's more than enough positive events going on for a good article ,over to you sir.

[jamal]

There you go ...
http://www.plainecommune.fr/

[Rocket]

On order to overcome this problem of national anthems why don't countries chose from a spirited song by one of the citizens in the recording industry before the matches.

For France I was thinking of "Love on the beat" or "lemon incest" by gainsbourg. For Belgium for example "Ca plane pour moi" by Plastic Bertrand. America could be " White Rabbit" by the jefferson Airplane but I fear it will have to be changed to a Rap song after Nov 4th.

How about Purple Haze with the fans playing air guitar and singing?

This is not a foolish idea. Think about it.

[Robert Marchenoir]

The conclusions are all wrong.

It's precisely because this booing has happened for the third time, it's precisely because Luc Besson's cars were torched that the communist leader's reaction was utterly conventional and stupid.

She said: "Perhaps it is because they are suffering a lot. That they have the impression that they are stigmatised although they are in France, study here and work here."

This is what we have been told for forty years. For forty years, billions of "help", "special projects", "assistance" and so on have been lavished on immigrants from Africa, with less and less results.

Thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of people work in social support services, public or private (but almost always publicly funded), exclusively to help immigrants.

The array of special rights, social allowances, etc, they have is staggering. There is a special leaflet for illegal immigrants which lists all the benefits they are entitled to, and explains how to claim them. The number of pages is incredible.

This post fails to mention that the organisers of the match went to incredible lengths in order to show understanding, compassion, inclusiveness, non-stigmatisation and so on.

The French hymn was sung by a franco-tunisian pop singer from the ghetto culture. It was felt that maybe this would refrain people from whistling. Both teams were mixed when they entered the field, once again to demonstrate inclusiveness.

Luc Besson agreed to hire scores of local "youths" at grossly inflated rates, many of them to work on "security". This was a thinly-veiled act of extortion by local thugs. In spite of that, they burnt ten cars of his. Then thay had the gall to tell the press that Besson had not shown enough "respect".

The supposedly right-wing mayor of the place followed suit, pretending that the film-maker had broken his word, whereas it was the "youths" who did.

So the conclusion has to be: if they feel they are stigmatised, it's because they are, and rightly so. Also, contrary to what the communist leader said, they don't study very much and work even less.

This hissing of the national anthem by Northern African immigrants has happened in other countries: Belgium, the Netherlands.

It's becoming difficult to blame the "racist" French, the former French empire, etc. Unless we consider all white, Western peoples are racist, just because, well, they are white. Which is precisely the unsaid notion between all this disgusting political correctness which is inflicted upon us.

Most of the French team was, obviously, copiously booed. One player who escaped this was Frank Ribéry, a French Muslim convert.

The unpalatable truth is quite obvious now: French Muslims (religious or cultural) hate France and the French. Social programs are useless. New schools, libraries, sports fields are asked for, then burnt down.

Policemen, firemen and doctors are pelted with bricks, firebombs, even shot at. The police never shoots back, except with rubber bullets. A policeman was recently hit in the groin, deliberately. He did not draw his gun. Two other undercover officers were surrounded, and stripped of their police IDs. They just went back.

It's just a civil war, plain and simple. It's colonisation in reverse. The aim has been stated publicly, repeatedly, by public and anonymous figures alike.

A few weeks before the November 2005 ethnic riots, I prevented a North African in the tube from kicking another traveller in the face. His crime: speaking English in public. The kicker thought his intended victim was American, obviously.

Multiculturalism does not work. Mass immigration of badly educated and poor people from alien cultures does not work. Islam does not mix with Christianity. If it does, it produces blood and submission.

The grudge Muslims and Africans have against the West, whatever the motives, cannot be satisfied. No amount of repentance over historical crimes, real or supposed, will do.

This grudge comes from the obvious betterness of the Western civilisation. Muslim and African failings are painfully obvious when one compares, and with television and modern travel, it is impossible to avoid the comparison. The psychic pain is overwhelming.

The healing comes from invading the West through immigration, playing the racism and colonialism narrative, and taking power through demographics, the use of "anti-racist" laws and the debasing of democracy.

Of course, once this is done, Western civilisation will be mostly gone, with vastly inferior standards of living and academic achievement. It will nonetheless be a good deal for the invaders. Not for us, aborigenes.

A strikingly similar process is happening all over Europe, in Canada, and even in the United States.

This "suffering" bit is humbug.

[Well, France isn't going to expel its own citizens, so it has to deal with the problem of an alienated minority one way or another. It's quite telling that Maghrebin graduates from top French business schools can't find work in France but get jobs quickly in London and Frankfurt -- or at least could until the crash. Maybe the special programmes haven't worked, but nor have ghettos and tough policing. The answer is not Sarko's harsh -- and unworkable -- decree that matches will be stopped if the anthem is booed. How many whistles qualifies for a stop ? Who decides ? . CB]

[Daniel Strohl]

AZLOON,

"you can certainly do better than this pitiful demonstration of intolerance"

Autre pays, autres moeurs. As an example, I think it is unlikely that any European whose country uses eagles as national symbols would have been shocked as you were by the "profane" use of the bald eagle on the Mont-Blanc. There are plenty of countries using eagles as national symbols - see hereto :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle

One may assume that eagles belong also to protected species in some of these countries.

PS : I am wondering why the American eagle is called "bald". For me, an example of perfect baldness is Joe the Plumber :)

Last year, during the "campagne électorale", we had a "plombier polonais" - do you think that somebody in Mr. Mc Cain's team did plagiarize the French ? :)

[Fernandez]

"The police have been told to arrest the flag jeerers and charge them under a 2003 law that outlaws insults to national symbols."

Free Sherkan or go to jail!

[Don]

[CB: "The police have been told to arrest the flag jeerers and charge them under a 2003 law that outlaws insults to national symbols."]

The home of "The Rights of Man" seems not to understand free speech.

On the other hand, a country has the right to expect and demand certain comportment in public places. No one has a problem with prohibiting racial slurs from the spectators against the players. Why, then, should insulting an entire country be allowed? They should have been arrested under "public order" statutes, but it should still be OK in a protest march setting someplace to boo the national anthem.

[Pierre]

Global opinion goes with CB to say that the whole affaire was politicaly exagerated.
Mmmmm....
80% of the French people feel "schoked" as the Parisien's headline claimed (for notice, and CB can't ignore it, Le Parisien has very little to do with the "Popular tabloïd" style in England except its size). They did not wait for Sarko's reaction to feel so. 80%... That's much more that the Président's voters. That's much too much for the part of french racist or xenophobic citizens. What is at stake here is not reject or racism but a feeling of ingratitude and a request of respect.
This feeling was largely shared among French from North African origins, or North Africans immigrants themselves.
So did the politics overreact by sharing the nation's feeling or did the "politically correct" medias try to find someone else to blame than the booers? Of course Sarko and Fillon's irrealistic proposal made them an easy target.

Interpretating the whistles, though, is not easy as it seems Ghettos, discrimination, revolt message ASO are a sensible but also in a way a "ready to serve" explanation.
I'll add here a few unordered elements, "en vrac", it's late and my post is damn too long ...
The Stadium
*The fact that SDF is built in the capital of the 93 is a symbolic coincidence but not a explanation (tickets are sold by the Federation and the Consortium and the "départment" gets a limited number of seats.)
*Many observers said that the whistles were not as strong as they had been previuously (Algeria, Morocco or th league cup with Bastia) and that these apart the atmosphere was friendly, more than for any average game of Paris Saint-Germain.
*If Parisian public was simply averagly supportive the booes would have been covered. But this public has never been. When France played England a few months ago in a friendly, the English fans (short after their team was kicked out of the Euro) were so amazed by the silence that they taunted "Can we sing a song for you?"... And when France played Scotland a few months earlier the Tartan army made the Scots play at home.

National symbols

*Colors, anthemn, and flag in France have been suspiciously considered (and still are) by the post 68 generation. Those keen to not only to explain but also to forgive the whistles. Raising a flag in the US or in the UK would goe unnoticed. In France you'd be suspected of "facism".
This weak link to national symbols (also a heritage of the Vichy episode and the decolonisation "fractures") also explains why the Marseillaise is whistled by youngsters who have never been confronted to concrete marks of respect or affection towards the bleu-blanc-rouge. If the French themselves -those from non North african origin - feel shameful, embarassed or don't care, why should they care?

French overeaction
*Let us imagine that Capello's England has to face a Pakistanese football eleven as strong as the cricket team. I guess there could be some booes too. And probably more violence during and after the game.I also guess that, à l'inverse, the press -and probably the Times too- would carry much more indignation than the 10 Downing Street.

[azloon]

[America could be " White Rabbit" by the jefferson Airplane but I fear it will have to be changed to a Rap song after Nov 4th.]

ooohhh, Rocket, you're 'colors' are showing.

[azloon]

[As an example, I think it is unlikely that any European whose country uses eagles as national symbols would have been shocked as you were by the "profane" use of the bald eagle on the Mont-Blanc.] DS

Daniel, i really wasn't shocked, but i was a bit offended. i think it has as much to do with my radical 'environmentalism' as it does with my nationality. AND i AM easily offended. :)

Blendi seemed to be able to track my argument, and may even agree with me, so i am not 'the lone ranger.'

i think a reality tv show is in order: "the battle of the plumbers" (le bataille des plombiers?) in which Joe the 'merican plumber and 'Jaroslaw' the polish plombier comptete to see who unclogs a stopped-up toilet the fastest.

Fernandez -- where HAVE you been? commiserating with Terry about the demise of american capitalism? oh, sorry, cheap shot. :)

btw, Sherkan loves you.

[Daisy]

Sarko's trying to look tough on crime without being tough on the causes of crime. Perhaps the President should mind his own rude behaviour and lead by example.

[tomfrog]

Just to clarify a thing about the "sang impur" (impure blood) thing in La Marseillaise. It is often misunderstood and it doesn't at all mean that the blood of the ennemy is not pure, or that it's not French (whatever what this can mean), it's just that at the time there wasn't a so-called French blood, there was pure blood like the kings and leaders, and the impure blood which was the people, sacrified during wars.
This only means they were going to kill other man like them... the people...

This is a huuuge difference (but this is still a war chant)

[Blendi Progri]

Very Complex Problem!

Feeling unable to solve it or at least offer a practical and workable solution I resign from this topic!

Yours etc...
B.P.

----
======
**********

p.s. @ Mr. Strohl
Daniel you had to bring the eagle in here as if there isnt enough fighting going on. LOL :)

[V]

"Maybe the special programmes haven't worked, but nor have ghettos and tough policing. The answer is not Sarko's harsh -- and unworkable -- decree that matches will be stopped if the anthem is booed. How many whistles qualifies for a stop ? Who decides ? . CB

Not to worry, there are possible answers to this "applicability" issue. How many whistles? Mass whistles. The moment it feels like the whole place is booing, the Mass is said, off to the lockers and back home.

I'll add that the Western civilization, especially in Europe, has become so sensitive, so hating anything antagonistic, so ruled by political correctness and fundamental leftism and accommodating any whim of these thugs, that it will slowly but surely give way - there are so many examples fo refined societies conquered by daring barbarians.

We're witnessing banlieue behaviours and expressions entering mainstream, locals putting themselves on the immigrant's level for fear of appearing aloof or too civilized - the steps are mainly made from the locals side, while from the other there are only complaints about some hurt pride - and to no surprise: many thugs quickly learnt that the best way is to be aggressive and self-victimize at the same time.

[Rick]

PIERRE, you don't understand the UK. This explains why you don't understand some of Sarko's non-problems. I urge you to take a six-month course in Pragmatism, vulgarly known as 'common sense'.

[Ali]

Les journaux parlent de ce siffement de l'hymne francais en première page ? C'est vraiment sidérant !

Cherchent-il à masquer la crise économique dont le monde fait part et plus particulièrement les pays occidentaux? Moi j'appelle tout simplement ça une diversion ! Et ils parlent d'une affaires d'Etat ! C'est à en rire !

Quand les Italiens ont sifflé la Marseillaise il n'y avait pas tout ce tapage médiatique!

A bon entendeur salut !

[Francois D]

Interrupt the match when whistles before it starts, is certainly dangerous because there is risk of internal devastation by disapointment.
That the politicians leave, it would be a minimum.

One would also have liked that during the French Cup final (Paris SG - Lens) Sarko leaves when an offensive banderolle from parisians supporters against northerners was shown. Sarko remained. Admittedly, he received a delegation from the region following day to apologize.

[gydooya]

Don't fret, we have an idiot running for President by the name of Obama who shows the same lack of respect. Must be in the air.

@Robert Marchenoir
Unsurprising I suppose to find your usual white supremacist distortions and deceit raising their ugly heads here. "The unpalatable truth is quite obvious now: French Muslims (religious or cultural) hate France and the French." What nonsense! It's not an 'unpalatable truth', merely your own unpalatable opinion.

[JUSt FRENCH]

France has a communauty of 600000 people from Asian origin (Mainly China and Vietnam).

We have not these kinds of problems with them.Almost Never.

So ,these young share a part of the responsability. We are not their fathers. And if they could stop playing the victims all the time,it would even be good for themselves.

But it appears to me that Sarkosy reaction only had fuel to fire.

[rocket]

Read an interesting article about how N. Sarkozy is now filing a formal complaint against Yves Bertrand former head of Renseignments Generaux.

While we certainly wouldn't want little big man's privacy to be violated, I think it is pertinent to understand that this is only the second time in the history of the French chief of state that a legal complaint has been filed by said leader and both by Nicolas Sarkozy.

[Pierre]

Rick
Lecturing seems to be a pavlovian reflex of your's. But I suppose it's not hopeless and you can still consult.

[susan durst]

Rober Marchenoir : sadly your analysis is correct (pauvre France !) although it doesn't point to any solution. The average French citizen today is bewildered and resentful ... for 50 years millions of North Africans have been only too eager to live and work in the land of the "colonial exploiters", but today it seems that once they get here, they are intent only on asserting their own way of life.

When I first moved to Paris in the 1970's, there was already a large North African community, but they were barely noticeable because they dressed, talked and behaved like the French. Unemployment was low, and the system of education and integration was still functioning correctly. For 14 years under Mitterrand France made the mistake of allowing North African immigration to continue uncontrolled, although the economy could no longer sustain their numbers. At the same time, radical Islam erupted in France and throughout the Western world. The result is what we see today : a total lack of respect and tolerance for the democratic values of the country they were so eager to live in. (One tiny example : by the time I moved out of Paris in 2004, I avoided taking public transport, because a white woman of any age travelling alone on suburban trains is liable to be harrassed by gangs of North African "jeunes" and insulted as a "putain française".)

Note to Anglo-Saxons : the French are no more racist than any other European country. Au contraire, the "modèle républicain" automatically confers French nationality on any baby born in France ("droit du sol"), whether the parents are there legally or not. Also, unlike the U.K., official documents do not request citizens or residents to specify their ethnic origin or religion. Consequently, France is incapable of providing accurate figures on its non-white or Muslim population !

[Daniel Strohl]

BLENDI,

"Daniel you had to bring the eagle in here as if there isnt enough fighting going on. LOL :)"

Blendi, I couldn't resist to tease AZLOON ! I knew that he wasn't really shocked :)

[R Wilson]

The new proletariat and bourgeoisie have appeared. Perhaps the French establishment have felt a taste of the lack of respect these young immigrants have to go through every day of their lives.

Oh but look at them, they're young and thug like aren't they!!

What on earth happened to expressing your opinions in a democracy.

Do you people understand the Flag represents the people at the top, not those at the bottom, this isn't the 1900's. I love France, but I support this indignation that is obviously aimed at the un-French like politicians turning the country into a capitalist trough for the rich and powerful.

Sarkozy is the Nazi here, it's every citizens duty to keep the government on it's toes and if that's through booing the national anthem, it seems pretty restrained to me.

[nat]

[One tiny example : by the time I moved out of Paris in 2004, I avoided taking public transport, because a white woman of any age travelling alone on suburban trains is liable to be harrassed by gangs of North African "jeunes" and insulted as a "putain française"]

Susan, I've been living for 15 years in the suburbs, I am a white woman travelling alone in subruban trains, I've never had any problem with anyone. What you say seems totally surrealist to me, "une pure caricature".
Votre remarque ressemble plus à la l'image d'épinal imbécile pour anglo-saxon n'ayant jamais mis les pieds en France, qu'à une l'analyse d'une personne ayant vécu au sein dans la société française!
A moins que vous répétiez ce que vous ont dit vos autres amies expats' qui elles mêmes répétaient ce que d'autres amies leur avaient dit...aucune de vous n'ayant jamais dépassé le périphérique! car c'est connu, ensuite on est à la merci de vilains jeunes d'origine nord africaine qui vous qui attendent de pied ferme pour harceler les femmes blanches!
je me marre...

[Rick]

CHARLES, you quote the editorial in which, and not for the first time, ‘le Monde’ shows itself to be out of touch with... ‘le monde, tel qu’il est’.

‘Is it worthy of the main public leaders to turn a deaf ear to what this jeering expresses: the rage of the banlieues, etc. ‘

If only France could free itself from the striking of... attitudes!

[Rick]

ROCKET, thank you for your earlier contribution yesterday and particularly for all that stuff about the flag. Doesn’t it all just go to show how alike the Americans and French are? Frankly, all this legally-buttressed, dotty symbolism is for the birds.

[dot king]

I think that one of the deeply underlying problems is that France doesn't "embrace" (for want of a better word) different cultures, but expects new arrivals to fit the Republican mould. Without concession.
I remember well Sarkozy saying in a speech, pre-election, that immigrants were welcome in France as long as they became true French citizens and their children forgot their mother-tongue and only spoke French.
Apart from being intrinsically stupid, this is an unrealistic idea.
No European immigrant would expect to forget how to speak German, English, Dutch, Russian - and Hungarian for example, they would expect to learn French and become bilingual (and many don't even bother). So why should immigrants from outside Europe be expected to "unlearn" their mother-tongue and speak only French? (This is just one example, I could give many more.)

I don't think France realises that expecting people to integrate and become "French through and through" is unrealistic. How do you forget a language you grew up speaking or hearing from birth? How do you forget a culture that still surrounds you in the home and family and by extension in le quartier? You can't, you can keep it and gradually take on the new one.

It's this expecting people to give up something that's their very essence in order to become "French" that is at the root of the problem IMO.
People who feel excluded on the grounds of something they aren't responsible for are bound to entrench within what they know - and express it - as we see.
The intention might be good, but the road to it is the wrong one. IMO.

BTW on the still at the top of the article, only one person is seen to be whistling, and in the video there are as many people who, to judge by by their mouth movements, seem to be singing La Marseillaise with all their might. The whistling was the usual minority.

Franck Ribéry is a Muslim??? I didn't know that - and so what???

[dot king]

dotty symbolism is for the birds.

Posted by: Rick

hmm, not too sure how to take that!

;D

[PAUL 1st]

"Sarkozy is the Nazi here, it's every citizens duty".
What utter bilge! What is more, the twerp who wrote this doesn't know when to use an apostrophe. France could do without this sort of expat.

[Amélie Gourdon]

I kind of agree with Dot King's interpretation that it could be Lâam who had been whistled. I would rather say although that it was both her and the Marseillaise, according to me. Because, really, I can understand the rhetoric of having the anthem singed by a French with Northern African background to show how France is migrant-friendly (arf, arf, such an hypocrisy!); but it is saying again to migrant's children that the only way for them to succeed in France is show-business (and obviously not the good part of it: how many excellent writer-singers with migrant background are reconized and successfull? and yet they are a lot to do real music, not commercial shit)and sport. As symbols of integration I would bet that migrant's children would rather prefer to see people working at high levels of education and management for example. But obviously French state is unable to provide such examples because it is unable to provide such opportunities to migrant's children. When all ways will be open really equally (in practice not on paper only) to everybody (migrants, women, older people...), maybe French state would be less despised. Maybe I would even consider to come back (no I am kidding: I love my country but at least here I can spit out on my anthem as much as I like, because really, it is SO ugly, I don't feel French when I heard it.)

[FC]

["Note to Anglo-Saxons : the French are no more racist than any other European country. Au contraire, the "modèle républicain" automatically confers French nationality on any baby born in France ("droit du sol")"]

Susan... Just because the State is scrupulously non-racist doesn't necessarily mean that racism isn't a problem in everyday life.

["I've been living for 15 years in the suburbs, I am a white woman travelling alone in subruban trains, I've never had any problem with anyone. What you say seems totally surrealist to me, "une pure caricature".]

Dot... Returning to Paris at night from CDG on RER B is often a deeply unpleasant experience for male and female alike.

[Bazrabaz]

The shame is that Britain doesn't get worked up like this anymore. The so called intellectuals turning a blind eye to their culture going down the drain - drip by drip - until; in thirty years time, the question will be asked do you remember Democracy? We used to have that; what was the name of that country we used to be? Too late then - it's gone - courtesy of the idealists.

[Pierre]

Dot
I think you are confusing two doctrines or traditions. "Integration" and "Assmiliation". Integration in France has never been synonim of forgetting or renouncing to original cultural heritages. Assimilation has, and it was mainly applied in a "jacobin" way towards provincial particularisms (Brittany for instance).
True integration, the integration that has forged this coutry since the Romans, is as respectful of specific cultures as laïcité can be of religions. But it requires them to be let aside when confronting the national consensus. And this consensus, it's true, has sometimes been demanding or over demanding.
But look closely as the history of Jewish, Armenian, Italian, Poles, Spanish, Portuguese ASO integration. And you 'll see that, even if this history was hard, sometimes violent but ultimately successful, they kept traditions and heritage alive.
There are many reasons why the challenge of integration is failing with (parts of, only parts of) the populations coming from muslim and former colonized countries. From my point of view these difficulties are largely due not to the "integration fiction" often easily accused, but to socio-economical and "cultural" mutations common to west europeans countries.

[Daisy]

Perhaps the North African countries should do what Rwanda wants to do: ditch the French language in favour of English and play cricket....then sit back and watch the French panic about shrinking fracophonia!

[christopher muir]

National anthems are undoubtedly like sacred music to nations. To think about their symbolism brings about many questions. In his latest book, Oliver Sacks explores and explains the mystery and power of music. Every tune we are familiar with evokes strong memories and it belongs to a special part of the brain. In my opinion, we have all been strongly programmed from an early age to respect our national song (be it good or awful). It is there to bind us to the motherland. So, it’s a foolhardy act to desacrate such symbolic sounds at a public function. It’s likely now that many French people, on hearing the Marseillaise, will associate its stirring rhythm with groups of ignorant youths. In this case the intention of the anthem then becomes hopelessly muddled - hate mixed in with patriotism.

It was interesting how easily Putin replaced the new Russian anthem with the old one from the former USSR. Understandably, leaders like to be thinking that citizens are admiring them as they sing praise upon their nations. For example, imagine standing on a podium by the Kremlin and hearing the choir sing alongside a large brass band, “You (the nation) are unique in the world! Such is only you - Our native land kept by God!” A nice lullaby for any leader.

[dot king]

["I've been living for 15 years in the suburbs, I am a white woman travelling alone in subruban trains, I've never had any problem with anyone. What you say seems totally surrealist to me, "une pure caricature".]

Dot... Returning to Paris at night from CDG on RER B is often a deeply unpleasant experience for male and female alike.

Posted by: FC

FC I didn't post that - I live in the rural south-west (32) - without looking as on my way out, I think it might have been Susan Durst or someone replying to her.
Not me anyway :)

[paparuga]

I back some comment about the "impure blood" in the Marseillaise. It is often a part of the song that is misunderstood (or eventually manipulated) and analyzed wrongly in an actual context, with actual concepts.

At the time of the Revolution, french aristocracy was regularly refering of itself as "pure blood" (and also as "blue blood" --> this is the meaning of the blue part of the french flag, whereas the red part points to the "people" and the white one to the church : these are the "three states" that were constituing french society in the Old Regime). For aristocrats, alliances (marriages) outside their class was condamnable.

The song is naturally refering ironically to aristocracy when speaking of pure blood.

I feel also very incomfortable with this part of the song, but one has to keep in mind the original context before making short conclusions....