France is about to become less free | Hacker News Reader

France is about to become less free

theatlantic.com

48 pointscwwc51 comments

I think the situation in France is probably hopeless. Even Muslim-majority countries are having a difficult time reconciling themselves with the rise of Islamic separatism. In countries like Bangladesh, where I’m from, or Turkey or Egypt, the separatism takes the form of reaction against the moderate secular regimes of the 20th century. Here is the President of Egypt in 1958 recounting his conversation with the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. He and the audience laugh at the leader’s request to mandate headscarves in Egypt, observing that the leader’s own daughter, a medical student, doesn’t wear a headscarf: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZIqdrFeFBk. Back then, few women in Egypt wore a headscarf. Today, 90% of women do (and Muslim Brotherhood was recently in control of the country). In Bangladesh there are objections to our legal system, which is based on British common law, and our western-style constitution that embodies principles of secularism: https://resolvenet.org/system/files/2018-08/RSVE_03Banglades....

People don’t give the United States enough credit for how well we have assimilated our Muslim immigrants. In France and Germany, Muslims suffer from generational poverty. In the US, they have higher incomes than average within a generation. I think our religiosity had a lot to do with it. We are a country founded by people who got kicked out of Europe for being religious fundamentalists. Our society functions smoothly with Mormons, Jehovah’s witnesses, Amish, etc.

Our society is accommodating on multiple levels—religious immigrants aren’t exclusively reliant on the goodwill of a segment of cosmopolitan liberals who like the idea of diversity for its own sake. Mormons and Southern Baptists took an active role in legal challenges to Trump’s “Muslim ban” (a tepid reaction compared to what’s happening in Europe). They have likewise challenged municipal actions denying construction permits for mosques. George W. Bush saw Islamic terrorists kill thousands of Americans and days later gave a heartfelt speech—coming from his own experience as a man of deep faith—about how Islam is a “religion of peace.” Meanwhile in France even liberal people strongly support stripping schoolgirls of headscarves. Macron is calling Islam a “religion in crisis.” French society barely manages to accommodate Christianity. How can it be expected to accommodate Islam?

> People don’t give the United States enough credit for how well we have assimilated our Muslim immigrants

Maybe because they are way fewer, having higher burdens for immigration (even given the geographical distance) and comimg from more tolerant generations/timeframes.

That’s a major part of it, but not the whole story: https://www.fpri.org/2016/04/us-doesnt-muslim-problem-europe...

> My uncle was an educated and a skilled worker who climbed the ranks of German’s fledgling space agency to hold a senior scientist post. While he was professionally successful, his children, who were both born in Germany, struggled. They still feel they are outsiders, not quite German but definitely not Pakistani — a feeling that is repeated as they have children of their own. This experience juxtaposed with that of my father shows a clear difference. Even though I was raised in a predominantly white New York City suburb, I was never considered anything other than American. It is treatment that is extended to my children who, like the subsequent descendants of immigrants, are only aware of the ethnic roots as a distant fact. This is the fundamental difference between European and American Muslims: the ability for American Muslims to assimilate.

Note that while the US doesn’t take as many Muslim refugees as Europe, unlike Canada or Australia it has an immigration system based on family reunification, not points. So while the first person in a family may immigrate based on say an H1-B, siblings and other family might immigrate significantly lower on the economic ladder. (This was true of for example my uncle, aunt, and cousins, who came over on a family reunification visa sponsored by my dad, who himself came over with a white collar job under an H1-B.)

On the other hand the US is very much responsible for escalating the Arab Spring, just look at Syria and Libya. It's easy to bomb a country 6.000 miles away and then just watch what happens later. That was one of the biggest mistake of the Obama administration no matter what, admitted by himself too [0]. Illegal immigrantion to Europe wasn't that bad before 2010.

0, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36013703

I agree those were mistakes, but the US didn’t undertake those interventions unilaterally. Both were international efforts. France was actually the first to say “Gaddafi must go.” France was also one of the leaders in the Syrian intervention: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/11/1...

> France’s hawkish stance towards Syria contrasts with the reluctance among many U.S. policymakers to expand American involvement in the conflict. This is the latest move in a long history of French resistance to American foreign policy decision-making.

Excellent analysis, and one I hadn’t considered.

I wouldn’t have made the connection between strong religious liberty and reducing the likelihood of islamic separatism.

> People don’t give the United States enough credit for how well we have assimilated our Muslim immigrants.

To be fair, the US also got a lot of Lebanese, and Iranians to come over. A lot of these people were Doctors and Lawyers back home.

European immigration has been mostly from North Africa.

I don’t mean to downplay that distinction, but it’s worth nothing that being a doctor or lawyer back home is worth little after you immigrate. A lot of my aunts and uncles immigrated from Bangladesh to Anglo countries, and you have doctors, judges, and engineers working retail. They were starting back at 0.

A few of the younger ones spent years getting advanced degrees and eventually professional jobs, while many didn’t. But the next generation, my cousins, are pretty uniformly college educated professionals: doctors, lawyers, accountants, bankers, and engineers. And they’re fully socially integrated. Obviously coming from an educated family has certain intangible advantages. But the economic mobility and pathway to integration is critical. And it doesn’t exist in every developed country.

> Even Muslim-majority countries are having a difficult time reconciling themselves with the rise of Islamic separatism.

You got it backward. Unless you live in a country with a majority of Muslims, radical Islamism is not going to be an issue except for the Muslims themselves. They are never going to be politically powerful enough to enforce any kind of Islamic inspired law on the whole population, so their power of nuisance is limited to the Muslim community (especially young liberals in this community, women, gays, etc.) but as long as the society as a whole provides an escape from those Islamic circles, most Muslims will be fine. The ultra-orthodox Jewish community and traditionalist Catholics are other instances of Radical religious subcommunity in a liberal country, doing not much harm outside of their own small groups (where they do, like Radical Muslims).

The big issue in France, is that many (most?) Muslims live in ghetto-ized suburbs and have lots of difficulties to join the rest of the French society. This makes the nuisance power of the Islamic groups much bigger than it should be. And the state bears a lot of responsibility is this : both passively, by not taking strong stance on discrimination (for employment, studies, and housing), but also actively, by setting-up its own kinds of discrimination in an attempt to appeal far-right electors.

Oh, "traditionalist" "radical" Catholics (I'm one of those) are doing harm in their own groups, and even some outside their own groups?

How, pray tell? By advocating for the traditional Tridentine Mass? By praying the Rosary?

Dangerous folk are we!

At least 300 hundred gay teenagers are kicked out of their home every year in France, most of them for religious believes (Muslims, Christians and Jewish alike). When they aren't just pushed to suicide[1].

And how about physical violence in religious school?[2]

So yes, like Islamists, some Catholics are doing harm in their own group (namely, their family).

[1] https://tetu.com/2018/12/03/nantes-collegien-homosexuel-defe... [2] https://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2018/09/06/2863588-coups-ba...

Not really backwards. The most intolerant minority wins.

What's weird is that I cannot see a connection between the attacks and the changes in law. Had these changes have been in place, would these have prevented the attacks? It seems like the French want to look "tough", without actually solving the problem and perhaps introducing a dash of more problems.

>An amendment requiring that academic research hew to the “values of the Republic” was scrapped only at the last minute, after strong pushback by scholars who feared that its intent was to restrict freedom of inquiry.

>Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer has bemoaned the influence of American critical race theory on the French social sciences, blaming them for undermining France’s race- and ethnicity-blind universalism, and for giving comfort to “islamo-gauchisme,” or “Islamo-leftism.” That term, coined by the French far right, blames progressive intellectuals for nourishing radical political Islam through their work on structural racism and Islamophobia. “The fish rots from the head,” Blanquer quipped.

Wow.

Well that part is true but I don't think they choose the best way to deal with it.

Critical race theory is so obvious its just boring. The boogeyman the right makes out of it just feels dumb.

It’s obvious as a matter of academic theory to study society through racial lenses among other viewpoints. But that’s not what anyone is objecting to. (Critical race theory has been around for decades without much mainstream attention or opposition.)

What people are objecting to is the application of critical race theory to restructuring social and political relationships. Earlier this year, this happened at my law school: https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/516127-the-real-con...

> The acting dean of Northwestern University Law School began a diversity event by declaring, "I am James Speta and I am a racist." He was followed by Emily Mullin, executive director of major gifts, who said, "I am a racist and a gatekeeper of white supremacy. I will work to be better." These kind recitations are now expected of anyone claiming to oppose racism.

Talk like this would have been an unimaginable norms violation just ten years ago when I was at Northwestern. And it’s “obvious” to me that it’s a terrible idea to replace our existing social norms with ones that center race in all places and at all times, and provoke confrontation along racial lines. As a “person of color” I don’t view the world through the lens of “white supremacy” out to get me. I certainly don’t want my half white daughter to view the world and the white half of her family that way. (I would go so far as to say that such rhetoric in a school environment would amount to creation of a hostile environment bordering on abuse.)

Its one thing to study history, economics, and the law through those lenses. That can lend great and valuable insights. But it’s entirely different to single out individuals as “gatekeepers of white supremacy” so as to restructure interpersonal relationships at school or work along critical race theory lines.

And the opposition isn’t just coming from the “right” but also traditional liberals. Macron is, of course, a left-leaning liberal. My mom, a Muslim immigrant who has voted Democrat ever since she became a naturalized citizen, forwarded me Donald Trump’s order banning critical race theory-based training, with the note “he did a good thing, that was evil.”

This is a common pattern that I see in US legislation as well. It’s the “we have to do something” effect, even if that something wouldn’t have helped at all.

Maybe that's the "we have to look like we're doing something" effect.

Can anyone recommend additional analysis from a French perspective in English?

The following two articles I read earlier are not analyses of these laws specifically, but I found them useful to understand a little bit about the French perspective:

• One of these two — https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/caroline-fo... (“Why the American Press Keeps Getting Terror in France Wrong”) and https://unherd.com/2020/10/why-is-the-anglo-media-portaying-... (“Why is the Anglo media portraying France as the villain?”) — points out ways in which the English-language media seems to have a different perspective from the French. For example, after a sword-wielding maniac decapitated a teacher on the street and was shot by the police, the New York Times framed it in the context of ongoing American conversations about police violence, emphasizing the police response more than the beheading (original headline “French Police Shoot and Kill Man After a Fatal Knife Attack on the Street”).

• This one — https://unherd.com/2020/11/the-age-old-clash-between-islam-a... (”The age-old tension between Islam and France”) — takes a longer view, and it does not take the position of saying that Islamic values are against obviously-good French values: it shows how French/Western values have also sought to impose themselves on the Islamic world in an uneasy way, starting from when Napoleon took to Egypt “a printing press, a hot-air balloon and a small army of intellectuals”.

Thank you, these are great.

Will the EU weigh in?

Already done: https://www.politico.eu/article/commission-opinion-france-la...

Of course not (well, not anything beyond a ceremonial slap on the wrist, perhaps). France is the junior partner in the Franco-German hegemony that is the EU, even if they are a bit of a Fredo of the pair. You have to be a "second tier" subordinate member before the "EU" will say anything, and not really because any freedoms are being restricted necessarily, but because it messes with the tight grip of the German hegemonic power structure. If you were a neoimperialist, would you want your de facto colonies getting "uppity"? Heck no. In dictatorships, you use the baton. In democratic republics, you use the media to shape opinion and "soft" political coercion. You don't want people to know you're an imperialist, after all.

France has been under martial law for years.

It started November 13th 2015. They didn't declare it during Charlie Hebdo, but rather the Paris and Saint Denis attacks. It was likely to going to expire but they extended the measure until after the election. So France had been under 'state of emergency' for years and there just so happens to be a fresh terrorist attack each time they needed to extend the state of emergency.

The election was very unusual as well. Very unusual results that certainly appears like election fraud. No worries though, he was running against Hitler and the Nazi party. Dont worry the governments thoroughly investigated her for various crimes during the election and even demanded she be put in confinement to answer for the charges in front of the court.

With that majority he could let the state of emergency lapse. Oh right I forgot, they only let it lapse because they created anti-terror legislation. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41493707

Basically the police can walk into any house in France without warrant and search it. Thousands of searches a year and only single digit charges. Oh don't forget that virtually everyone's internet can be monitored anytime by French police. Or how about the:

>One measure will allow the Interior Ministry, without approval from a judge, to set up large security perimeters in case of an identified threat, restricting movement of people and vehicles and with power to carry out searches inside the area.

The very clear violation of human rights for years the yellow vests formed to protest the government. It wasn't just the human rights, tons of bullshit by the government.

In response to the yellow vests the army was deployed. France's state propaganda even wrote about it: https://www.france24.com/en/20190322-france-macron-risky-pla... That was March 23rd 2019.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_movement#16_March...

The reason the yellow vests didn't really have any updates after March 16th was because France arrested all the yellow vest leaders. https://news.yahoo.com/yellow-vest-leader-eric-drouet-arrest...

Also notice the September wiki entry that 'a new wave of protests' and 'demonstrators taken into custody'

Then covid hit and the government went much further. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/09/france-thousa...

"It also finds that long before the pandemic, first aiders, journalists and human rights observers were among those targeted under vague laws during nationwide protest movements that began in late 2018."

"Between November 2018 and July 2019, 11,203 Yellow Vests protesters were placed in pre-charge detention."

"Frédéric, a trade union organiser, has been arrested and prosecuted several times over the past two years for his peaceful activities and fined five times for participating in what the authorities considered ‘banned protests’."

In 2019, 20,280 people were convicted of “contempt of public officials”, including protesters. This vaguely defined offence covers anything deemed to “affect the personal dignity or the respect owed to a public official” and is punishable with up to a year in jail and a fine of up to €15,000.

The amazing thing is that the French people aren't even aware they are under martial law and their human rights are gone. That this happened before Covid even was a thing.

In this case it's just a new measure to restrict journalists from revealing the reality of their martial law.

If they come back with guillotines, then I would be more worried.

Be worried, a majority of us is actually thinking about it.

https://www.google.fr/amp/s/www.leparisien.fr/amp/societe/pe...

You become what you hate.

I need to hate skinny people.

Do you though?

I think there is dramatic irony if you become what you hate which makes it feel unexpected and important and memorable, but I would push back against the idea that you more likely to become something if you hate it, without further evidence, or at least some kind of exploration of why that happens and in what kind of circumstances.

I find it annoying that I can't actually verify the claims in the article because the alot of the stuff it references are still in French.

I find french politics to be strange though, so I'm not surprised

I'm not sure why that is "annoying". Of course, French-centered topics would be in French.

Also, your browser probably has an integrated translation feature. If not, you can copy'n'paste the url on a translation website.

Because I want to be able to double check claims made by an article. Do you take claims with face value?

And why the hell would you think a auto translation feature would be adequate to figure out the nuances of law text?

Take all interpretations of French politics/laws from American journalists with a good amount of salt.

This week there was already a massive wave of disinformation by the part of WP and NYT saying France was going the way of a famous 20th century authoritarian regime.

I wonder what precipitated this slew of coverage. In my subjective experience, when Western European states do something creepy or authoritarian, publications like the WP and NYT seem to ignore or downplay it. Never gets much play here in the US unless you're reading fringe publications.

Are France and the US in a policy dispute? Or is it just the strike against academia and critical race theory?

It used to be the same about France (France has been on this slope for a decade), but now the French political situation has become more than just “something creepy or authoritarian”, and is becoming really scary even by American standards.

In a law proposal discussed today, facial recognition via drones will be deployed and filming the police will get you in jail for up to 48h without seeing a judge, and your phone/camera will be taken from you for up to six month, again without judge intervention.

Yesterday night:

An homeless immigrant being thrown from his tent https://twitter.com/RemyBuisine/status/1330979314272178185

Then, the journalist who made this shot (Remy Buisine) is beaten by the police https://twitter.com/Marco_cgr/status/1330997295618416643. He was assaulted three times in one hour (https://twitter.com/RemyBuisine/status/1330993051263791104)

And the government is currently passing a law that will allow the police to arrest anyone filming their intervention (journalists included).

The direction taken by France is indeed really concerning.

Thanks, I am aware of the events of last night, where an NGO moved a camp and set up multiple tents on a main square for theatrical purposes and the clearing of the square was completely justifiable (though the means are certainly questionable)

> The direction taken by France is indeed really concerning.

I'm more worried about teachers being killed for showing drawings to students

> where an NGO moved a camp and set up multiple tents on a main square for theatrical purposes and the clearing of the square was completely justifiable

It was indeed a happening, by activists. A bit of context: the state is required by law to provide emergency housing to these people, but failed to comply, so this NGO organized this happening to attract attention on this problem (and the non-respect of the law by the government). Reacting to such happening by assaulting the JOURNALISTS covering the event is unjustifiable in a democratic country, sorry.

> I'm more worried about teachers being killed for showing drawings to students

It was ONE teacher, not teacher, and it was indeed a tragedy. And it also has no link with the police assaulting journalists (Samuel Patty was defending free speech, assaulting journalists is as far as you can get from that…).

France has no obligation to give free room and board for anyone that shows up. If any country disagrees they are free to pay for transportation and lodgement themselves.

> It was ONE teacher

And the ones that were stabbed in front of the Charlie Hebdo office "by mistake" this year. And the other attacks this year. And the previous attacks on CH and/or for other Cartoons

So no it's not just "one teacher" (as if it was fine being just one)

First, the French State has obligations which are written in the French laws. I didn't write them or vote for any of those, and the government can change them if they will, but those are the current laws in my country. If the government doesn't respect laws, then we're out of the State of Law and closer to Venezuela & Russia than to UK or Germany.

Second, you said “teacherS”, when the murder you were talking about was of one teacher. You were deforming facts to push your agenda, which I pointed out.

And by the way, if you're willing to accept a handful of murders (or even a thousand, as a matter of fact) as a good reason to make our country an authoritarian state for its 65 millions inhabitants, you are much, much closer to the supporters of the “famous 20th century authoritarian regime” that you are willing to admit.

> And the government is currently passing a law that will allow the police to arrest anyone filming their intervention (journalists included

That's blatantly wrong.

Only ifbthe intent is to harm the police officers, as explicitly stated in the law, and an amendment specifically excludes their police ID number from the protection.

You won't ever get condemned thanks to this law (which is useless anyway, because filming policemen and diffusing their identification info to harass them was already illegal[1], like any other kind of harassment).

But, it will allow cops to arrest you. The famous French Lawyer Maitre Eolas gave an juridical explanation on this here https://twitter.com/Maitre_Eolas/status/1328974533768994818) (this is in French unfortunately, and not being well versed in law-related words in English, I cannot translate it :/). But what I said holds: you'll be in jail for up to 48h («garde à vue») without seeing a judge or any possibility of appeal.

> excludes their police ID number from the protection.

Good joke, almost no policemen wear it, even though it's mandatory… [2]

[1]: https://www.liberation.fr/checknews/2019/12/18/une-jeune-fem...

[2]: http://www.profession-gendarme.com/les-policiers-peuvent-ils...

The government can never increase freedom. It can only reduce freedom. The only way to increase freedom is by reducing the government.

That is rediculous. Your model assumes that all freedom is freedom from legislative restrictions.

If I have universal healthcare, then I am free of the worry of medical bankruptcy. Being free from things is a significant source of freedom.

As someone recently working in hospitals (in Europe), no it cannot. Medical issues can rapidly and permanently reduce you to government support, which is guaranteed to destroy your financial situation quickly.

Also, quite a lot of treatments are not done, or have absurd waiting lists, so you’ll be tempted to get yourself into medical bankruptcy anyway by going private/abroad. Either that or accept delayed subpar care. Or no care at all.

Do people really believe bullshit like this, or do they just regurgitate it to feel enlightened? Like the world is made up of 27 Absolute Rules and if you know all 27 then you are the smartest person. Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

What an ironic comment.

As a popular Italian artists said

freedom is not the opportunity of doing whatever you want without any limit, if they leave me in the desert and tell me "you are free now, do whatever you like" I would not be free at all.

Governments can absolutely increase freedom. They can prevent one group from subjecting and surpassing another. People who live in fear that expressing their beliefs are not really free.

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