Foreign flags at La Bastille

[raygun]

The New Political Centre:

Foreign flags at La Bastille

By Philippe Labrecque

May 14, 2012

 

The results came down officially at 8pm on May 6^th, confirming what most predicted. Incumbent French President Nicolas Sarkozy was defeated by the Socialist candidate, François Hollande.

 

The defeat of Nicolas Sarkozy and it’s center-right party, the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP), meant that the victorious celebrations by newly elected François Hollande and the left wing Socialist Party would be held at Place de la Bastille, emblem of the French Revolution and a memorial of the taking of the fortress that many consider the symbol of the end of the French Monarchy and the Old Regime.

 

I was present at La Bastille on May 6^th and anyone else there for the celebrations could not help but notice that France’s flag, the Tricolore, was scarcely seen, while flags from multiple countries and every political party from the left were numerous and flying high. The next morning, Nadine Morano, Minister of Learning and Vocational training and member of the defeated Sarkozy administration, as well as Louis Aliot, Vice president of the far-right National Front, criticized the number of “red flags and foreign flags” and the absence of the Tricolore at La Bastille.

 

It didn’t take much to ignite the debate and, sadly, the French media reverted quickly to its left and right wing biases as the left attacked the right with poorly veiled insults of xenophobia while the right denounced the clannishness of French society and politics. Although one could explain the revolutionary red flags’ presence due to the victory of the Socialist party, the presence of foreign flags made many feel uncomfortable.

 

It is fair to say that it was not the Greek, Spanish or even the Québec flags that made some feel uncomfortable but the Algerian, Tunisian, Moroccan, Turkish, Palestinian and even the Syrian and Iraqi flags that created the polemic. Some saw this display of internationalism as positive and a success of the left’s ability to unite people of many origins as oppose to the divisive strategy of the right based on patriotism and a mild form of nationalism during those presidential elections. There is, however, a more profound issue beyond the mere display of foreign flags than what the mainstream left and right care to argue beyond their typical, mutual insults.

 

Indeed, it was no coincidence that they were no Israeli flag flown over La Bastille while many flags from predominantly Muslim countries could be seen. Pierre Bréchon, professor at Sciences Po Grenoble argues in the national newspapers Le Figaro, that religion is, by far, the most important factor in explaining the results of the elections. The Figaro reported the day after Hollande’s victory that 92% of eligible voters in Israel voted for Nicolas Sarkozy, while in Ramallah, in the Palestinian territories, Hollande received the support of 83% of eligible voters. In France, polls show that nearly 80% of practicing Catholics voted Sarkozy while 93% of practicing Muslims gave their support to Hollande.

 

Such numbers are not entirely surprising. Sarkozy led campaigns in 2007 and 2012 that many judged hostile to immigration in general but especially to people of Algerian, Tunisian and Moroccan origins. What’s interesting, is that those same polls demonstrate that voters that identified as practicing Catholics, Protestants, Muslims and Jews, share similar conservative values in line with the right’s values when it comes to sensitive issues such as gay marriage, abortion and strong family values to name only a few. However, numbers show that of those four religious groups, only Muslims vote massively to the left, most likely due to the latter more positive and less confrontational attitude towards immigration from the Maghreb and Sub-Saharan Africa especially.

 

As Pierre Bréchon mentions, if anything can be taken from the Muslim vote in France, it’s its rate of abstention that is much higher than average. Perhaps, the right and the left are mutually responsible for that high abstention rate amongst Muslims. One could argue that the left’s ideological barriers prevents it from matching the conservative views of practicing Muslims. The right’s return to its traditional role of defender of the French identity that often includes its Christian roots combined with its increasingly anti-immigration stance at least since Nicolas Sarkozy became Minister of the Interior in 2005, leaves immigrants from the last 30 or 40 years and practicing Muslims with very few options when it comes to voting.

 

Even non-religious voters waved their flags frantically during the night of May 6^th, but their flags were those of the different parties of the left as Pierre Bréchon reports that 70% of self-identified non-religious voters supported Hollande. If many here in France argued that Hollande was elected to fight unemployment, then the religious influences would most likely be less important as economics cuts across all classes and religious groups. Perhaps, non-religious voters were the most influenced by economic issues and judged Sarkozy’s tenure as President as a failure while Hollande could take on the economic crisis more efficiently and re-start the French economy.

 

The foreign flag controversy, therefore, was not merely an innocent occurrence but highlighted the religious fault lines that cut across French society. If France is to tackle its issues with identity, its colonial heritage and its large Muslim population, then maybe it is time to acknowledge that neither the right nor the left nor the media, has done anything in the last few years to truly help break sectarian divisions amongst the French.

[raygun]

The image I'm looking for is the crowd around Place de la Bastille at night with about 30 flags. Only one was the Tricolore of France.

 

As nearest I can tell this image in in the memory hole and will never reappear (or it was photoshop).

 

The best I gots so fars:

 

[raygun]

Unconfirmed: 1770 automobiles burst into flames for no reason during the night of election celebrations. No word on cause or how many subsequent conflagurations have occured.

 

Automobile insurance must be murder in France; that much is a given that such has been going on for years now.

[raygun]

France's Toll of Destruction

The Brussels' Journal (The Voice of 'conservatism in Europe)

From the desk of Paul Belien

Fri, 2005-11-18 22:23

 

Not a single word in the press anymore about the ongoing vandalism in France’s lost neighbourhoods. Yesterday the French government officially declared the riots over. Police figures are at exactly 98 cars torched on Wednesday night. This, the police say, is “a normal average.” Consequently the 20th consecutive night of violence was declared the last one.

 

Last night probably another hundred cars were set ablaze – as will be the case tonight, tomorrow night, and the following ones. Before large-scale rioting started on 27 October the police had already registered 30,000 car-becues this year – an average of, indeed, 100 a day. What a boost this must be to the French automobile industry. In the same period there were 3,800 attacks on police officers – a “normal” non-riot average of almost 13 a day.

 

During the past three weeks of rioting an additional 10,000 cars were torched; 130 police officers got wounded; some 100 factories and industrial buildings were vandalized and/or set ablaze; the same thing happened to some 100 schools, kindergartens, sports centers and (other) government buildings, as well as to at least 13 Christian cemetaries, chapels and churches, plus at least 4 Jewish centers and synagogues. There was also one attempt to set fire to a mosque. Two people were murdered: 56-year old Jean-Claude Irvoas was beaten to death in front of his wife and child, and 61-year old Jacques Le Chenadec was kicked to death when he tried to extinguish a burning dustbin in front of the apartment block where he lived.

 

Today in the Belgian newspaper De Tijd Nicole le Guennec, a French sociologist, says that car torching has been a common phenomenon in France for the past fifteen years. If this is true and if 100 is the average toll of destruction each night, a staggering 547,500 cars have been destroyed in France during that period. Probably more, because when one car is set alight and the fire destroys surrounding cars as well, the statistics count it as only one car fire. The worst night is traditionally New Year’s eve. Last New Year’s eve 330 cars were destroyed, a low figure compared to previous New Years when around 400 cars were set alight.

 

In contemporary multicultural France such staggering figures of lawlessness are considered to be a sign of “normality” and are hardly reported in the mainstream media. Neither is the following little piece of information. This week Professor Dominique Reynié of Sorbonne University in Paris, told the Brussels weekly Knack that the French state was obliged to borrow money last week to pay the wages of its civil servants. “The money has run out. One must concede: this is no example of a strong state.”

 

...

 

[excerpted]

 

Qwexion: how much word is on that lately?