Police Dismantle a "Terrorist Cell"

"A network, almost a cell" of more than a dozen people, said to be "delinquents" converted to "radical Islam," has been dismantled by police. One man was killed, ten others were arrested, and two or three remain on the loose. The network was spread across France from Strasbourg to the Alpes-Maritimes. Ties to Salafism were noted.

Le Pen au Chocolat

Jean-François Copé is having a hard time establishing himself as Sarkozy's successor and heir apparent. It's bad enough that he has to fend off a challenge from François Fillon. But on top of that he just can't seem to get hold of the right rhetoric to prove that he is now in fact the incarnation of la droite décomplexée, the role in which his recent eponymous "Manifesto" cast him. So he's gone poaching in the Var, Le Pen country, where he came out with his now famous paean to le pain au chocolat:

« Il est des quartiers où je peux comprendre l’exaspération de certains de nos compatriotes, pères ou mères de famille rentrant du travail le soir et apprenant que leur fils s’est fait arracher son pain au chocolat à la sortie du collège par des voyous qui lui expliquent qu’on ne mange pas pendant le ramadan. »

This gem packs a lot into a small space: it manages to imply that the criminal element (voyous) coincides with Ramadan-celebrating Muslims who terrorize small children and deprive them of that quintessential snack of le Français de souche, le pain au chocolat.

This rather lame emulation of Lepenist rhetoric unleashed a torrent of laughter on Twitter. The title of this post is taken from one of those mocking tweets. Others can be read here. Like many imitators, Copé assumes that the original he seeks to copy is easily imitable. In the case of the Le Pens, it isn't.

Saint Diam's

François Miclo comments on the ex-rapper Diam's TV appearance wearing an Islamic veil. Or, rather, he chastises other commentators for focusing on the veil and ignoring the substance of the interview, which was conversion from Catholicism to Islam and the discovery of faith:

Ce qui dérange, au fond, les commentateurs, c’est la « conversion » de la chanteuse, dans le sens le plus fort du terme : son changement radical de vie. Elle hausse la spiritualité au-delà de la gloire et du succès. Elle place les besoins de l’âme au-dessus de tout autre besoin. Elle parle de cette soif intarissable de Dieu que connaissent tous les mystiques : elle commet une provocation beaucoup plus grande pour notre temps que celles auxquelles elle se livrait quand elle était rappeuse.
Il y avait, dimanche soir, sur TF1, un peu de saint Augustin, chez cette femme-là. J’hésite à l’écrire, tellement il m’aurait semblé invraisemblable de le faire il y a quelques mois encore : il y avait, chez elle, comme de la grâce. Et puis, Diam’s s’arrêtant de chanter : n’est-ce pas la preuve la plus éblouissante de l’existence de Dieu, de sa grandeur aussi ?

A Shameful Episode at Trocadéro

The French authorities are clearly nervous. Charlie Hebdo lit a fuse with its provocative cartoons, and certain zones of Paris have been placed off limits to demonstrators who might have a beef with the satirical newspaper. But the overzealous police seem to have taken the ban on demonstrations as license to cleanse the premises of anyone with the wrong racial identity. The treatment of the family described in the article is totally unacceptable in a liberal democracy, and the government should make amends to show that it understands this. (h/t Arun Kapil)

Le Pen's UltralaÏque Offensive

Is Marine Le Pen reverting to the ways of her father? She soft-pedaled the anti-Semitism in her presidential campaign, but now she has launched an offensive against both the veil and the kippa in public places. This artfully poses "balance" as a criterion in advancing an agenda directed at what she calls "foreign fundamentalists" in France. The moment is well chosen to coincide with heightened fears of an incident following the provocation from Charlie Hebdo.

Le Pen also shrewdly implies that her move is simply an extension of existing anti-veil regulations, but this is not true. Only the burka is banned in all public places. The veil cannot be worn in schools but can be worn elsewhere. With this escalation, the Front National signals that it is not going to allow the value of its traditional xenophobic fonds de commerce to decline simply because it has also discovered economic populism.

One wonders what internal tensions in the FN may have contributed to this shift.

Hollande Denounces Religious Fanaticism

François Hollande made a strong speech today condemning the fanaticism that claims the mantle of Islam.

«L'honneur des civilisations islamiques est d'être plus anciennes, plus vivantes et plus tolérantes que certains de ceux qui prétendent abusivement aujourd'hui parler en leur nom. Il est l'exact contraire de l'obscurantisme qui anéantit les principes et détruit les valeurs de l'Islam en portant la violence et la haine.»

And he said this in the presence of wealthy Muslim donors.

Official Refuses to Marry Veiled Woman

An adjunct mayor in the Var refused to marry a couple because the bride was wearing a veil:

"Le foulard laissait voir son visage mais pas ses oreilles et la racine de ses cheveux", a-t-elle ajouté. Selon elle, l'adjointe au maire a estimé ne pas pouvoir vérifier l'identité de sa cliente. "On n'en fait pas une affaire d'Etat", a déclaré l'avocate, qui souligne que ses clients ne demandent pas de dommages-et-intérêts mais simplement "la célébration du mariage le plus vite possible". Elle avait déposé à la fin de la semaine dernière un référé d'heure à heure à l'encontre du préfet.

But what's unusual about a veiled bride? This was an "Islamic" veil, you say, not a good old-fashioned honest-to-God veil? Note that it wasn't a burka; the veil covered the bride's "ears" and "the roots of her hair." The official claimed that this made it impossible to verify her identity.

Scandalous.