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A strange conception of Democracy

Today the French equivalent of the Home Secretary, criticised a court ruling condemning seven police officers to prison terms. Read the facts, my comment follows.

Seven police officers tried in Bobigny for perjury, forgery, and wrongly accusing a man were sentenced yesterday, 10 Dec., to prison terms of six months to one year , an "unexpected" ruling that has attracted the fury of their colleagues.

This conviction marks an end their career in law enforcement for at least five of them: officers are required to have a clean criminal record. (Why not all of them?)

Minutes after the ruling, a call to protest was launched by a police union. At 4:00 p.m., more than 200 police from Seine-Saint-Denis gathered outside the court to the wailing of forty sirens."We are outraged by the decision. For us it is a slur on the profession, "castigated Sebastien Bailly, Assistant Secretary of the police union County Alliance.

The facts: On Sept. 9 at Aulnay-sous-Bois a policeman had his leg crushed, struck by a police car after a chase. He and his colleagues then decided to lie and accuse, in their statements, the driver of the car they were pursuing.

The latter was placed in custody for attempted homicide on a police officer, a crime punishable by life imprisonment with no remission.

They were tried on Nov. 4 for "slanderous denunciation" and "forgery". Three of them were also tried for "aggravated violence": the victim was beaten up after his arrest.

Three defendants were sentenced to 12 months imprisonment, one to nine months, another to 7 months and two to six months. The court emphasized "the gravity of the facts” explaining that the sentence was in "accordance with the degree of participation in the forgery of public documents" and "the attitude to the IGS (Police complaints commission).

"It's totally unexpected," protested Jean-Claude Durimel, counsel for the injured policeman, who was sentenced to 7 months in Jail.

The prosecutor had compared the methods of the police in this case to those of the Gestapo, provoking howls of rage in the court room. At the bar, three police officers had admitted lying and said they had worked together to establish a false report.

I'm sorry to say this but the contempt shown, on so many levels, by this story has not provoked public outrage and indignation. The minister, Brice Hortefeux, in criticising a court decision has broken the principle of the separation of powers, the base on which the Constitution reposes. (He was recently fined by the Tribunal Correctionnel de Paris for racial remarks he made at a meeting of the UMP so perhaps he has an axe to grind.)

The indignation of the police and of the defendants council tells us a lot about the impunity with which the police usually operate.

The injured party was said to be "known to the police" and it is now common practise for the police to leak details of an accused's police record as soon as he or she is arrested. So, it is no surprise that the public were not surprised to lean he was "set up and beaten up" by the men who are supposed to represent law and order.

It shouldn't shock, in a state were corruption is rife and abuse of the public and constitution is commonplace, but it does

The Thought Police

Jean-Hugues Matelly, a man unknown to the public, has become the latest victim of Sarkozy’s wrath. His is/was a member of the National Centre for Scientific Research, CNRS, but also had the rank of Chef d'Escadron de Gendarmerie from which he was detached as a specialist, I presume, in the field of policing.

The gendarme is not an ordinary policeman. Technically he is a member of the armed forces and therefore cannot join a trade union and is subject to military discipline. For reasons best known to M. Sarkozy there was a partial merging of the police and the gendarmerie which came into effect on 1^st January 2009. M. Matelly and a fellow member of the CNRS, M. Cristian Mouhana, who is not a gendarme, published a paper critical of the merger. M. Matelly also reiterated his comments on National Radio.

In consequence, he has been struck from the ranks of Officers of Gendarmerie for his non respect of the “obligation de réserve”. The “obligation de réserve” is a convention which requires serving military personnel and certain civil servants to keep a public silence in circumstances which would normally provoke comment.

This disciplinary measure was taken directly by the President of the Republic and is without precedence.

Adjutant A., a fellow gendarme, published a satirical poem entitled “IL PLEUT SOUS NOS KÉPIS !” , (it’s raining under our Képis). The poem is in support of his colleague and criticizes Sarkozy. It was published on a site reserved for the police and gendarmerie and would not have been noticed if the officer had not been suspended and charged with “Avoir diffusé sur internet et intranet Gendarmerie, des propos outrageant à l’encontre du Président de la République, et “incitation à la révolte” !

(Having published on the internet and intranet sites of the gendarmerie insulting remarks against the President of the Republic, and "incitement to rebellion”.) The latter is an extremely serious accusation and carries a very heavy sentence.

Finally, be careful how you travel. An entire wagon load of young people were arrested when the train arrived at its destination. Some of them were found to be carrying weapons and were going to a football match but a number of them said they were simply travelling to Paris for various reasons when the football supporters got onto the train and occupied the empty seats. They are all charged with “Réunion en bande ”, a crime which Sarkozy invented when he was the Justice Minister. It consists of more than six young people being seen together as a group, or it might be eight, I can’t quite remember, however it carries a possible prison sentence. So, you have been warned. The thought police have not yet been officially created but we are well on the road (to destruction?).

Here is the original text

Source : http://adefdromil.org/?p=4341

IL PLEUT SOUS NOS KÉPIS !

Il faisait beau alors, le jour où j’ai signé !
Je me souviens comme j’étais fier de m’engager,
D’être formé à ce métier par mes aînés…

Du bon droit je voulais être le soldat,
Dans le respect des traditions et des hommes.
Du citoyen, à tout faire je serai l’homme !

De ma personne alors, j’ai donné sans compter.
Ma famille dans cette voie s’est trouvée liée.
Mes devoirs étaient les siens sans qu’elle ait signé…

Nos Gradés, nos Officiers étaient nos modèles.
Ils savaient nous motiver et nous ordonner.
Alors nous étions soudés, unis et fidèles…

Nous savions des sacrifices la juste raison,
Et étions tous reconnus “Servants de la Nation !”
De la France, la plus noble et vieille Institution.

Un nouveau Roy fût nommé, et tout a changé.
Diviser pour mieux régner, tel était son but !
Il y parvint bien, précipitant la chute !

Pour ce faire, il choisit bien parmi les nôtres,
Ceux d’entre eux les plus vénaux, les moins fidèles,
Leur fit tant miroiter, qu’il furent ses “apôtres”.

Ces vendus et parjures aujourd’hui, ont ourdi
D’enterrer sans coup férir notre belle histoire…
De nous taire ils nous ordonnent, arguant : “Tout est dit !”

L’un des nôtres osa parler sans démériter,
se faisant ainsi le râle de notre douleur…
Il fût vite éliminé par ces fossoyeurs !

Aujourd’hui, Sainte Geneviève saigne et pleure,
Je sens bien ses larmes chaudes sous mon képi,
Comme si sur moi SARKOZY faisait son pipi…

Soldats nous sommes, et c’est debout que nous mourrons.
Et à l’instar de CAMBRONNE, “MERDE” nous dirons.
Nous briserons nos armes, mais nous taire “Pas question !”

Nous ne sommes que des hommes, soldats mais citoyens,
Et nos voix dans l’urne pèsent bien pour un scrutin…
Qu’on les entende ensuite, d’étonnant n’a rien.

Nous taire il ne faut point, surtout si c’est la fin !
Au pays des Droits de l’Homme, on dénie les miens.
Fidèle, loyal je suis, muet je ne suis point.

Même si tout est fini, que prévue est la fin,
Nous n’irons au sépulcre qu’après avoir tout dit.
Geneviève, Chère Patronne, Il pleut sous nos képis !

Adjudant A.

Dédié au Chef d’Escadron Jean-Hugues MATELLY

Toujours selon l’Association de défense des droits des militaires (ADEFDROMIL), cette "chasse aux sorcières" dans la Gendarmerie est inédite "depuis l’époque de l’épuration après la libération et celle de la fin de la guerre d’Algérie où quelques militaires ayant des sympathies OAS furent inquiétés".

"Le moins qu’on puisse dire, c’est qu’elle est symbolique de la mandature du président Sarkozy et de l’ambiance obsidionale qui règne à l’Elysée".

Lire : Gendarmerie : chronique d'une mort annoncée - parodie

Hommage à la gendarmerie et aux gendarmes

Elections and Expulsions

Tomorrow we vote, well, strictly, they vote. In my family I’m the only one who is disenfranchised. I can vote in the Municipal Elections, I could even be Mayor of Lyon, (in theory only) and I can vote here in the European elections, but I cannot vote in the Regional Elections. I pay my taxes and that’s as far as it goes.

The Regions are important. Last time, 2004, every region but one, Alsace, went to the Socialist Party. This time Sarkozy began by ordering Ministers to head the lists in various Departments (a region is made up of several Departments) and he seemed to be making the elections a test of his Presidency but, once it became clear his party was unpopular, he began backing off. It didn’t stop him trying to cull favour everywhere possible. He said publicly how important he thought ecology was, before meeting french farmers and saying that he was sick of the environmental lobby getting in the way of farming. He even went further in hypocrisy than even he had ever gone before by ordering, on Monday, that Najlae Lhimer should be allowed to return to France. This, only after the outcry against the injustice of her situation became threatening.

Who is Najlae Lhimer? She is an eighteen year old Moroccan girl who had entered France quite legally, was following a course in a state school, for a national exam which she will sit in May. Where is the problem? The problem is that when a foreign student reaches 18 they loose the right to remain in France. She would probably have been all right if her elder brother, with whom she was living, having had no contact with her parents for a number of years, hadn’t got into the habit of beating her up.

In February, after a particularly violent attack she decided to make a formal complaint, after all we have been made aware by all the media of the necessity of protecting women from this kind of abuse.

So on the 20^th of February she went to the gendarmerie to ask for protection. As her 18^th birthday had passed they arrested her and she was deported from the country the following day. There are some problems even french gendarmes can deal with!

The students at her school launched a national campaign against this obvious injustice and helped by Réseau éducation sans frontières (RESF), last Monday, the day given over to women’s right’s, Sarkozy revoked her deportation and ordered that she be granted a visa. Any ship in a storm, some might say.

When she arrived at the airport this morning her classmates held up a banner with the message, "le pays des gendarmes et des préfets t'a expulsée. Bienvenue Najlae dans celui de la solidarité et de la fraternité". (You were deported from the country of gendarmes and Préfects, welcome to the land of solidarity and fraternity)

RESF estimate there are probably several thousand young people in the same situation.

Latest estimations show that the Union for the Presidential Majority, UMP, has no chance of making the slightest progress in tomorrow’s elections.

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

France is a paradox and it is becoming a more and more inconsistent day by day. The national maxim, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, is everywhere, the French speak of their country as the inventor of the Declaration of Human rights, and yet.

Since the last presidential election I have discovered how little liberty we have and the learning curve continues. What is surprising is that I am no longer surprised. I have however prepared a small selection for any outsider who might read this.

I shall start with something small and work up.

Apparently, the new President may insult whoever he pleases. There are many examples but the most notorious is his “Casse toi pauvre con” addressed to a farmer who didn’t want to shake his hand.

This is not easy to translate as words used as insults tend to loose their intrinsic meaning but it is about the equivalent of “Piss off” or “Bugger off”, “poor bastard” or “poor cu**”. It might have been appropriate on the building site I worked on many, many years ago but it hardly seems ‘Presidential’ language.

Shortly after, while Sarkozy was visiting one of the French overseas territories, a bystander held up a piece of cardboard with the exact same words. The bystander was hauled before the court and fined for insulting the president. There have been other cases which have confirmed the jurisprudence. Insults are one way only. From the top down. A little thing which has spawned a plethora of complaints for “insulting an official”. The magistrates have never had so many of these cases. From the police to pen pushers the complaints flood in.

What can we civilians do? Bite our tongues. No magistrate is going to accept the word of a simple citizen against that of someone who represents the Republic.

We cannot discuss drugs in public. Even if one is a doctor and taking part in a debate, it is an offence. The law dates from Methuselah but it exists.

Apparently we may not even evoke the criminal past of some of those who govern us. It is considered libellous!

More recently, I discovered that it is illegal to talk about, organize, or participate in a boycott, as did Mme. Sakina Arnaud. She took part in a non-violent collective international action in a Carrefour supermarket. Her crime was to put a sticker which bore the message ‘Boycott, Apartheid, Israel” see above, on two items in the shop. The object was to protest against the ‘apartheid’ created by the Israeli wall. The shop, the biggest supermarket chain in France, accused her of “minor degradation” but the French Justice Minister wrote to the public prosecutor insisting that she be charged with “inciting racial, national, and religious discrimination”. This is direct government interference in the course of Justice. The law used dates from 1881. A circular has been sent to all the courts demanding that all “acts of discrimination be pursued with the utmost rigour.”

Mme. Arnaud was fined 1000 euros with 500 euros costs. With the aid of MRAP, movement against racism and for the friendship between peoples, and the League for Human Rights, she will appeal.

On the 4^th of February The Prime Minister attended a dinner held by the CRIF (Conseil représentatif des institutions juives de France) and denounced “the scandalous movements to boycott kosher or Israeli products.” He was, deliberately, creating confusion between ‘Jewish’ and ‘Israeli’. This may go someway to explaining the present Government’s refusal to implement the decree made by the European Court of Justice on the 25^th February, 2010. This decree imposes heavy import duties on articles produced in the colonies i.e.: the occupied territories. Israel has been passing off these goods as “made in Israel” and thereby escaping import duties.

Michèle Alliot-Marie, Garde des Sceaux, minister of Justice and Liberty, also dined with the CRIF on the 19^th of February and also reinforced the amalgam jewish/israeli. She said,”I congratulate the court in the affaire of the individual who called for a boycott of Israeli goods in a commercial center.

The action of the Bordeaux courts illustrates my determination in the fight against anti-Semitism.”

It is becoming difficult to criticize anything done by Israel without being instantly tagged anti-semite.

To finish on a lighter note, I heard on France Inter this morning that the law which prohibits the wearing of trousers by women is still in vigour. Women who wish to wear male apparel should obtain prior permission from the Prefecture.

CENSORED, again

Damien Saez is a popular French musician. If you want the details Google his name, his biography is on Wikipedia, a lot of his songs are free on line.
A few hours after the 2002 presidential election when it became clear that the second round would be between Chirac and the extreme right Jean-Marie LePen, he had written and recorded and put on line a powerful protest song,“ Fils de France.”.
At the end of this month his new album will be released and the publicity campaign should already have begun. Posters on the underground, posters on the buses and on the newspaper kiosks that are so much a part of the French urban furniture, but it was not to be.
The Title song “J’Accuse” is full of meaning here. It was originally the title of an article by Emile Zola addressed to President Felix Faure when Captain Alfred Dreyfus was unjustly found guilty of spying. The article provoked a succession of crises which split France in two.
In this J’Accuse Damien Saez condemns our society in which we are led to believe that everything, from sex to the Christmas turkey can and must be bought and if it’s bought on credit, then that’s even better, especially for the shareholders who demand better returns year after year. “No, man didn’t descend from the ape, he descends from the sheep” sings Saez.
I hope the above goes some way to explaining the album cover which was also the poster but which has been censored. Saez then tried to replace the poster with a text but that was also banned. The reason? His poster demeans the human body. Well compare his poster with the one for a popular chain store. This photo was allowed, nothing demeaning here, it was inciting us to buy and that of course is highly moral. As he tried to say in the censored text, “Tell me, when will the time come when the ‘Liberty’ we see on our banknotes, is seen elsewhere.”

Patience