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

As it was fifty years ago.

After last night's concert I don't feel like getting het up so just a photo today, from Tunisia by my late father-in-law, Jean Bay.

Valerie Pecresse, the young minister who dared to speak out against the calumny aimed at Ali Soumaré (see previous blog) has been summoned to the Elysée Palace on Tuesday. I don’t expect that Sarko wants to congratulate her.

Meanwhile, during a television interview, Vincent Peillon a Euro MP for the socialist party, produced a newspaper article concerning two very big fish. I quote from Wikipedia.

"Patrick Devedjian, photo, (born on 26 August 1944 in Fontainebleau, Seine-et-Marne) is a French politician of the Union for a Popular Movement(UMP) party. A close adviser of Nicolas Sarkozy since the 1990s, he has been Minister under the Prime Minister in charge of the Implementation of the Recovery Plan, a special ministerial post created for two years..."
Alain Madelin is president of the right wing party, Démocratie libérale.

The article described how these two as students were convicted of:
Stealing a car
Stealing a marine engine
Siphoning petrol
Being in possession of stolen ID papers and an automatic pistol armed with 5 cartridges.
They were given a one year suspended sentence with 3 years probation.
Some might think they got off lightly but even then the extreme right wielded power. The French call it “Piston”. He was a member of a groupe called Occident which aimed at replacing democracy by “the selection of the elite by an elite”. The groupe also earned a reputation for beating up left wing students.
12 July 1967,the court at Rouen sentenced him to a fine of 1000 francs for “violence with premeditation and with the use of arms”. The sentence was considered very leinient . A facist commando had attacked the group of students who formed the committee against the war in Vietnam, with iron bars and pick axe handles leaving one student in a coma and the others in a pools of blood. Even the court described the attack as being of “ a rare savagery, and nameless barbarity” He still had a year’s probation to serve so how he got away with a fine is a mystery to all but the French.
In Patrick Devedjian Sarko has found the ideal advisor.

Shit sticks, check the wind before throwing

Ali Soumaré 29, became a semi-public figure in 2007 when he acted as a spokesman for the families of 2 kids, 15 and 16, killed when a police car collided with their motorbike. The “accident” provoked riots in what the French euphemistically call the “sensitive district” in the town of Villiers-le-Bel. Ali Soumaré, always a calming influence, always polite, was solicited by the local and national government and the media couldn’t get enough of him. So it seems natural that the socialist party should have chosen him to head their list of candidates for Val-d'Oise in the upcoming Regional Elections.
But, The UMP, Sarko’s party, is playing dirty again. I forgot to mention that the young man in question is black and the UMP is campaigning on the question of public safety. I’m prepared to bet you can guess the skin colour of the models used to illustrate the menace on election posters. This might explain why the UMP dug out his police record and began to shout “scandal, this man is a repeat offender with a string of convictions to his name.”
("If I may digress for a moment, I would point out that in France only a court or someone with authorised access to police files can dig up a police record, so how they got it nobody knows.)
They cried out on television, they sounded off on the radio, and they even gave the story to the press.
3 Sept. 1989,Aggravated theft condemned to 6 months prison.
4 August, 2004. Aggravated theft, theft with violence, use of a counterfeit bank card. 80 hours community service.
25 May, 2008. Violence resulting in physical injury. The court has not yet pronounced sentence.
13 May, 2009. Driving whilst his license was suspended. Sentence to be pronounced on the 16 February, 2010.
13 July, 2009. Rebellion against an agent of the Republic, (very serious over here, can mean anything from saying “shit” when the nice man in uniform asks to see your ID, all the way up to asking why the three men in riot gear are beating the foreign looking gentleman with their truncheons.) anyhow, on the 13 of October, 2009 he was sentenced to 2 months in prison for it.
So, how did such an unpleasant person come to be chosen by the Socialists?
Well, that’s the problem. They didn’t. They chose an altogether different person who just happens to have the same name but a different date of birth, ooups!
Now they are being sued and have gone down several percentage points in the latest poll.

Weekend Truce

No rant for the weekend. Just a pic.

Like mother, like daughter

Marie-luce Penchard who is the Minister for French overseas Territories (Guadeloupe, Guyenne, Reunion Island and Martinique.) stated on Sunday, “ I have a budget of more than 500 million Euros and I would be loathe to see that manna leave the Guadeloupe for Guyenne, Reunion Island or Martinique” She is the of course herself from the Guadeloupe.
Naturally, the independent press and the opposition parties protested and were accused by the Government of trying to stir up a storm in a tea cup. A spokesman said she was not speaking as a Minister but as a candidate in the forthcoming Regional elections. The obvious conclusion is that election promises are downright lies, something we all knew but I think it's the first time I've heard it confirmed by a government spokesman (it was a man but anyway I refuse the ridiculous spokesperson)
The family have reason to defend the Guadeloupe as the territory has always been kind to them. Her mother who was President of the Conseil Regional, in effect the government of the island, filled the family vault during her terms in office. In 2002 it was revealed that she had taken bribes totalling 20 million Euros. She is also thought to have received 60 – 65 million Euros in the allocation of contracts for schools, roads, and other public works. She was also accused of “abuse of her position as Mayor in a commune on the island and of making and using counterfeit documents”. She had created a structure called CGOS which received grants from the commune and imposed an illegal tax on all planning applications.
She was found guilty on all counts but curiously was only given a suspended sentence and a 20 thousand Euro fine.
The State works in mysterious ways!

SHOOT the JOURNALISTS

Eric Besson, a name that probably means nothing to my English speaking friends, is our curiously named “Minister for immigration and National Identity”. He launched a national “debate” about the national identity which turned out to be a wonderful tool for stirring up anti immigrant sentiments in time for the forthcoming regional elections here. In fact it wasn’t even a debate. Here in Lyon it was an invitation only event and it wasn’t difficult to predict who wouldn’t be invited. Police outnumbered the demonstrators who were kept well away. They didn’t feel the need to intervene when a group of National Front members turned up and attacked the pro-immigration demonstrators, four of whom finished the evening in hospital.
The press has been giving a lot of coverage to hundreds of cases of French citizens being told to prove their right to French Nationality. Among the many is Ann Sinclair, she is one of France’s best known journalists and the wife of Dominique Strauss-Kahn who is President of the International Monetary Fund and a real heavy weight of the French Socialist party. The polls give him as the candidate to defeat Sarkozy at the next Presidential Election if only he agrees to stand. Ann Sinclair was born abroad and although she had French ID and a French passport which declares that the bearer is a French national, she was told she would have to prove her nationality.
All this is in complete contradiction to previous practise and press and radio coverage link the new aggressive attitudes with the minister’s appointment.

This may be responsible for the Minister’s declaration which I have translated as diligently as possible.
“the media are all the same, they should be cleaned up with a Kalashnikov.”

VICTORY

Yesterday the Culture Minister, Frederick Mitterand, (nephew of the Socialist President) ordered that Siu Lan Ko’s censored artwork be reinstated. The affair had grown to international proportions and the only way to put an end to it was to denounce the misguided little man who had started it all. I wouldn’t give much for his future.

Today is Sunday a day of rest, or at least it was until Sarko changed the law to allow supermarkets to open on Sundays. There were absolute assurances that no one would be forced to work but we have since discovered that the alternative is to be sacked and the supers won’t employ any one who won’t give a written assurance that they would love to work on Sundays.
So, day of rest, no rant today. (Although there is plenty to rant about.)
Instead, a rather strange picture inspired by decay and regeneration. Rather like the state education system in France, except that we are still in the “decay” stage desperately hoping that regeneration will follow.




Daniel Cohn-Bendit gave an impromptu speech about the inefficacy
and impotence of Europe in international affairs. Well worth watching if you speak French. Find it on utube.

Support for Siu Lan Ko and Police Custody

Support for Siu Lan Ko

The socialist Mayor of Paris has offered the artist Siu Lan Ko, whose work was censored earlier this week, exhibition space at the prestigious CENTQUATRE (104) centre. She hasn’t yet accepted but her lawyer has said that the Director of l’école des Beauxarts de Paris has ignored her client’s request for a meeting and that she would now consider court action.

......

The number of garde à vue, people detained by the police for questioning, has increased in France by 35%. Has there been a crime wave? Not according to the government but the conditions in which suspects are held have been described as “degrading and inhuman” by the Inspector of Prisons and this week after visiting the cells at Charleville-Mézières the Judge was shocked.
Appearing before him was a man who pleaded guity to driving under the influence but who was also accused of physically and verbally assulting a police officer.
You must understand that police custody in France is designed to break the spirit of the detainees. Prisoners are detained together in cells which are often no bigger than 2 square meters and fitted with a bench only 25 cm wide, not wide enough to sleep on. Although, in theory, there is a right to be assisted by a lawyer there are not nearly enough lawyers, and where there are lawyers they only have access to the charges and evidence after 48 Hours.
This man was held in a cell of 2.3 sq meters with 2 other people. The Judge described the cell as “repulsively filthy, the walls smeared with blood and excrement”. After a number of hours in the cell the man contested the conditions of his detention and was put in another cell with an overflowing lavatory in the centre of the floor.
The Judge found the man guilty but imposed no sentence declaring that the man had already been subjected to a traumatising experience and that he had paid dearly for a very minor offence. In his summing up the Judge said that if people are kept in crowded cells which are repulsively filthy without a minimum of personal hygiene he could only conclude that it constituted “a degrading and inhuman experience.”

Art in France subjected to Political censorship

Today’s tale comes from one of the rare newspapers in France that doesn’t belong to one of Little Nicky’s bosom friends. The newspaper is “Liberation”, it’s all in the name. The story in the edition for Thursday 11th February is about an exhibition at the prestigious Ecole nationale supérieure des beaux-Arts de Paris.

The exhibition, called The Seven Day Weekend, brings together work from the Royal College of Art in London, from LASALLE College of the Arts de Singapore, and of course Paris. Siu-lan Ko, a Chinese installation artist had her work approved in January. It consisted of banners hung on the front of the building with words parodying one of Nicky’s campaign slogans, “Work more, earn more”. She chose Work, Earn, More, and Less. It read, “Work more earn less” or, “Work less earn more” according to how you approached the piece.
Siu-lan Ko said, “Last night I got an email from the exhibition curator, Clare Carolin of the Royal College of Art”. She explained that , Henry-Claude Cousseau Directeur of the Ecole des beaux-Arts, considered that the Minister of Education might be offended and that as he would soon be fixing the school’s budget, the work was not appropriate.
Clare Carolin said she was opposed to the censorship felt insulted by it and that as Curator of the Exhibition she had not even been consulted. She added that the artist had not even been informed when the installation was removed on Wednesday.
Siu-lan Ko is an International Artist who specialises in using political slogans. “Coming from China”, she said, “I cannot understand this brutal censorship in France particularly in one of the oldest schools of art which is supposed to encourage freedom of expression. It shows the degree of political conservatism and the extent of the fear Sarkozy provokes”. The artist said she would consider court action if her work was not restored to its place in the exhibition before the opening today, Friday 12th February.

Nicolas Sarkozy restores the Royal (sorry) Presidential Hunts

This information was the subject of a Broadcast Editorial on France Inter, France’s only independent “talk radio”, this Monday, 7th February. President Chirac had abolished the hunts at Marly and Rambouillet and although the 160 hectares of the hunt at the Chateau of Chambord remained they were never used. But, ‘Little Nicky’ likes expensive toys so he has appointed his advisor and personal friend Pierre Charon as the functionary to be responsible for the restoration of Chambord. The orders are t to make it into an object of “Prestige and Influence”.
The first hunt took place last Friday and everything was done in the Grande Tradition. It began with breakfast for the 30 invited guests assisted by their wives or husbands and finished with a dinner at the Chateau preceded by the tableau de chasse, a display of the day’s kill, with the Republican Guard in full ceremonial uniform and armour holding flaming torches (all the better to see you by). All of the obscene and bygone splendour rolled out for a minority President who would have liked to have been king. Where ever he goes hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of military police are drafted in to evacuate any protests before coach loads of his supporters are bussed in to ensure that he can shake hands for the cameras. Day by day the power and abuse of the police gains ground and the state motto Liberté Égalité Fraternité means less and less. This week saw a fourteen year old girl taken from her home at dawn, in her pyjamas,handcuffed and detained in police cells for questioning. Her crime? She is accused of brawling in the school playground! She says she was trying to break up a fight. A middle aged man, perfectly respectable, watched police lining up teenage boys, faces against the wall arms and legs spread, in the Metro. He asked what was going on and got no answer. He left the station and was immediately arrested. The charges are, “insulting a police officer” and “resisting arrest”.
More news will follow.