Naviblogger says... Win hearts and minds = repress French youth

* Reminds me of good old Charles Pasqua, one of the most repressive French interior ministers I can think of when I was still living there. Sarkozy, latest French Interior minister, lashes out Bush-style at the deprived brown (ahem, I should have said of North African descent) youth of the suburbs for assaulting members of law and order in a new statement on the Le Monde newspaper today: "I will see that anyone that attacks police, or the fire brigade go straight to court". Just great, so much for a court room being the place where the facts are debated under the law. It is now a referral system where you get to defend yourself from a preordained crime.

Desperate not to be seen as 'flipflopping' in the face of such radical conservative talk, Prime Minister de Villepin kicks off his own kick-the-brown campaign with a formal "study to strengthen penal procedures for aggression of forces of law and order". Even the French president wanted a piece of the action: "the perpetrators of the violence should be santioned with the highest severity"... and this is from the same wash-away-the-scum team that kicked off the French riots in the suburbs, then said there'd be a renewal for these ghettoes as a national priority. I guess pledges are shortlived at the Elysee Palace.

Is anyone trying to think of why this hatred of the long arm of the law? Why browns and blacks are being harassed on a daily basis, yet cannot reciprocate by frisking a policeman a little too eagerly? They're there to protect the population... yeah, they're here to control the population.

So after ID card Blair and Patriot Act Bush, the French decide to harass their own populations by picking on scapegoats and scaremongering. As Bush has shown: if you're consistent enough with even the most bald-faced lies, people will be terrorized and hand over their freedom in exchange for your leadership. I guess it worked in the US and in the UK, it should work in France... Bow your head in shame, both of you. Post-second world war France was built on the sweat and toil of North African skilled labor, like the US railways were built on the sweat of Chinese coolies. Respect the Republic? Respect those that built it and kneel at their altar. For you are servants of the people, lest you forget it.