9 Apr 2011

France lost its fifth Republic on April 11th 2011 entering an era of punishment, punishment and more punishment aimed at controlling the private choice of individuals.

Idiotic statements by French prime minister François Fillon, "The French Republic lives in a bare-headed fashion” is representative of the narrow minded views of extremists who destroy that which they don’t understand. Fillon, like his former foreign minister Michele Alliot-Marie is linked to north African dictators with little or no regards for human rights.

A new law aimed at bringing freedom and equality to French Muslim women imposes a fine of 150 Euros for women breaking the law against wearing clothing of their own chosing. They can be ordered to carry out public service duty as part of the punishment or as an alternative to the fine. Whether this law applies to foreign nationals visiting France and wearing Burkas remains to be seen.

Forcing a woman to wear a Niqab or a Burka is punishable by a year in prison and a 30,000 euro fine. Forcing a minor to do the same is punishable by two years in prison and 60,000 euro fine.

Lawmakers have cited security reasons forbidding people from covering their faces in public, “This practice, even if it is voluntary, cannot be tolerated in any public place.” State Security services are excluded.

The Sarkozy government has called wearing the Burka "A new form of enslavement that the republic cannot accept on its soil."

Forcing people to undress by the French Government is permitted and apparently approved by 82 percent of the people. Given that France has a 10% Muslim population, similar in number to Egypt’s Christian Population where there is no law forcing Christians to wear the Burka, then every French man, woman and child is behind this violation. A remarkable assumption for a country who gave the world the French Revolution while embracing Thomas Paine’s “The Rights of Man.”

It is a perversion of terms to say that a charter gives rights. It operates by a contrary effect — that of taking rights away. Rights are inherently in all the inhabitants; but charters, by annulling those rights, in the majority, leave the right, by exclusion, in the hands of a few . . . They . . . consequently are instruments of injustice.

The fact, therefore, must be that the individuals, themselves, each, in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist……..Thomas Paine “The rights of Man” 1791

Clear majorities in Germany, Britain and Spain, have also backed Burka bans, a recent survey has found. Strange these former colonial countries with disgraceful histories towards the culture and human rights of others, profess this action to be in the name of Democratic choice.

Amnesty International is right to criticise France on this ban, saying it violates European human rights.

Thomas Paine was tried in absentia, and condemned for writing “The rights of Man” in 1791. However he was unavailable for hanging, having departed England for France, where the Revolution against President Sarkozy’s Fifth Republic exploded on April 11th 2011.