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Author Topic: I guess I can now confirm it...
NDP Newbie
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5089

posted 14 March 2004 01:19 PM      Profile for NDP Newbie     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Jacques Chirac's Axis of Evil is Islam, homosexuality, and Taiwanese democracy. How's this guy different from Bush again? (I don't count his oppostion to the Iraqi War: While it's the right position to take, it's hardly an altruistic one in Chirac's case.)

Only homosexuality should need an explanation:

http://www.lgcm.org.uk/bible/introduction.htm

[ 14 March 2004: Message edited by: NDP Newbie ]


From: Cornwall, ON | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged
lagatta
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2534

posted 14 March 2004 02:10 PM      Profile for lagatta     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Please don't let me be accused of defending that slimy old pol Chirac! But there is more than a bit of difference between a conservative party taking a generally conservative view of family relations and Bush's campaign to make gay marriage unconstitutional. I never heard the statement quoted in the link, and I at least glance at the main stories of Le Monde and Libération (and alternative news sources from France) every day.

And what do you mean about Islam? Or Korean democracy? (Just asking, I wouldn't put anything past Chirac...).

Personally, I think one of the main black marks against most "leaders of democracy", including Chirac, is their refusal to seriously condemn Putin for the Russian war on Chechnya and the destruction of Grozny.


From: Se non ora, quando? | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
Marc
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 287

posted 14 March 2004 02:44 PM      Profile for Marc     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
And what do you mean about Islam?
I'm guessing NDP Newbie is talking about the recent ban of head scarves. Does anyone know what the Socialist Party has said about this policy?

From: Calgary, AB | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
lagatta
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2534

posted 14 March 2004 03:05 PM      Profile for lagatta     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
In general, the Socialist Party agrees with the law. The vote for the ban on hijabs and other forms of "conspicuous" religious display among school pupils, in state schools (not university students or any other adults) got overwhelming support in France - a few Socialists and certain groups on the far left oppose it. But the Socialists oppose it in the name of secularism.
From: Se non ora, quando? | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
Wilf Day
rabble-rouser
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posted 14 March 2004 03:47 PM      Profile for Wilf Day     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Marc:
. . about the recent ban of head scarves. Does anyone know what the Socialist Party has said about this policy?

Here's something I may have posted last month, but can't find:

The Canadian press has, of course, failed to do more than skim the surface of the vote to ban the hijab from French schools.

The Feb. 10 vote on first reading of the "bill on the application of the principle of secularism in the schools" was 494 for, 36 against, 31 abstentions. So who voted which way?

http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/12/scrutins/jo0436.asp

In the Socialist Group, solidarity reigned as 140 voted for it, and only two against: Christiane Taubira, the deputy from French Guyana who ran for president for the left-liberal "Radical Left" Party in 2002 but sits as an affiliated member of the Socialist group, and a second affiliated deputy, from Reunion.

In the group called "Communists and Republicans," the leadership and 14 deputies were against, but announced a free vote: seven broke ranks and voted for it.

In the unaffiliated 12, the Green leader announced that the three Greens would vote against, but only two actually did, while the third abstained. An unaffiliated Reunion deputy was also against, as was one other.

In the governing UMP, 330 were for (including the deputy from Mayotte, Mansour Kamardine, who said his constituents were mostly Muslims but were fervent republicans). Only 12 liberals led by Alain Madelin (who ran for president in 2002 for his Thatcherite Liberal Democracy party, and now heads the centre-right liberal wing of the UMP) were against. Another 17 sceptics led by former prime minister Edouard Balladur abstained. Balladur was concerned that the law would not stand up to a constitutional challenge, and felt it should only apply if "these religious insignia would be likely to disturb the good order of the establishment."

In the government's ally the centrist, pro-European UDF, 12 sceptics led by UDF leader François Bayrou (who also ran for president) abstained, while another four even voted against it. However, 13 of his deputies broke ranks and voted for it.

So the 36 against were 20 leftists and 16 centre-right liberals, while another 30 centre-right liberals and one Green abstained.

An opinion poll of French Muslims found 53% against the law and 42% in favour of it.


From: Port Hope, Ontario | Registered: Oct 2002  |  IP: Logged

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