Britain’s Conservatives have agreed a deal to remain within the EPP-ED group in the European Parliament
For shame
See Martens, S. (passim) for insightful analysis and thoughtful commentary on the French headscarf controversy. For my part, may I say simply that the majority in the National Assembly is scandalously, monstrously, shamefully wrong.
The French treasure la?cit? as a safeguard of the republican values of libert?, ?galit? et fraternit?. And so it is. All the more perverse, then, that libert? be abridged under the banner of la?cit?.
And that’s all I have to say on the matter for the moment.
France and the Headscarf: Now the real fighting starts
Yesterday, the French National Assembly voted for a ban on “conspicuous religious symbols” in public schools by a majority of 494 in favour to 36 against. With the bill polling at 70% favourable among the French public, neither major political formation saw any gain in opposition.
Votes against came from several quarters. Alain Madelin – the sole serious Thatcherite in the French government – voted against, as did Christiane Taubira – the first black woman candidate for the French presidency and the first candidate from an overseas department. The biggest block to vote against came from the French Communist Party where 14 members voted against, 7 for, and 3 abstained. The Communists are the only party whose leadership has consistently opposed this law. Back in November the PCF leadership concluded that: “Nous sommes contre une loi qui, sous couvert de la?cit?, aurait comme cons?quence de stigmatiser une population.” We are against a law that, under the cover of secularism, would have as its consequence the stigmatisation of a population.
Normally, I would say that any bill that is opposed by both Alain Madelin and the PCF has to be a good idea. But this time, the fringe politicians are right, and the mainstream is wrong.
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From the BBC: headscarf ban passes in French lower house by huge majority.
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Ivan Rybkin wasn’t ‘disappeared’, it turns out. As the BBC reports, he simply disappeared of his own accord for a few days. Odd thing for a presidential candidate to do; what’s the ‘backstory’ here, one wonders?
There’s something about Laetitia
I’ve noticed that, after the front page, the consistently most hit posting on AFOE is this one. Somehow, I doubt that my shining prose is the reason.
Also, we get quite a lot of traffic from people looking for sexy weman. Well, this is certainly the right place. :^)
What lessons should we be taking from this? Do we need more T&A at AFOE?
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Here’s the official website for the Athens Olympics. A three day security drill, dealing with potential terrorist threats to the Games has just been completed
Of We Go Again, Ready, Set……….
After a weekend of semantic analysis the currency markets didn’t take long getting back to work – the euro was only a cent off its all time high by late morning. According to Dictionary.com the relevant meaning of volatility is: tending to vary often or widely, as in price – the ups and downs of volatile stocks. Not much danger of volatility here, not if the only way the dollar is going to go is down. Wouldn’t the more appropriate term have been secular decline? But maybe they aren’t against that, and the markets in turning the pressure back on the dollar, have read the signal exactly right.
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Hannah Arendt: The Banality of Evil
[I’d like to start by thanking the Fistful of Euros team for inviting me to guest-blog here this week. I’m hoping to offer a mini-series on European thinkers, focusing on just an aspect of the ideas of the thinker I choose in each case. I say ‘hoping to’ because I still have to compose the posts. But, anyway, here goes with the first of them?]
Hannah Arendt famously wrote about the Eichmann Trial in Jerusalem in 1961. In doing so she popularized the phrase ‘the banality of evil’, applying it to Adolf Eichmann in particular. Arendt referred to?:
the lesson that this long course in human wickedness had taught us – the lesson of the fearsome, word-and-thought-defying banality of evil. [All quotations from Eichmann in Jerusalem, except as otherwise indicated.]
A certain amount of misunderstanding has been generated by Arendt’s use of this phrase. That is in part because it was inapt to her intended meaning; in part perhaps also because it may have been inapt to its principal object – Eichmann.
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Palestine’s European aspirations: report in English (from EUobserver).