Although outside it remains sub-zero, the temperature in the National Assembly (parliament) this morning reached new heights.  It all started when Claude Guéant, the Minister of the Interior, declared in a discourse about the French Republic that:

Not every civilisation has the same worth.

It was one of those sound bytes that most of us probably wouldn’t have even noticed in context, but the phrase was bandied about the Internet and started receiving some very indignant reactions.

Guéant continued to stand by his statement, adding that those civilisations that defend liberty, equality and brotherhood seem superior to those that accept tyranny, the oppression of women, and social or ethnic hatred.

Hackles did not stop rising.  Many on the left of the political spectrum seemed outraged by the idea that there is a hierarchy of civilisations, that they are not all created equal.  Many are accusing Guéant of trying to make political mileage out of his statements in an election year, trying to bring extreme right supporters into the Sarkozy fold.  He has been accused of turning the clock back 3 centuries, of being obscurantist and dangerous, of fomenting ethnic conflict, of being xenophobic and racist.

It is not the first time that he has been under fire, having already declared publicly that the increase in practising Muslims in the country poses a “problem”, and that two thirds of school dropouts are children of immigrants.

But the mercury just about burst the thermometer in the National Assembly this morning when the socialist representative for Martinique accused Guéant of bringing back the same ideologies that produced concentration camps.  He basically called they guy a Nazi.  Following his outburst a large number of representatives, including the Prime Minister, left in protest.  The speaker of the house was unable to restore calm, and had to close the session.  There have been no apologies over the “Nazi” statement.  The socialists seem to be standing by their man, who has self-righteously stated in the most unequivocal terms that Mr Guéant will never again be welcome in Martinique, and demanded that he “apologise to all of the peoples he has insulted”.

Mr Sarkozy on the other hand has said the whole debate is ridiculous, and that it was simply good sense to suggest that a society that accords the same rights to all it’s citizens is superior to one that doesn’t.  Not everyone on the Right has been so supportive, however.  One former Prime Minister stated that Guéant “makes a better minister than ethnologist”.

This debate is a startling example of how Europe is losing the culture wars.  The great European identity crisis has reached the point that we have lost confidence in the most basic, foundational values of our culture.  People are willing to relativise them to such an extent that it is now viewed as morally wrong to suggest, for example, that liberty is superior to slavery, equality (in the sense of equal rights for the citizens of a nation) is superior to inequality, and that brotherhood is superior to every man for himself. While it is undoubtedly an oversimplification to suggest that one entire civilisation can be superior to another, the hysterical overreaction to the comments of Mr. Guéant indicate that we are so brittle and hyper-sensitive that we cannot countenance the very idea that there are ways of being and doing in society that are, quite simply, better than other ways of being and doing.  Is this post-colonial guilt gone haywire?  Or is it simply another example of the fact that cultural relativism has so dulled our intelligence that real debate is no longer possible.  Guéant’s comments were undoubtedly “inadequate” to quote Alain Juppé (another of the surprising number of “former Prime Ministers” we have in this country), but they certainly didn’t deserve the reductio ad hitlerum treatment they received in the House this morning.  A culture is in serious trouble if somebody can’t express a controversial point of view without being branded as a Nazi.

Mr Sarkozy is quite open about his adherence to Catholicism, and unlike the authors of the failed European constitution, he considers Christianity a determining factor in French national identity. Following the ceremony at the Basilica, the president extolled the virtue of a “positive secularism” that ensures freedom of thought on the one hand, but which upholds the Christian roots of the French nation. The nature of these “Christian roots” is the subject of another discussion (how “Christian” were they really?), but it is worth noting that this is a departure from the relative silence of French presidents with regard to matters of faith. The dyed-in-the-wool secular republicans will be very offended by Sarkozy’s statements; some Christians optimists will see this as heralding a return of Christianity to the public sphere. I don’t see it as anything to get excited about, although it is somewhat refreshing to see a public figure who isn’t so highly strung about the church and state thing. For further details see an article at Worldwide Religious News. Or for some of the shocked reactions of the Left, see this article in the Figaro (in French – have you tried Google Language Tools?)

This got me thinking. Sooner or later something or someone will step onto the world scene to fill the present vacuum of leadership. The chaos we see today (the war on terror, Iran, AIDS, Israel/Palestine, global warming etc.) will continue to escalate until some agency, be it a man, a consortium, or even a government, arrives on the scene proposing some concrete solutions. It is only a matter of time before these situations become so desperate that the world will be willing to accept peace at almost any price, and it is in precisely this context that this agency (let’s call it a “Man of Peace”) will come with a clear and seemingly effective strategy to unite national and international powers to to resolve once and for all the problems that plague the world.

But these solutions will come with a price tag, and it is here that the current love affair that we have with this notion of tolerance will come to a brutal end. Freedom to believe whatever one chooses to believe is central to the credo of Western culture. This is a direct result of the influence of the Christian gospel in which faith is a matter of choice, where we are free even to believe things which are manifestly wrong if we so choose. Whenever the Christian Church has sought to impose beliefs, it has done so in spite of biblical revelation, not because of it.

World peace will only be achieved if this “man of peace” (in whatever form or guise he may come – I use a personal pronoun metaphorically, although it may well turn out to be a man) succeeds in uniting the warring factions. He will be able to do this because the hour will be so desperate, and because of the originality of the solutions he proposes. The respect he commands will enable him to demand extraordinary powers to override national interests, and he will be given it. He will demand that we forgo certain freedoms in order for peace to be attained. The primary freedom that we will be required to sacrifice will be the freedom to believe as we choose. Tolerance will be sacrificed at the altar of peace, and we will all be called upon to believe what the Man of Peace tells us we must, in order to avert impending doom on the world scene.

At this point we will all be forced to consider whether we think this is a price worth paying. At least, that’s how I imagine it happening.

Mr Sarkozy, son of a Hungarian immigrant, is not a product of the public service academy that has put its stamp on most of France’s leading figures. He sounds like a man of change rather than of tradition, and France sorely needs that. The 12-year presidency of Jacques Chirac has left the economy flat and overdue for drastic repairs. Mr Chirac was a classic conservative, content to accept the long-established line that market liberalism is somehow Anglo-Saxon and foreign to the social and moral foundations of the French republic. Mr Sarkozy is not nearly so sniffy.

New Zealand Herald

(speaking of M. Sarkozy’s break with the past) His emphasis on dignity, opportunity, respect and nationhood appeal to an older moral ethic, and a conception of France which, at least in theory, recognises the common good. The change he is promising rejects the pieties, policies and attitudes of rigid socialism…which have perplexed and paralysed France since they began their rise in the 1960s.

Maxim Institute

There have also been comments about Sarkozy being a “union-basher”, and predictions that he will come down hard on immigrants so as to be seen to be taking action. Nevertheless, much is made of his Hungarian background, and his selection of an immigrant cabinet minister.

It was France’s largest voter turnout in two decades. What does this say about how the French view their future? We are watching with interest.

With only a month to go till the presidential elections the candidates have made much political mileage out of it. Mme Royal (left) sees the riot as evidence that the incumbent government has completely failed in its security policy. Mr Sarkozy (right) wants to tell the French that he will not be on the side of those who think that in order to be heard they must demolish a train station. Mr Bayrou (right) denounces former interior minister Sarkozy for having turned the police into a “force of repression”.

It’s amazing the political influence a young fraudster and his stroppy mates can have.

What do the police “repressors” have to say about it? Found this interesting quote from a policeman in the Figaro : “Soon after we arrived on the scene, representatives of associations defending the rights of clandestine immigrants and journalists from the extreme left media turn up to watch the whole thing. They get in our way, they muck up our work, and we’re forced to cancel the operation…Some stations have become zones of lawlessness and the police can only watch delinquency prosper.”

I wasn’t there – I’ve just heard about it like everyone else. But I can’t help thinking that there isn’t any deep meaning behind it all – it’s simply the inevitable result of fatherlessness and boredom amongst city youth, which is a big and complex problem which will never be solved by politics.

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