That being said, I’m being more and more baffled and stunned by the change of tone most french people have noticed in their media. Le Monde is indeed not quite the reference it used to be, and is the most heavily criticised by people, like me, who used to read it every day back in 2001-2004.

Nima: As far as I know, there is no law defining french values, and it would be contrary to the “universal values” that french people used to believe they upheld. So, no law defining french values, but, consequently to the last presidential elections, we now have a “Ministère de l’immigration et de l’identité nationale”. This calling is rather unheard of (except during our glorious Vichy government) and roughly translates as “Governmental office in charge of immigration and national identity”. So our executive power did make the connection…

What is the most striking in this affair are the following two points:

-1- French media have been rather lamely and shamelessly endorsing governmental ideas (or ideology) with little professionalism. Looking at who owns them might tell you why. For instance, have a look at Serge Dassault’s biography: member of the senate and of the majority, weapon seller who hardly finds anyone else than the french state to buy its planes, and owner of a quite a pie of the dominant french media. Numerous other situations yield conflicts of interests. To give you a few hints, look at the ownership of TF1, the main TV, or the market shares of the different actors of the local regional press. Not to mention what happened to the newspaper “Les Echos”. I mean, I do not feel comfortable giving lessons to China when it comes to freedom of press.

-2- The climate of hate campaigns against anything arab or muslim. Of course, there are problems in french suburbs, and there’s no reason to hide it. But finding scapegoats is the only thing officials think of. Real people have some islamophobic ressentment, but their feelings are far more complex than what we can be read in newspapers, and they are still very much attached to some traditional french political values, like “laïcité”, which is usually hastily translated as “secularism” (France is not Turkey…). These values are being thrown away by our current government, and people tend to disagree…, but you know…, we voted for that. At least so says dominant media. Back to point 1.

Anyway, France will stay the way it is now until either people stop watching TV, or either our elder die in mass during a heated summer. Until then, there’s no hope: Fox News has nothing to boast to Jean-Pierre Pernault.

Concerning the fate of this woman, well, I guess I have to face it: Tariq Ramadan understansd “laïcité” (i.e. french-type secularism) much better than Sarkozy.

Glad to have fled this country.

Best wishes from neutral Switzerland.

xoggoth, I find your logic convincing, but I would ask you to apply the liberal principle of equality of the sexes to this woman. What if I took your sentence and substituted wearing a burqa for being a whore? It would read like this: “a cultural attitude that is contrary to the Western idea of complete equality where women should be entirely free to make their own decisions without male pressure, even if that decision is to wear a burqa”. Faiza repeatedly said her decision actually came in opposition to male pressure, that is, because she wanted to prevent men from looking at her. She also said neither her husband nor brothers forced her to wear it. Why does she not have as much a right to be a whore as to cover herself from head to toe? Where is freedom of dress in this equation?

anonymous,
I know in islamic countries like saudi arabia where many women wear burkas it’s still the case that those women must show their full faces on their passports, so that is not really an issue.