h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Once again Mr Bruno Gollnish has made a shameless statement which won him a newspaper article:

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3224,36-684325@51-683117,0.html

This left me so abashed that I decided to fight my natural laziness to actually write a journal entry.

For those of you who are unacquainted with Mr Gollnisch, he is the French extreme-right party Front National's Number 2, just after Mr Le Pen. He is also best known in France for making widely upsetting declarations usually ending up in newspapers (the above is not the first one) and stirring up public opinion. He also is, or used to be, professor of International Law (Droit International) and Japanese Civilisation at the University of Lyon III. Used to be, because he got suspended for 5 years from this university after declaring in particular:

"Je ne nie pas les chambres à gaz homicides. Mais je ne suis pas spécialiste de cette question et je pense qu'il faut laisser les historiens en discuter. Et cette discussion devrait être libre." and "... quant à savoir la façon dont les gens sont morts, le débat doit avoir lieu".

("I do not negate the homicidal gas chambers. But I am not a specialist of this question and I think we should leave the historians discuss it. And this discussion ought to be free." and "... as for knowing how the people died, the debate should take place".)

So what was it today that Mr Gollnish said again? Here comes a rough translation of one part of Le Monde's article:

<quote>
Comparing antiracism to "a religion" with "its dogmas", "its priests, its Inquisitors, its witch trials", Mr Gollnisch reckoned that "it is this false religion which is today the real 'people's opium'". "It aspires to weaken their immune defense systems, and thus fully deserves to be called 'mental AIDS'", added the extreme-right party's number 2. "History will severely blame the protagonists of the so-called antiracism, as it blamed the responsibles of the Roman decadence, the collaborators of foreign occupation, the accomplices of Marxist internationalism. But meanwhile, indeed, they rule unrestrained", he declared.


This left me speechless for a while. I do not know whether to start crying or laughing. Any idea?

Salut! Glad you're still around. I'm back in Northern Ireland now - missing the lovely champagne from your region.


Mmmm...hard to know what to say about the French right It's scary the large amount of support these inflammatory statements get.

Bisous

Hmmmm....i will show this to my French copain & report back, he doesn't generally swear but is quite likely to come out with some stuff that won't translate very easily i should think!

How nice to see the word "bisous" on here, i thought i was the only one who used it!!!

Bisous!!!

zdt

Toy box, I'm with you on that one - no idea whether to cry or to laugh.
Thanks for sharing that with us - I knew Le Pen, but hadn't heard of Mr. Gollnisch before.
Vive la France etc

It seems France is to be faced with the question "The crook or the Racist ?" once more.

French politics really are a mess, its strange how a people who normally are out in the streets at the slightest provocation, tolerate their politicians.

I think there were 17 candidates in the last presidential elections

How can politicians expect us to take elections seriously if they make a circus out of it, really?