From the Wall Street Journal:
France’s top law-enforcement official was convicted Friday of making racist comments and ordered to pay … [about 3,000 Euros] … to an antiracism group. Mr. Hortefeux [Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux] was caught on camera last year making what sounded like anti-Arab remarks
… A video circulating on the Internet showed Mr. Hortefeux at an event last September in southwest France for the governing UMP party, having his picture taken with a young party member of North African origin.
A woman’s voice is heard saying “it’s our little Arab,” and Mr. Hortefeux is heard saying: “We always need one. When there’s one, that’s all right. It’s when there are a lot of them that there are problems.”
Mr. Hortefeux’s office said later the remark was a reference to the many photos taken at the event. The incident occurred shortly after Mr. Hortefeux suspended a top regional official for racist comments.
Hoist with his own petard. Ironic.
More ironic yet is that the French are a people who practice organized vandalism over the opening of a McDonald’s and who pass laws to outlaw the phrase “le hot dog,” because those are icons of cultural assimilation; threats to the French way of life. Meanwhile, mentioning the true existential threat of demographic reverse assimilation is, um, verboten.
Where will France’s culture take refuge after that process is complete? Then who will sing La Marseillaise? And if anyone does, in what language?
So, where is Charles DeGaulle when he’s needed? Spinning in his grave, because if that country of “North African origin” turned out to be Algeria, it would be more than irony can bear.
H/T Paladin