Bidding adieu to “mademoiselle”

By Kate Lunau - Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 10:10 AM - 0 Comments

In the town of Cesson-Sévigné, in western France, unmarried women will no longer be referred to as “mademoiselle”—as of Jan. 1, the title (which means “miss”) has been banned from official forms, and all women are to be referred to as “madame.” The move is an attempt to get rid of “anything that could be seen as discriminatory or indiscreet,” a statement from town hall said.

Across France, a growing number insist a woman’s title shouldn’t be defined by her marital status. Two feminist groups have mounted a campaign to get rid of the word “mademoiselle” from official documents, and with it the suggestion that an unwed woman is either a young girl, or a spinster. “Some women appreciate being called ‘mademoiselle,’ and find it flattering,” their website says, while insisting that it’s “nothing less than sexism. It seems that only marriage, and a husband, can confer legitimate social status.”

The French aren’t alone in moving away from this distinction: in Germany, “fräulein” fell out of use as a title for unmarried women in 1972. But even “madame” implies that a woman is married. Proponents of the switch might look for a French equivalent of “Ms.,” doing away altogether with female titles that imply a marital status.

The citizenship question

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 17, 2012 at 10:30 AM - 0 Comments

Apparently Thomas Mulcair has French citizenship.

Though he was born in Ottawa, Mulcair was able to apply for and receive French citizenship because his spouse, Catherine, was born in France. Under French law, spouses of French citizens can apply, as Mulcair did, to become citizens themselves after five years of marriage and after demonstrating their ability to speak French.

“Mr. Mulcair is very proud to share the nationality of his wife, who shares his,” Mulcair spokesperson Chantale Turgeon told TVA. “He sees no conflict with his Canadian citizenship or duties. Dual citizenship is a reality for many Canadians who are proud of their origins and a source of enrichment for our diverse society.”

Stephane Dion’s dual citizenship was made an issue in 2006. Mr. Dion dismissed concerns at the time and he is defending Mr. Mulcair now.

French breast implants: a Science-ish saga?

By Julia Belluz - Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 6:12 PM - 0 Comments

(Lionel Cironneau/AP Photo)

Since December, health authorities around the world have been scrambling about what to do with women who have French-made Poly Implant Prosthesis (PIP) breast implants lodged in their bodies. After being approved for market, it recently emerged that PIP implants were filled with non-medical grade silicone—unbeknownst to regulators—and that their manufacturer had got rid of an outer skin to keep the implants from leaking and breaking.

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How Germany finally took control of Europe

By the editors - Wednesday, December 14, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Remy de la Mauviniere/AP

Among the many desperate calls for help during the current European crisis, that of Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski stands out for its sheer lack of precedent. “I may be the first Polish foreign minister in history to say so, but here it is: I fear German power less than I am beginning to fear German inactivity,” Sikorsky said last week in Berlin to his hosts. “You have become Europe’s indispensible nation . . . nobody else can do it.” Only Germany can save Europe now.

It’s hard to argue against Sikorksi’s logic, at least in the short run. Ireland and Portugal have been bailed out at great expense. Investors were forced to take a massive loss on Greek bonds. Now even major European states such as Italy and Spain are teetering on the edge of insolvency. If these governments lose the ability to continue borrowing, the entire continent could be plunged into complete economic collapse, with grim implications for the rest of the world, including Canada.

Throughout this two-year-long crisis, only Germany has retained the financial and moral clout sufficient to save the day, thanks to its low unemployment rate, reasonable debt levels and robust financial sector. (France, for all its bluster, remains a necessary but junior partner in this project.) After decades of backstopping the European experiment by buying bonds and, more recently, providing the bulk of the recent bailout packages, Germany has begun to exert a new sense of authority. In particular, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been demanding strict new rules over spending in individual countries as the price for continued German intervention.

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Leading the world

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 at 10:14 AM - 0 Comments

France is unimpressed.

“Canada’s announcement that it is withdrawing from the Kyoto protocol is bad news for the fight against climate change,” ministry spokesman Bernard Valero told journalists. ”It is out of the question to relax our efforts or to break the dynamic of the Durban agreement,” he said.

China too. The Guardian, New York Times and CNN take note. John Ibbitson says we should all be ashamed. NDP MP Laurin Liu says the Environment Minister was sidelined at Durban.

Franc talk about a money deadline

By Alex Ballingall - Wednesday, December 7, 2011 at 12:00 PM - 0 Comments

Nearly 10 years after France officially adopted the euro, a staggering amount of the old currency, the French franc, is still waiting to be exchanged—about 600 million euros’ worth, according to the country’s central bank. Now, even as the ongoing euro crisis puts the future of the common currency in question, time to trade those old bills in is running out. After Feb. 17, the central bank will no longer exchange any franc banknotes for euros.

To get the word out, la Banque de France has kicked off a public awareness campaign. Two television commercials ask viewers if they remember where they put their remaining francs (in one, an actor is shocked to hear that his friend put them through the wash a decade ago). There’s also a website, jechangemesfrancs.com, with information on where to exchange the old currency and how many euros one can expect in return (a 20-franc note gets 3.05 euros).

Countries that adopted the euro have varying timelines to switch currencies. Spain, Germany and Ireland, for example, have no set deadlines. Belgian francs were only accepted until the end of 2004. The Netherlands, meanwhile, will allow people to trade in their guilders until Jan. 1, 2032.

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‘Small change for banks’

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 2, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Paul Dewar calls on the Harper government to support a financial transaction tax at the G20.

“The FTT will be small change for banks, but a major boost to the fight against inequality, poverty and climate change” said Dewar. “It will also cut the excesses of speculative market which were central to the most recent financial crisis.”

The FTT is supported by many European leaders including French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Prominent international economists such as Paul Krugman, Joe Stiglitz and Jeffrey Sachs back this change as do George Soros and Microsoft’s Bill Gates. Dewar supports an FTT implemented with the widest possible international agreement through multilateral forums such as G20.

The EU proposal is supported by France and Germany. Two U.S. Democrats are proposing a similar measure. The Harper government opposes the current proposal and has opposed similar proposals in the past.

Newsmakers: Sept. 22-29

By Colby Cosh, Jaime J. Weinman, and Richard Warnica - Monday, October 3, 2011 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

Jason DeCrow/AP

No, they didn’t walk home

Two American hikers convicted of espionage in Iran were released after the sultan of Oman posted US$930,000 bail for them. Shane Bauer and Joshua Fattal, 29-year-old pro-Palestine activists and former Berkeley classmates, were seized along with a female friend while on holiday in 2009; Iran claims they illegally crossed their border on foot. The woman, Sarah Shourd, Bauer’s fiancée, was freed last fall on medical grounds. Bauer and Fattal’s release, with both in apparent good health, is seen as a political victory for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over hardline clerics in the Islamic republic.

Burqa fine

Only in France is having it and not flaunting it a crime. Last week, a court outside Paris fined two women for refusing to show their faces in public. Hind Ahmas and Najate Nait Ali were the first Frenchwomen charged under a law that bans full facial coverings outside the home. Passed last spring, the ban was aimed, rather transparently, at France’s substantial Muslim minority. It may also have been an attempt by President Nicolas Sarkozy to shore up his vulnerable right flank. But if anything, the law has galvanized supporters of the niqab. Ahmas told reporters she intends to challenge her fine in the European Court of Human Rights—while Kenza Drider, who also wears the niqab, now says she intends to run against Sarkozy in the presidential election. “When a woman wants to maintain her freedom she must be bold,” Drider told the Associated Press.

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Pray—but not outside

By Alex Derry - Monday, September 26, 2011 at 10:20 AM - 1 Comment

Franck Prevel/Getty Images

Just as Muslims throughout France prepared for their Friday prayers, the government passed a ban on Sept. 16 outlawing the increasingly common practice of praying in the street. Despite the ban being seen by some as an example of Nicolas Sarkozy’s government kowtowing to right-wing voters seven months before an election, and a small group of worshippers protesting the new measure in Paris, many among France’s five-million-strong Muslim population welcome the prospect of getting off the streets, provided they have somewhere else to pray.

France has enforced the separation of church and state since 1905, but a growing tide of anti-Muslim sentiment among the country’s more right-leaning groups has put pressure on Sarkozy to crack down on religious displays in public spaces. Particularly in cities, such as Paris and Marseilles, mosques are located in small buildings and storefronts with little space, leaving many worshippers no other option but to face Mecca in the street. Marine le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front, has equated Muslims praying in Paris’s streets to the Nazi invasion of France in the Second World War, albeit “without the tanks or soldiers,” but instead with fundamentalist displays in a proudly secular society. “Praying in the street is not dignified for religious practice and violates the principles of secularism,” Interior Minister Claude Guéant told Le Figaro. “All Muslim leaders are in agreement.”

Mohammed Salah Hamza is one of those leaders. As the imam who leads some 2,000 Muslims at a makeshift mosque in a vacant fire station in northern Paris, which opened on the day the ban became law, he says that moving worshippers into an actual place of worship is “the beginning of a solution.” But Hamza called on the government to be more accommodating to France’s Muslim population—the biggest in Western Europe—and opposed being herded into makeshift spaces. “We are not cattle,” Hamza told France’s TF1 News. The 2,000-sq.-metre fire station was only handed over to worshippers under a three-year lease two days before the deadline, after an uneasy accord was reached with municipal authorities. In Marseilles, a disused hangar was set aside as a temporary mosque in a similar deal, but is in a state of such disrepair that it was unusable for the Sept. 16 deadline. Guéant estimates that half of the country’s 2,000 mosques have been built in the last decade.

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Nicolas Sarkozy’s best man investigated in arms-sale probe

By macleans.ca - Friday, September 23, 2011 at 12:56 PM - 0 Comments

A financial scandal threatened to engulf French President Nicolas Sarkozy Thursday after two of his associates, including the best man at his wedding, were placed under formal investigation in an arms-trading probe. Nicolas Bazire, now the head of a luxury goods line, stands accused of handling illegal kickbacks tied to arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in the 1990s. The money was allegedly used to fund the failed presidential campaign of former Prime Minister Édouard Balladur. Bazire was the best man at Sarkozy’s 2008 wedding to Carla Bruni. Thierry Gaubert, another close associate of Sarkozy’s, is under investigation for the same alleged crimes.

The Independent

Giving up to a U.S. invader in France

By Patricia Treble - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 8:50 AM - 0 Comments

John Lawrence/The Travel Library/CP

The canopy of plane trees that guard the banks of France’s Canal du Midi have created such scenic vistas that UNESCO calls it a “work of art.” Now that beauty is under threat by an invasive fungus in what President Nicolas Sarkozy calls “a great tragedy.”

For five years, officials have tried to contain Ceratocystis platani—believed to have arrived on wooden American ammunition boxes during the Second World War—by cutting and burning diseased trees plus the surrounding healthy ones. But the disease kept spreading along the historic canal, a 360-km network of waterways built in the 17th century to connect the Mediterranean with the Atlantic.

Now France has admitted defeat. It will fell all 40,000 trees. The chopping and replanting with resistant varieties, costing an estimated $300 million, will be carried out gradually to avoid leaving bald spots on the waterway’s banks. However, it will be decades, if not centuries, before the new trees are mature enough to recreate the magical views.

The resurrection of John Galliano?

By Leah Mclaren - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 8:40 AM - 6 Comments

Antonio de Moraes Barros Filho/WireImage/Getty Images

Earlier this month, a Paris court found fashion designer John Galliano guilty of “public insults based on origin, religious affiliation, race or ethnicity,” for his now-notorious anti-Semitic rant in a Paris café.

It was, of course, a crime for which the disgraced designer had months ago been sentenced in the court of public opinion, and rightly so. The diatribe in which he slurred “I love Hitler” in the faces of a couple of astonished women was caught on video and later posted online. After Galliano’s arrest in February, for which he was dropped both as head of the House of Dior as well as his own eponymous label, his career prospects seemed forever dashed. But now that the court case is over and the dust is beginning to settle, some fashion world observers are speculating that a comeback might be in the cards. “Given how superficial the fashion world can be—and how cynical—it could be that Galliano’s very notoriety makes him a short-term money-spinner,” Telegraph deputy fashion editor Luke Leitch wrote last week after the verdict came down.

The court found the designer guilty after hearing testimony from patrons who’d experienced Galliano’s abuse on several separate occasions over the past year. Plaintiff Geraldine Bloch testified that the designer remarked on her “dirty Jewish face” and called her a “ ‘dirty whore’ at least a thousand times” in a 45-minute rant as she shared a drink with a friend on the patio of La Perle, an establishment located in the Marais, the lively gay district and historic Jewish quarter of Paris. And another victim, Fatiha Oummedour, told the court of a separate occasion on which an inebriated Galliano taunted her as “ugly Jewish” at the same café a few months earlier.

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Explosion at French nuclear site kills 1, injures 4

By macleans.ca - Monday, September 12, 2011 at 10:22 AM - 0 Comments

At least one person is dead and four injured after an explosion occurred at a nuclear waste site in southern France. The incident occurred on Monday at the Marcoule site and was caused by a fire near a furnace, French officials said. According to the country’s Agency for Nuclear Safety, there are no radiation leaks. While there are no nuclear power reactors at the Marcoule site, there is a pressurized water reactor that is used to produce tritium. The site is owned by French power utility company EDP. Officials said the furnace where the explosion occurred is used to melt waste. One of the injured was airlifted to hospital in Montpellier, while three others were treated at a hospital closer to the site.

CBC News

France and the persistence of public order

By Andrew Potter - Friday, July 15, 2011 at 3:57 PM - 5 Comments

Happy (belated) Bastille Day, everyone. While the philosophy community is celebrating (or not) the arrival of Derek Parfit’s long-awaited two-volume work on ethics, I’ve been plowing my way through the first volume of Francis Fukuyama’s The Origins of Political Order. The basic question he’s trying to answer is how any society ever made the transition from a tribal society to a modern state. It starts with chimpanzee politics, moves quickly to the state of nature and then on status seeking, so it’s basically the perfect book, thematically. I’m going to write a proper review of it soon, but one passage I came across last night was particularly interesting: it is about the particular character of the French state, pre-revolution:

While England developed an advanced theory of public finance and optimal taxation, elucidated in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, French taxation was opportunistic and dysfunctional… Most important, the French fiscal system deliberately encouraged rent-seeking. Wealthy individuals, instead of investing their money in productive assets in the private economy, spent their fortunes on heritable offices that could not create but only redistribute wealth. Rather than focusing on technological innovation, they innovated with regard to new ways of outwitting the state and its tax system. This weakened private entrepreneurship and made its emerging private sector dependent on state largesse, just at the same moment that private markets were blossoming across the English channel.

Free for now—but far from forgiven

By Michael Petrou - Thursday, July 14, 2011 at 1:10 PM - 1 Comment

Brendan McDermid/Reuters

It was the sort of fall from grace from which it seemed impossible for any leading public figure to recover.

On May 14, New York Port Authority police pulled Dominique Strauss-Kahn, then head of the International Monetary Fund and a likely Socialist challenger for the French presidency in 2012, from the first-class cabin of a flight bound for Paris. Early the next morning he was formally arrested on charges of sexual assault and attempted rape against a Manhattan hotel maid.

The allegations were particularly ugly. Police said the maid entered Strauss-Kahn’s $3,000-a-night suite thinking it was empty. Strauss-Kahn emerged naked from the bathroom and attacked her, forcing the maid to perform oral sex on him. Strauss-Kahn pleaded not guilty. His attorney, Benjamin Brafman, told New York criminal court: “The evidence, we believe, will not be consistent with a forcible encounter.” He did not deny a sexual encounter, in other words, but suggested it was consensual. DNA tests reportedly confirmed traces of Strauss-Kahn’s semen on the maid’s clothes.

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France puts itself on suicide watch

By Emma Teitel - Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 8:15 AM - 0 Comments

Pascal Pavani/AFP/Getty Images

No other nation in recent history appears to have taken so fervently to apocalyptic prophesies as France has, reports the London Times. Then again, not many nations have a government agency specifically responsible for investigating “cults and suspicious spiritual activities.” Indeed, the French agency—known as MIVILUDES—delivered a mass-suicide warning last week, apparently worried about a possible suicide frenzy come Dec. 21, 2012, the day the 5,000-year-old Mayan calendar ends. MIVILUDES contends that the Internet age, natural disasters, and economic turmoil—combined with the ancient Mayan prophecy—have inspired widespread belief in a coming Armageddon (there has been a recent migration of people to the hilltop village of Bugarach, said to be a place immune to apocalypse).

The agency’s concern is not entirely outlandish: in the 1990s, 74 people belonging to a cult called the Order of the Solar Temple—16 of them in France and eight in Quebec—died in murder-suicides to avoid an Armageddon. But cult expert Susan Palmer of Concordia University says that “MIVILUDES is creating artificial emergencies to support the state-sponsored anti-cult movement.” Palmer, whose upcoming book The New Heretics of France, about the French anti-cult movement, believes MIVILUDES spends more time vilifying cults than actually researching them—“obviously trying to justify its own existence.”

Canada’s warning shot to France via the IMF

By Erica Alini - Tuesday, June 28, 2011 at 3:27 PM - 105 Comments

Photo by Flickr user danorbit

U.S. treasury secretary Tim Geithner announced today that the United States will back French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde to head the International Monetary Fund, effectively sealing the race for the organization’s top job.

The race seemed tilted towards Lagarde’s candidacy from the beginning. When former Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigned in May to defend himself against sex assault charges, Europe immediately rallied behind Lagarde, eager to substitute a European national with another one. And although the U.S. has been cagey about its stance in the race, few doubted it would eventually also nod at the French minister, continuing the unspoken convention of having a European heading the IMF and an American the World Bank.

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Review: La Seduction: How the French Play the Game of Life

By Anne Kingston - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:00 AM - 0 Comments

Trying to dissect the French art of seduction is a bit like running Monet’s paints through chromatography to discern their magic. But in her compelling new cultural study, New York Times Paris correspondent Elaine Sciolino does a valiant job of deconstructing what she calls the “official ideology” of French society—one that animates daily interactions and world-stage diplomacy.

Exploiting the enviable access provided by her position, Sciolino plumbs the topic with forensic rigour, interviewing presidents, chefs, lingerie designers, perfumers, even her butcher. Her bid to define the elusive topic amuses some of her subjects (one man tells her Frenchmen’s self-awareness of seduction is akin to “goldfish not knowing what water is like”). But it also renders her an astute cross-cultural guide. Americans see seduction only in sexual terms, Sciolino points out, whereas the French regard it as a means to beguile, delight and persuade in every aspect of life, even as an end in itself.

Throughout, she’s a generous gossip and engaging observer, sharing that French women never parade naked in front of their husbands (it preserves mystique), it’s bad form to say “bon appétit” before eating (referring to bodily functions is gauche), and how entrenched attitudes toward femininity played out in the controversial burka ban.

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Chirac really doesn’t like Sarkozy

By Cynthia Reynolds - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 10:50 AM - 0 Comments

Jason Edwards/Getty Images

In releasing the second instalment of his memoirs, The Presidential Time, former French president Jacques Chirac has reignited a long-time feud with fellow right-winger and current president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy. While initially touting Sarkozy as the most gifted politician of his generation, Chirac—who held the presidency for two terms before Sarkozy entered office in 2007—proceeds to slam the man he has frequently referred to as “the Traitor,” describing him as “nervous, impetuous, overflowing with ambition, doubting nothing, least of all himself.”

Though they both belong to the UMP party, the bad blood goes back to the 1995 presidential election, when Sarkozy, Chirac’s then-protege, abandoned his mentor in favour of another conservative candidate. Chirac went on to win, while the famously pugilistic Sarkozy took on the more expressive role in their unfolding rivalry, among other things poking fun of Chirac’s renowned love of sumo wrestling. Chirac mostly remained silent. But four years out of the Élysée Palace and just 11 months before the next election—and while Sarkozy’s dismal approval ratings hover around 34 per cent—Chirac apparently deemed the time ripe for revenge.

He casts Sarkozy as a divisive figure prone to exacerbating tensions, referring to the president’s controversial policies that have unleashed multiple street protests throughout his tenure, most recently his expulsion of the Roma from France. But in an interview with Le Figaro, Chirac denied his words were an attack. Instead, he described his present relationship with Sarkozy as honest and cordial. Classic Chirac—his career flip-flopping earned him the nicknames “Chameleon Bonaparte” and “la Girouette” (the Weather Vane).

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The French are coming

By Alex Ballingall - Wednesday, June 8, 2011 at 9:35 AM - 0 Comments

Sean Kilpatrick/CP

Mathieu Lam was 23 when he decided to leave his home country of France in 2005 to work and travel in Canada. He was interested in the country’s reputation for natural beauty and its relatively high standard of living. Plus, he felt his prospects for employment at home were dismal.

Now, six years later, Lam is a permanent Canadian resident who runs a software development company in Toronto. He also operates a website called Programme Vacances Travail, which helps French youth who, like him, want to live and work abroad. “Canada has always been a country that attracted me,” he says in French, describing why he chose to come to Canada.

Lam’s not alone. Over the past decade, the number of French people coming to Canada has risen significantly. Permanent residents admitted from France jumped from 4,345 in 2000 to 6,930 in 2010. The increase in temporary workers is even more dramatic. In 2000, 5,932 temporary foreign workers entered Canada from France. By 2010, that number had risen to more than 17,000.

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Dominique Strauss-Kahn's open secret

By Leah McLaren - Friday, May 20, 2011 at 6:45 AM - 23 Comments

Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

A wave of stunned indignation washed across France this week. The allegations of sexual assault against one of country’s most powerful men were appalling—but it was the image of Dominique Strauss-Kahn handcuffed and being escorted by police into a New York City police station that truly shocked the nation. In his position as head of the International Monetary Fund, Strauss-Kahn (or DSK, as he is commonly known in France) is a man who is used to jetting around the world to sort out economic affairs with members of the global super-elite. But today, the man who was once touted as a Socialist party presidential contender sits in a single jail cell in Rikers Island, where he was remanded by a judge without bail.

It is a far cry indeed from the $3,000-a-night suite in Manhattan’s Sofitel, where he last slept. It was in that plushy abode, with its grand foyer, living room and marble bathroom, that Strauss-Kahn is accused of sexually assaulting a chambermaid. According to authorities, the 32-year-old woman claims she entered the room to clean it, whereupon a naked Strauss-Kahn chased her thoughout the suite, finally dragging her into the bathroom where he forced her to perform oral sex, before she broke free and fled. He was arrested several hours later, having boarded Air France flight 23 to Paris at John F. Kennedy International Airport, just minutes before takeoff. He was later charged with attempted rape, a criminal sexual act, sexual abuse, unlawful imprisonment and forcible touching.

Despite his gilded career and exalted status in France (he served as a government minister under François Mitterrand and is credited with helping manage the recent global economic crisis), the allegations against Strauss-Kahn cannot come as a complete surprise to anyone who knows him well. “Paris has buzzed for months, if not years, in the political and journalistic milieu about the rather pathological relationship that Mr. Strauss-Kahn maintains toward women,” Marine Le Pen, his far-right political rival, gloated to the press this week. And, she added, the news Strauss-Kahn had been arrested “did not make me fall from my chair.”

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This week: Good news, bad news

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 15, 2011 at 10:40 AM - 0 Comments

Good news

Andy Clark/Reuters

Vive la France!

France played a crucial role this week in the surrender and arrest of the Ivory Coast’s defeated president Laurent Gbagbo and his militiamen. With its troops on the ground, France has publicly pledged to help the troubled nation in its reconstruction. Along with its recent calls for greater NATO involvement in Libya, France has suddenly become a robust player on the international stage, flexing its muscle in the name of democracy and global stability. It’s just too bad that same spirit isn’t on display back home, where French police arrested two women under the ban on wearing face-concealing veils in public.

In the classroom

The organization that regulates Ontario’s 230,000 teachers issued a new rule this week: no more connecting with students on social media. Teachers have been warned not to “friend” their pupils on Facebook, subscribe to their Twitter accounts, or use Flickr, LinkedIn or MySpace to interact online. Give the College of Teachers an A+ on this. The student-teacher relationship belongs in a classroom, not a chat room.

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'Acts of war'

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, March 19, 2011 at 4:28 PM - 57 Comments

From Paris, the Prime Minister comments on the Libya campaign.

“We should not kid ourselves. Whenever we engage in military action — essentially acts of war — these are difficult situations,” Harper said at the end of an emergency summit, hastily convened in Paris to deal with the crisis. “And we will have to monitor this very closely and be very careful what we do every step of the way.”

Harper said the no-fly zone that Canada, France, Britain and others have agreed to enforce over Libyan skies is a complicated affair that could involve loss of innocent lives. Enforcing a no-fly zone could involve attacking Gadhafi air defence forces, among other things. Minimizing civilian casualties was a serious topic of discussion among his fellow leaders, Harper said. “These campaigns are complicated and one cannot promise perfection. One cannot promise there will not be casualties on our side either. But obviously all precautions will be taken to minimize our own casualties and minimize those of innocent civilians.”

The campaign has begun with French, American and British military strikes.

France: Land of Conrad Black's dreams

By Paul Wells - Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 7:01 AM - 66 Comments

“And there is something Canada can do, which would be noticed by our allies: We should recognize the provisional government of Libya as legitimate, and make contact with it. This could have a catalytic effect, inspirit the rebels, nudge the Americans and Europeans into doing something, and generally start a rockslide around Gaddafi…. A gangster and terrorist regime is slaughtering its own population, which is fighting back gallantly. We owe them our support, and every day’s delay is shameful and could make a benign outcome more doubtful.

“For once, Canada could make a difference and be seen by the world to do so. There is no excuse for waiting.”

— Conrad Black, Saturday

 

“PARIS — Moving ahead of its allies, France said on Thursday that it would become the first country to recognize Libya’s rebel leadership in the eastern city of Benghazi and would soon exchange ambassadors with the insurgents.”

— New York Times, this morning

Sorry, boss. Waiting is all Canada does any more.