New York Times: What Is the True Crime in Rotherham? Westerners' "Easy, Powerful Stereotypes" Against "Asian" Perpetrators Which "Overshadow the Bigger Picture"!

“The blindness is fascinating.”

The blindness of Western citizens, that is.

You knew this was coming, didn'tcha?

The New York Times' Katrin Bennhold pens a story on the "legacy of Rotherham" warning of the danger of… easy stereotypes and, indeed, indirectly calling for more laws and more repression for all citizens.

She starts off by linking the rapes of hundreds of teens by untold numbers of Pakistanis by untold numbers of Asians, reflecting at least some aspects of their Islamic culture, to the abuse perpetrated by BBC host Jimmy Savile (along with Rolf Harris, Max Clifford, and Stuart Hall), the work of a handful of members of the élite acting against the values of their country's general culture.

In the process, Katrin Bennhold gets into a talk about class warfare and decides that the point to remember about Rotherham was that the victims were among the low-status part of society.

This is all the same problem, you see.

First there was abuse at the hands of a popular BBC host. There were scandals at private schools and in the church and talk of a pedophile ring in Parliament. Then there was Rotherham: over a thousand teenagers sexually exploited as the authorities looked away.

Over the past two years, high-profile revelations of sexual abuse of children have painted a picture of Britain as a place where such abuse is not just endemic but systematically covered up — either because the perpetrators are of the very highest status or because the victims are of the very lowest.

There are two lessons here, scholars and officials say. The first is that sexual abuse is far more common than previously believed: Currently, 2,500 children in England have child protection plans because they are deemed to be at risk of sexual abuse. But the police now speak publicly of “tens of thousands” of victims a year.

The second lesson is that the main driver of abuse is impunity: “Abuse happens in a context of permissibility,” said Helen Beckett, an expert on the subject at the University of Bedfordshire.

Of course, it is of vital importance that we learn that "Mr. Savile … was a friend of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher" (needless to say, how the strength of this friendship — two public figures smiling before the camera? — is judged is never established; nor, why the alleged friendship would matter in light — or in darkness — of Savile's hidden life).

Moreover, immediately afterwards (with only one intervening sentence), we learn about "allegations that Cyril Smith, a former member of Parliament who died in 2010, abused boys in a care home in his constituency." Notice that no party is given (Smith was of the Liberal Party, in the British sense); color me paranoid, if you will, but it would hardly surprise me if a left-leaning writer like a Times writer wouldn't mind if it were thought that one of the abusers was of the same party, or of the same bent, as the conservative Thatcher. 

 … Nothing, it seemed, could still shock this country — but in August an outside report on the northern town of Rotherham exploded in the headlines: At least 1,400 white girls had been abused, raped and trafficked by groups of men, mostly of Pakistani heritage, from 1997 to 2013.

Notice how Katrin Bennhold puts the actions of a handful of (very) bad apples — all members of the élite — on the same level as the scandal of mass rape in entire neighborhoods of a British town.

Simon Bailey, the lead officer on child abuse for the Association of Chief Police Officers, last week warned of “many more Rotherhams to come.”

The abusers relied on powerful stereotypes, said Alexis Jay, the author of the Rotherham report, most prominently the idea of lower-class girls being problematic and promiscuous. The police routinely referred to 12-year-old victims as “prostitutes” or worse.

Now, of course, another powerful stereotype risks taking hold: that of the Asian perpetrator and the white victim. The legacy of Rotherham, Ms. Beckett warned, must not be to replace one set of blinkers with another. “If we focus too much on the race factor, we inadvertently give the message that you don’t have to look at risk anywhere else,” she said.

See, folks. The problem is not rape. Or not only rape. It's stereotypes. Y'know, the thing that you clueless clods are so guilty of in everyday life.

Well, actually, yes, it's also rapes. And any one of you could have it happen to your child, just as you might potentially be a child rapist yourself.

So, let's take care of the rape factor, with more and more laws, more and more suspicion, and more and more repression on common citizens from a Western culture which does not support, and has never supported (well, not until the 1960s Sexual Revolution), child sex.

Having ascertained that, we all need to start on the next project: working against "powerful stereotypes" (tch, tch) as well.

“The blindness is fascinating,” said Ms. Berelowitz, adding that the same was true for victims. “Ethnic minority victims are falling through the cracks.”

Her concerns were echoed by Mr. Bailey, who warned that “an unhealthy focus” on the Asian-on-white model of abuse overshadows the bigger picture. “That bigger picture is that 90 percent of child sexual abuse takes place in the home,” he told The Guardian last week.

But when it comes to child abuse, stereotypes die hard. “It’s easier to report that a particular ethnic group is guilty or that victims are troubled,” Ms. Beckett said. “No one wants to believe this could happen to someone near them.”

While there have always been differences about how proactive government should be, few Europeans question the basic premise of a welfare state

Most Europeans associate democracy with a social safety net

writes Katrin Bennhold in The Female Factor in an International Herald Tribune article in which the German reporter manages to mock "the bellows of nostalgic 'bulldog' conservatives in Britain" while shrugging off memories of World War II as "this fixation with 1945 [which] has long been easy to dismiss as island mentality, empire nostalgia or perhaps compensation for repeated defeats by Germany on the soccer field." (That's the left for you — they hate to be reminded of the good the West has done (and enjoy dismissing memories thereof), but they adore "commemorating", ad infinitum, the West's sins, alleged or otherwise, and even when they are far older, like slavery and colonialism.)

Still, Katrin Bennhold's observations on the differences between Europe's health care systems are interesting, not least because they are based on personal knowledge, i.e., her "recent experience of pregnancy and birth in Europe’s three biggest economies". The most interesting observation? Perhaps the fact (or the alleged fact — I have tended to get skeptical over liberal observations over the years) that the "higher the birthrate, the higher the proportion of women in work — and the degree of state support for working mothers."

While there have always been pronounced differences about how proactive government should be, few Europeans question the basic premise of a welfare state.

… As the past three years of financial and economic strife have made plain, Europe does not have a common narrative for the 21st century. There is no European Union of welfare states, no common philosophy on how to run one’s economy or manage public finances, let alone European public opinion. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s efforts to make all Europeans more German have borne some fruit, but also rankled those who felt lectured and stymied.

Partly as a result, nationalism is increasingly prevalent across the 27-country bloc. A familiar fault line has emerged: “The euro crisis has sharpened the focus on old divisions over the role of the state in the economy and in people’s lives,” said Ute Frevert, director of the Center for the History of Emotions at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin.

This fault line runs across society. Just how differently the state treats one of the most basic experiences — motherhood — has been plain in my recent experience of pregnancy and birth in Europe’s three biggest economies.

In London, where I just had my second daughter in a public hospital by Caesarean section, I was sent home after three nights. Midwives who were supposed to check up on me and my baby at home in the days after never showed up.

In early 2009, when I had a first Caesarean section in Germany, I was in the hospital for more than a week. Pediatric nurses gave me one-on-one lessons on how to pick up my baby, bathe and even massage her. A specialized physiotherapist exercised with newborns every morning.

Meanwhile in France, where I spent most of my two pregnancies and the time between, I was offered months of physiotherapy to get abdominal muscles back into shape after giving birth.

The differences do not stop at the degree of pampering.

In Britain, more than one midwife evangelized about the benefits of giving birth at home, breast-feeding and drug-free “natural” birth. In France, when I inquired about waiting on an epidural, the doctor brushed me off by saying that 97 percent of French women have epidurals — “and for a good reason.” The same doctor informed me about hormones to stop the milk flow if I preferred not to nurse.

… as Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, chief executive of 20-first, a gender management consultancy, points out: “You can tell the different approaches to motherhood in Europe by looking at birthrates.” The higher the birthrate, the higher the proportion of women in work — and the degree of state support for working mothers.

“There are the countries that get it, like France and the Scandinavian countries, and the ones that don’t, like Germany, which has been losing population since 2003,” Ms. Wittenberg-Cox said.

"Europe is powerless, Africa escapes us, the Mediterranean won’t talk to us, China has kept us down, and Washington is ignoring us!”

Already covered earlier this week on No Pasarán, the sorry state of France's diplomacy in the Arab world — appropriately called gauche and maladroit — makes it to the New York Times and to the front page of the International Herald Tribune.

After weeks of diplomatic wavering on the tumult in the Arab world, President Nicolas Sarkozy is scrambling to signal to the world that France is back on track, defending core human values and treading with a sure foot in the changed Middle East

writes Katrinn Bennhold.

To be sure, Mr. Sarkozy is not alone among Western leaders to appear to falter in the fast-moving revolts convulsing the Arab world. But France, which has long claimed a special standing in that region and won respect there for opposing the war in Iraq in 2003, has seemed especially unnerved.

All this has come against a background of simmering discontent among France’s professional diplomats — traditionally known for discretion and aplomb. On Tuesday, an anonymous complaint signed by several diplomats appeared in Le Monde, criticizing Mr. Sarkozy’s foreign policy as more show than substance.

…France, home to some five million Muslim inhabitants mostly of North African descent, prides itself on a special relationship with and understanding of the Arab world and its former colonial backyard in general.

Yet recent missteps have eroded much of that good will at home and abroad, diplomats and analysts warn. A first major sign came last summer, when Le Monde published a complaint by a former French ambassador to Africa about the Elysée Palace’s hijacking French diplomacy in Africa and cozy links between French elites and leaders in former colonies.

…The diplomats’ statement in Le Monde on Tuesday lamented France’s — and Europe’s — lack of influence the world over. “Contrary to the announcements trumpeted for the past three years, Europe is powerless, Africa escapes us, the Mediterranean won’t talk to us, China has kept us down and Washington is ignoring us!” the diplomats wrote.

Henri Guaino, one of Mr. Sarkozy’s most senior advisers, dismissed the laments as “cheap-shot judgments” ahead of the 2012 presidential elections.

…Embarrassed in Tunisia and to a lesser degree in Egypt, Mr. Sarkozy also took his time in condemning the violence in Libya. On Monday, six days into the uprising, when Human Rights Watch put the number of confirmed deaths at 233 — it has climbed since — Mr. Sarkozy made his first public statement, calling for an “immediate halt to the violence.”

Only after Colonel Qaddafi gave a televised address, vowing to fight the rebellion until his “last drop of blood,” did Mr. Sarkozy and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany call for sanctions.

It was not quite swift enough to avoid extensive reminders in the French media of the red carpet treatment Colonel Qaddafi received in 2007, after Tripoli released six foreign medics convicted of infecting Libyan children with the HIV virus in a deal Paris helped to broker.

During the Paris visit, several billion euros worth of industrial contracts were signed and Mr. Sarkozy justified his hospitality saying that he was “sending a signal to the Arab street.”

Leftists and Feminists, French and Foreign, Bemoan the DSK Case Risking to Discredit Future Reports of Rape

Anne Mansouret, the mother of a young woman who has accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of trying to rape her in 2003, said Saturday that she was “revolted” by the gleeful reaction of many men in France to the news that the case against him in New York had been compromised by credibility questions surrounding his accuser, a hotel housekeeper.

That is how write Steve Erlanger and Katrin Bennhold start their article about Frenchwomen weighing the impact and fallout of the Strauss-Kahn case, with leftists and feminists everywhere bemoaning that the inconsistencies that have apparently emerged in the account of Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s accuser — her name is Nafissatou Diallo, by the way — risk discrediting future reports of sexual violence. Apparently, it would not be too much of a bad thing to punish an innocent man in order for women to be able to continue portraying themselves as martyrs and victims. The latest development, incidentally, since the International Herald Tribune article was published, is that Mansouret's daughter, Tristane Banon, effectively filed a criminal complaint against Strauss-Kahn, whose lawyers, a few hours later, countersued the young woman for calumny.

“He’s lied a lot in his life,” said Ms. Mansouret, whose daughter, Tristane Banon, has signaled that she would file a criminal complaint in France against Mr. Strauss-Kahn. “I know exactly what he is.”

“We question automatically this young woman’s testimony,” she said. “But we don’t question a man who lied extravagantly.”

Mr. Strauss-Kahn and his male allies, she said, “don’t want a world where you can’t force a woman” to perform sex acts.

For Ms. Mansouret, who for years had urged her daughter not to speak out because it might damage her career, and other women here, Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s arrest in New York in May seemed to be a turning point, a chance to break the code of silence about sexual harassment and aggression by powerful figures. But the question in France after his release without bail on Friday was whether that moment was turning yet again.

… Olivia Cattan [the head of a feminist association called Paroles de Femmes, or “Women’s Words”] said she was surprised by the reaction of many Socialists.

“They give the impression that they will welcome him as a hero,” she said.

She is sure Mr. Strauss-Kahn will lose support among many voters if he runs. But what worries her more is that “victims of rape who take legal action against their perpetrator will now have to prove that they are moral, don’t have a police record and never lied.” She fears the case “will cast more doubt on the testimony of victims in a country where women’s rights are already ridiculed.”

What worries Olivia Cattan is that alleged rape victims "will now have to prove that they are moral, don’t have a police record, and never lied”?! Well, it turns out that maybe that used to be a good thing! Is the head of Paroles de Femmes the mother of a son? Whether yes or no, maybe she should read the post of the feminist veteran of the 1980s (her fight for the rights of a woman to be believed helped bring about a culture of “women don’t lie”) whose perspective changed somewhat when her own son was falsely accused decades later of attempted sexual assault: "If you think that women don’t lie to get back at men, how naive can you be? And who is going to protect our sons?"

Writes Michel Fize in Le Monde:

Hélas, de même qu'il existe aujourd'hui des "anti-sarkozystes primaires", comme il exista naguère des "anti-communistes primaires", il existe aussi à présent des féministes que j'appellerai définitivement "primaires". Pour ces femmes-là, il ne fait pas de doute que tous les hommes sont, par définition, des salauds (au moins sexuels), et les femmes, globalement, des vertueuses nées, qui ne mentent jamais, ne manipulent personne. Par ce raisonnement, la gent masculine représente naturellement, à leurs yeux, le sexe dangereux, la gent féminine incarnant, du coup, le sexe glorieux, celui des amours simples et des désirs toujours honnêtes. Sexe animal et machiste d'un côté, sexe sentimental et "végétal" (de jolies fleurs en tête) de l'autre.

C'est bien mal connaître les hommes et être dans un profond "désamour" à leur égard, c'est bien faire lourdement offense aux femmes elles-mêmes, que de penser pareilles vilaines choses.

As summarized by James Taranto:

Rape is a despicable crime. Falsely accusing a man of rape is despicable as well.

The birthplace of de Beauvoir and Bardot may look Scandinavian in employment statistics, but it remains Latin in attitude

Courtesy of the state, French women seem to have it all

writes Katrin Bennhold on the front page of the International Herald Tribune as the New York Times bemoans, yet again, the alleged horrors of society (needless to say, Nordic nations were as usual top candidates for eulogies):

multiple children, a job and, often, a figure to die for. What they [French women] don’t have is equality: France ranks 46th in the World Economic Forum’s 2010 gender equality report, trailing the United States, most of Europe, but also Kazakhstan and Jamaica. … A recent 22-country survey by the Pew Research Center summed it up: three in four French people believe men have a better life than women, by far the highest share in any country polled.

“French women are exhausted,” said Valérie Toranian, editor-in-chief of Elle magazine in France. “We have the right to do what men do — as long as we also take care of the children, cook a delicious dinner and look immaculate. We have to be superwoman.”

The birthplace of Simone de Beauvoir and Brigitte Bardot may look Scandinavian in employment statistics, but it remains Latin in attitude. French women appear to worry about being feminine, not feminist, and French men often display a form of gallantry predating the 1789 revolution. Indeed, the liberation of French women can seem almost accidental — a byproduct of a paternalist state that takes children under its republican wings from toddler age and an obsession with natality rooted in three devastating wars.

…as the philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy put it: “France is an old Gallic macho country.”

France crystallizes the paradox facing many women across the developed world in the early 21st century: They have more say over their sexuality (in France birth control and abortion are legal and subsidized), they have overtaken men in education and are catching up in the labor market, but few make it to the top of business or politics.

The political Messiah of the early 21st century, a cross between John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr

Obamania has gripped most of Europe writes Katrin Bennhold. But the enthusiasm is particularly striking in France.

…"He inspires different people for different reasons, but he inspires most people," said [Samuel Solvit, president of France's support committee for Barack Obama], whose 2,000-person-strong committee is the biggest in Europe and includes prominent members like Axel Poniatowski, president of the foreign affairs commission at the National Assembly, and Mayor Bertrand Delanoë of Paris.

…Several opinion polls have suggested that if Europeans could vote on Nov. 4, they would cast their ballot for Obama, who is admiringly described as a cross between John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.

…Indeed, as the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung warned Friday, European enthusiasts have elevated the senator to a role he will find hard to fulfill — "a savior of mankind, a sort of political Messiah of the early 21st century."

Speaking of messiahs and JFK, Jonah Goldberg says in his Liberal Fascism that

we must ask, what made his administration so popular? What made it so effective? What has given it its lasting appeal? On almost every front, the answers are those very elements that fit a fascist playbook: the creation of crises, nationalistic appeals to unity, the celebration of martial values, the blurring of lines between public and private sectors, the utilization of mass media to glorify the state and its programs, invocations of a new "post-partisan" spirit that places the important decisions in the hands of experts and intellectual supermen, and a cult of personality for the national leader.

…John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson represented the continuation of the liberal quest begun by Woodrow Wilson and his fellow progressives — the quest to create an all-caring, all-powerful, all-encompassing state, a state that assumes responsibility for every desirable outcome and takes the blame for every setback on the road to utopia, a state that finally replaces God.

Which is why Barack Obama is so enormously popular everywhere else in the world, i.e., in the places where the flame of liberty has never taken root as deep as (despite all the leftists' attempts to root it out) in America (and where it never will)… When you read the following paragraph, note that Jonah Goldberg wrote it before (long before) Obama became the Democratic Party's main contender (and before "hope" and "change" became his rallying cry).

[FDR's] New Deal gave Americans "hope" and "faith" in a "cause larger than themselves." Hope for what? Faith in what? What "cause"? The answer: the liberal God-state or, if you prefer, the Great Society — which is merely that society governed by the God-state in accordance with the general will.

"Sarkozy identifies with America; he sees his own rise in the world as reflecting an American-like saga"

…on Tuesday Mr. Sarkozy told cabinet ministers that the release of the documents was “the height of irresponsibility”

writes Katrin Bennhold regarding the WikiLeaks scandal as well as the release of documents pertaining to French diplomacy and to the French president.

President Nicolas Sarkozy is an unusually solid French friend of America. He is also a “mercurial” man operating in “a zone of monarch-like impunity” surrounded by advisers often too fearful to give honest counsel, according to leaked cables from the United States Embassy in Paris. …

Five years of correspondence between Paris and Washington chronicle a spectacular post-Iraq turnabout between one of the West’s most complicated diplomatic couples. Mr. Sarkozy, who took office in May 2007, was described even last year as “the most pro-American French president since World War II” and a “force multiplier” for American foreign policy interests. …

Paul Patin, an American Embassy spokesman, said Tuesday: “President Sarkozy has proved, time and time again, that he is a true friend of the U.S. France is one of our closest allies, and our partnership has only gotten stronger during his presidency.”

In general, few foreign policy disagreements surface between France and the United States under Mr. Sarkozy. … The delight among American diplomats at the arrival of a self-professed pro-American candidate after years of difficult relations with Jacques Chirac was evident in correspondence well before Mr. Sarkozy’s election.

In 2005, Mr. Sarkozy, then the interior minister, told Craig R. Stapleton, then the American ambassador, that although he would have advised against the Iraq invasion he still felt it “personally when American soldiers die in combat.” Mr. Sarkozy said he took it as a personal responsibility that “no U.S. Embassy or Consulate was so much as touched” in anti-American protests.

“Very much unlike nearly all other French political figures, Sarkozy is viscerally pro-American,” said a cable signed by Mr. Stapleton. “For most of his peers, the U.S. is a sometimes reviled or admired, but decidedly foreign, other. Sarkozy identifies with America; he sees his own rise in the world as reflecting an American-like saga.”

U.S. troops must stay, Talabani says

As debate on the Iraq war continues during the American election, the New York Times seems to play down a crucial report in that debate that its sister paper carries, although, naturally, front page status is out of the question for Katrin Bennhold's International Herald Tribune report and the story is thus relegated to page 4. The day after the report, the Times was downplaying it even more by relegating it to two paragraphs, and that in the second half of Kirk Semple's hand-wringing story on "discord" between the U.S. and Iraqis.

President Jalal Talabani said Thursday that American-led troops should remain in Iraq for at least two more years to give the country time to build up its security forces.

His remarks, delivered at the start of a six-day visit in France, came as pressure in the United States and Britain is building to bring home the 150,000 soldiers currently on the ground in Iraq. Amid continuing violence and a rising death toll, the war has become the No. 1 issue for American voters ahead of next week's midterm elections.

"We need time," Talabani told a conference in Paris before meeting President Jacques Chirac. "I believe two to three years could be enough to build up our forces before we can say bye-bye and thanks to our friends."

Last week, Iraq's deputy prime minister, Barham Salih, urged the United States and Britain not to "cut and run."

Another thing worth pointing out is that, needless to say, "some French diplomats voiced concern that two or three years seemed a long time." With Jacques Chirac reminding everybody of the importance of setting "a perspective for a pull-out", it is refreshing to be reminded how solidaristic and fraternal the French sound in voicing concern (this has nothing to do with getting the pesky Yanks out of the way, you understand; it must be their ever-so-friendly feelings for those they keep reminding us are their American friends…)

Crossing the Atlantic with a Koran in hand: "Islam and terrorism have become intertwined in the collective subconscious"

A hijab left only the oval of my face exposed - my blond hair was covered, pulled back in a tight bun - and I was wearing an ankle-length skirt. For good measure, a copy of the Koran stuck out of my handbag.

In a typical mainstream media article, Katrin Bennhold dresses up as a Muslim and crosses the Atlantic Ocean in a flight from Washington to Paris. Although hardly anything happens — most officials and fellow travelers, both in the airports and on the plane, show her no disrespect (they even know Muslim customs) — the International Herald Tribune's Paris correspondent discovers that, needless to say, any (rare) example to the contrary (such as a remark) speaks

loudly about how Islam and terrorism have become intertwined in the collective subconscious.

In order to make this hardly-a-story an article, the German journalist must go to other sources, documenting how unfairly Muslims have been, and are, treated in the West and getting feel-good quotes such as the one ending the piece. Never mentioned, of course, whether by herself or the complaining Arabs she interviews, is how non-Muslims are treated in Muslim societies and whether there might not be a modicum of common sense (at least, in this day and age, i.e., that of Mohammed Atta) in racially profiling people whose brothers regularly call for the death of the West.

"We're touching something sacred here"

"We're touching something sacred here," said François Vergne, a lawyer in Paris with Morgan Lewis, a leading employment law firm in the United States

to the International Herald Tribune's Katrin Bennhold.

The traditional French CDI, which still accounts for almost 90 percent of employment contracts, has an average probation period of 1.5 months, compared with 6 months in Germany, 9 to 12 months in Denmark and one year in Britain. After that, dismissals can cost employers 12 to 24 months of salary. Disputes take a year on average and are judged by employment tribunals, which must rule in favor of the employee where there is reasonable doubt.

Roubaud knows that firsthand. In his 33 years as head of Simonet, he said, he has fired only four people. Twice, the dispute involved years of legal wrangling; in one case the costs matched his company's annual profit.

"That sort of experience puts you off hiring," he said. "It gives you existential fears if you're running a small business."

President Royal?

…when [Ségolène] Royal, 52, said last week that she was considering running for president in 2007, she unleashed an onslaught of attacks and ridicule from her own camp

writes Katrin Bennhold as the International Herald Tribune considers a French equivalent of a 2008 Hillary Clinton-Condi Rice race.

"Who will look after the children?" scoffed Laurent Fabius, a former prime minister with presidential ambitions himself. "The presidential race is not a beauty contest," sniffed Jack Lang, a former education and culture minister, who also wants to run in 2007.

In her sunswept office on the third floor of the Parliament building this week, Royal struck a defiant tone.

"With comments like that they only disqualify themselves and hurt their own credibility," she said, flashing a combative smile. "If, in 2007, I am the best placed to win for my camp, I should run."

Then her face turned somber. If she had been black and a man, she said, "They would never have dared to say these things. Am I not allowed to talk about this possibility just because I am a woman?"

… The squabbling over Royal's potential candidacy highlights the internal rivalries in a party still reeling from its humiliating defeat in the last presidential election, in 2002 [check out this up-to-date web page here], and the divisive referendum on the European constitution in May. But it also speaks loudly about attitudes toward women among leading members of the French political class.

It was telling that the only politician publicly defending Royal's presidential bid was Roselyne Bachelot, a lawmaker from the governing center-right party.

More than two centuries after the French revolution, women are conspicuously absent from the top echelons of political life in the country.

… Oddly, given the description by the sociologist Janine Mossuz-Lavau of French politics as "one big male club," Royal may face an adversary from a different party but the same sex. Michèle Alliot-Marie, the ambitious defense minister, published a book with her vision of France's future this week — and said she planned to play "a frontline role in the presidential election in 2007."

The Upshot for France

The upshot [of the EU constitution referendum] is that France faces a long political season of account-settling at home

writes Katrin Bennhold in the International Herald Tribune

in addition to the reckoning it faces with its European partners if voters reject the treaty on Sunday.

Racist Incidents Are Jarring the French

writes Katrin Bennhold on the front page of the International Herald Tribune.

Swastikas on the walls of a Paris mosque. An arson attack on a railway carriage commemorating French Jews who were deported to Nazi camps in World War II. Blatant anti-Semitic comments by a comedian.

A recent string of racist incidents in France has shaken the political establishment at a time when the country is battling its image abroad as a country where anti-Semitism is making a powerful comeback and anti-Arab sentiments are rising.

Knowing Who Your Friends and Enemies Are

When Foreign Minister Michel Barnier of France cut the tricolor ribbon on a new building for the French high school [in Moscow] last week, much was made of the historical and cultural ties between Russia and France

writes Katrin Bennhold in the International Herald Tribune.

Moscow, he said in an interview Friday, is one of his foreign-policy priorities. "Look at the size of this country, which stretches from the heart of Europe to Asia, which has considerable natural resources and which plays an important role in regional and international affairs," he said. "It's no longer the Soviet Union, but it is still a global power."

What!? No raving and ranting at, no scorn and anger directed at, powers and hyperpowers, on a global, on a continental, or on a regional scale?

(Oh, that's right, that kind of talk is reserved for Uncle Sam…)

Consciousness of Russia's importance played a large part in the French — indeed, the European and American — reaction to the recent crisis in Ukraine, which ended Sunday with the inauguration of Viktor Yushchenko as president. Barnier will visit Yushchenko later this week, after the Ukrainian leader makes his first foreign trip — to Moscow, on Monday.

"We want to tell the Ukrainians what I already told Poland last week: You have to respect Russia," he said. "We can't have tensions between Ukraine and Russia, because we need Russia."

What?! No asking that the other player respect (and listen to) its neighbors, and "us French allies", and the rest of the world?

And for the neighbors, no "You are not very polite people" who "would have done better to keep quiet"?

(Oh, that's right, that kind of talk is reserved for situations involving Uncle Sam…)

In fact, Barnier has gone out of his way not to irritate Russia…

But France's interest in Russia is emblematic of the French vision of the world. In this view — not popular in Washington — Russia is one of several poles in global economics and politics, along with the United States, China, India and the European Union. France, conscious of its status as continental Europe's only nuclear power and permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, alongside Russia, paints itself as Russia's key strategic partner in Europe — a bridge to Moscow, Barnier said, as Britain is a bridge between the EU and Washington. "We have been a mediator for a long time" the minister said. "Our analysis of a lot of problems in the world is often similar."

What!? No high-falutin' comments on "Friends having to be allowed to disagree", "we are allies, not serfs", etc…

(Oh, that's right, that kind of talk is reserved for Uncle Sam…)

But some analysts caution that the exchange often lacks substance. "They've created a lot of infrastructure to talk, but they don't have that much to talk about," said Thomas Gomart, a Russia specialist at the Paris-based French Institute for International Relations. "It's a much less tangible relationship than that between Germany and Russia."

Nyet, do not say it is simply more talk of the type seen at the United Nations debating society…

Barnier's aides admit that President Jacques Chirac of France has no [warm friendship] with [President Vladimir] Putin. But Russia, home to the world's largest natural gas reserves and a rapidly growing investment needs, is near the top of the list of 25 countries in which France wants to increase its economic presence. "We have big companies in industries that interest the Russians," Barnier said.

How many democracies among the 25?

Sarkozy Plans to Encroach Further on His Boss's Territory

While Jacques Chirac thinks of running for a third term (perhaps mainly because he cannot find another way to avoid a trial after leaving office?), Katrin Bennhold reports that

After taking over President Jacques Chirac's center-right party late last year, Nicolas Sarkozy plans to encroach further on his boss's territory, focusing his 2005 agenda on diplomacy, the traditional roaming ground for the head of state in France.

… Since his election as leader of the Union for a Popular Movement in late November, the ambitious 50-year-old has pledged to travel abroad once a month — more than any other French party leader.

… According to political analysts like [Stéphane Rozès, director of political studies at the Paris-based CSA polling institute], raising his profile internationally is also an attempt by Sarkozy to keep the media interested — particularly since Chirac might be less present abroad this year, judging from the unusually domestic focus in his New Year addresses last week.

Meanwhile, the rumor is that Chirac favors the opposition socialists' François Hollande in the 2007 election to his own party's Sarkozy, which, if true, would be a rehash (in reverse) of the 1995 presidential election, during which the incumbent President François Mitterrand supposedly favored Paris mayor Chirac over both his (Mitterrand's) own (socialist) party's Lionel Jospin and his cohabitation prime minister, the conservative Edouard Balladur (whom Sarkozy preferred over fellow RPR party leader Chirac, which is one of the main reasons France's current president is hardly on friendly terms either with him or Balladur)…

But, by no means should you let this back-stabbing make you in any way doubt that France is the land of principles and principled leaders!…

As Iraq's President Visits France, Chirac Tones Down His Voice

The International Herald Tribune's Katrin Bennhold claims that Jacques Chirac is tempering France's criticism of U.S. policy.

While both Chirac and his foreign minister, Michel Barnier, have firmly denied any change in France's policy on Iraq, they appear to have softened their language on some of the main areas of controversy with the United States in Iraq.

Only a few months ago, French officials would still call for "an end to the occupation" and demand a concrete date for the withdrawal of coalition forces in Iraq. Thursday this demand was muted.

Of course, this is all realpolitik. Everything France does and says (or, conversely, doesn't do and say) is presented as being proof of superior wisdom, tolerance, capacity for reasoning, love of justice, avant-garde vision, etc: that is the message when Paris vigorously opposes Uncle Sam abroad and… that is the message when Paris tones down its voice to adopt "a new balancing act".

So far, it doesn't seem to be working…

[During the visit of Iraq's interim president Ghazi al-Yawar, Paris stressed] that it is ready to plan for a long-term cooperation with Bagdhad on issues ranging from education and health to archeology. French officials are also quick to stress that France is ready to pull its weight in the reconstruction of Iraq, pointing notably to its agreement to scrap €4 billion, or $5.2 billion, of debt owed to it by Baghdad.

But so far French goodwill has not won that much tangible appreciation.

While Germany has trained some 1,200 Iraqi police officers in the United Arab Emirates since March, a French proposal made in July for a similar effort has so far been ignored by Iraq.

"We explicitly renewed the proposal today, but there was no reaction," said one of Chirac's aides, who declined to be identified, after Thursday's talks.

Update: Following the historic Iraq election, President Ghazi al-Yawer derides one of the central tenets of French foreign policy as "complete nonsense"…

Trial begins in U.S. Embassy plot

One of France's top terrorism suspects and five of his alleged accomplices went on trial here Monday, accused of plotting to blow up American targets in France three years ago, a charge that all six men deny

writes Katrin Bennhold in the International Herald Tribune.

More than three years after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States and 10 months after four commuter trains were bombed in Madrid, the trial is expected to shed light on the possible relationship between European-based Islamist militants and Al Qaeda and on links between terror cells in various European countries.

(Expatica quotes the AFP…)

"France is a country in deep crisis, with doubts about its identity and its place in the world"

A news analysis by Katrin Bennhold in the International Herald Tribune is called France searches for its place in a wider Union.

Like literary evenings on the Left Bank and velvety wines from the vineyards around Bordeaux, soul-searching about France's place in the world is a recurrent part of the country's cultural repertoire.

Five months after the European Union welcomed 10 new members, the soul-searching is again in full swing — and this time, politicians and political observers say, it could last a while.

While all the big West European nations are seeing their influence diluted as the Union has grown from 15 to 25 members, debate is sharpest in France, the cradle of the European project.

Morose commentaries on declining French power abound, in the press, in political books and as chatter in ministerial corridors. Meanwhile, a public long supportive of European integration is becoming less trusting of Brussels, while the French political class is fighting over the European constitution, the risk of jobs moving east, and the possible entry of Turkey.

Of course, France is not unique in seeing its role in Europe diminished; as a smaller part of a greater group, the French voice, like that of the Germans, British or Italians, counts for less.

But in France, which prides itself on its role in the EU's creation, this reality is perhaps harder to accept than elsewhere — especially given the impending end of its traditional institutional power parity with its closest EU ally, Germany.

And there is more to it than institutional arithmetic. A chief architect of so many of Europe's big innovations, from the single market to the euro, Paris these days is having trouble winning sympathy for its initiatives. Add to that recent discordant outbursts with European partners over issues ranging from Iraq to industrial policy, and France is looking increasingly isolated.

Nicolas Bavarez, who shook the intellectual establishment last year with his book France in Free Fall, says the situation has worsened in the past 12 months.

"France is a country in deep crisis, with doubts about its identity and its place in the world," Bavarez said in a recent interview.

…compared with the 1950s, when French authority in Europe's initial Club of Six was unrivaled, today's picture couldn't be more different.

Take the bickering over the new European Commission. President Jacques Chirac was scolded in the press last month for winning only the minor transport portfolio for Jacques Barrot, France's commissioner in the 25-strong body — a snub intensified when Britain received the high-profile trade brief. That followed a bigger setback in June, when France and Germany unsuccessfully championed Belgium's Guy Verhofstadt for the commission's presidency.

…According to Hubert Védrine, a former foreign minister [who originated the "hyperpower" expression and that during… the Clinton administration (!)], France's vision of Europe as a powerful political entity standing up to the United States on the world stage causes as much reticence among fellow European states as its ideas about how to run an economy.

Today it is the Atlanticists in Europe, with their Anglo-Saxon free enterprise and their acceptance of America's predominance, who have triumphed, he said. Britain, long the odd one out in Europe, has inspired many of the new members, including the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the Baltic states, with its economic system and loyalty to the United States.

…Part of the problem has been France's sometimes abrasive handling of the new entrants, Védrine said. In the worst split the EU ever experienced, most East European countries sided with Britain on the Iraq invasion even before they had formally joined the EU. When Chirac clumsily told them that they had "missed a good opportunity to keep quiet," their defiance only grew.

…Back in Paris, the message is sinking in. As a senior official close to Foreign Minister Michel Barnier acknowledged last week: "In the enlarged Europe, we have to work differently and form coalitions." Obvious, perhaps, but a significant shift in French thinking.

…If some elements of France's waning influence in Europe are beyond its control, for others the country has largely itself to blame.

[Dominique Moïsi, senior adviser to the French Institute of International Relations in Paris,] says the fact that French politicians have increasingly focused on national rather than European interests has hurt France's credibility in Europe.

"If the French can't sell their ideas in Europe as easily anymore, it's in part because the ideas are less European," Moïsi said.

The issue has moved center stage at the Foreign Ministry since Barnier took over in April, when Chirac moved him back to Paris from a post on the European Commission in Brussels. During the annual meeting of France's top 300 diplomats last month, Barnier pledged to "consolidate and increase France's influence in Europe." But he also warned against treating the EU's smaller states with arrogance. "France is not great when it is arrogant; it is not strong when it is alone," he said.

This is a far cry from Charles de Gaulle's proclaiming "an exalted and exceptional destiny" for his country.

Just as that vision was exaggerated, some in France are perhaps now exaggerating the decline, observers say.

"France has always had more self-pride than other European nations," said Stefan Collignon, professor for European political economy at the London School of Economics. "They were never as powerful as they thought and, by the same token, their loss of power now is perhaps not as dramatic as it may seem."

"A French passport doesn't protect you anymore."

Katrin Bennhold has an article in the International Herald Tribune on When even the French become targets in Iraq:

In the latest sign that France, the most vocal opponent of the American-led campaign in Iraq, is not immune to the wrath of Islamic extremists in the war-torn country, two major French television networks pulled their crews out of Baghdad this week for fear of seeing them taken hostage.

Within two days of each other, TF1, France's main commercial TV network, and the state-financed rival France 3 announced that teams returning from Iraq would not be replaced until the security situation improved.

More than 100 foreigners have been abducted since April in what appears to be a deepening campaign aimed at civilians. Most hostages have been released, but about 30 have been killed.

French news media companies are not the only ones to flee Iraq.

Germany's biggest television network, ARD, said Friday it also planned to bring home its two correspondents in Iraq after the Foreign Ministry warned that German journalists could be at risk. Like France, Germany opposed the war in Iraq.

Separately, the Spanish government has urged television stations and newspapers to pull out their correspondents, the newspaper El Mundo said on its Web site. The EFE news agency of Spain has withdrawn its only Spanish correspondent from Baghdad.

According to Catherine Nayl, deputy news editor at TF1, being French no longer protects journalists, who have increasingly become "pawns" in a conflict devoid of any rules.

"Until three or four months ago, our journalists still felt relatively safe, being French," Nayl said. "But a French passport doesn't protect you anymore."

At France 3, Ulysee Gosset, news director, agreed.

"French nationals are not out of harm's way," Gosset told the French radio station Europe 1 on Friday. "France is not an enemy state for the Iraqis, but it's a Western country, and all Westerners, including journalists, are now potential targets."

In the past week, the hostage crisis has dominated the headlines. Two American engineers were beheaded by a group that threatened to kill a British colleague of theirs as well. And the fate of two Italian aid workers, known as the two Simonas, remained uncertain.

On Aug. 20, the first two French hostages were taken, two journalists, who were abducted south of Baghdad.

The kidnapping of Christian Chesnot, a correspondent for Radio France, and Georges Malbrunot, from the daily Le Figaro, not only shook news media outlets with staff in Iraq. It came as a shock to a nation that has long prided itself on its special relationship with the Arab world.

…The failure so far of government to free Chesnot and Malbrunot, in spite of rallying a number of Muslim leaders behind their cause, has reinforced a growing sense of impotence in the French capital.

…Nayl stressed that the decision to stop coverage from Baghdad was provisional and that the network was in daily contact with its local guide and driver in Baghdad to assess when a crew could be sent out again.

The irony is that in many ways the situation in Iraq has proven the French government right in its reasoning to oppose the war [said Guillaume Parmentier, director for U.S. studies at the French Institute for International Relations].

"The French view was that the war in Iraq would increase terrorism, and there is a very argument good that it has," he said.

Terrorism has increased for everyone, indeed, with the possible exception of Iraqi citizens, of course, who no longer have to fear being abducted by state policemen entering their homes with impunity and taking them away to amputate their limbs, cut out their tongues, or shoot them like a dog…

September 11 (III)

Question: What do you call Europeans who do not sneer at Uncle Sam?

Answer (among others): Europeans who lived through the horror of September 11.

Katrin Bennhold has an article in the International Herald Tribune in which she listens to a Frenchman, a German, and a Briton who "shared America's most traumatic moment"".

…Bruno Dellinger, 43 … moved to New York in 1997. In his study in downtown Manhattan, a small American flag adorns the bookshelf…

Born in Lyon, Dellinger is a child of France. But three years ago, when he fled his office on the 47th floor of the World Trade Center and saw the sky turn black as the towers collapsed behind him, almost suffocating from debris and fear, he also became a child of Sept. 11.

"It felt like war," Dellinger, a writer and entrepreneur, recalls with emotion. "And what a lot of Europeans don't understand is that this country is still at war."

Liane Lohde, a German policy analyst, heard the first plane hit on Sept. 11 as she crossed the Williamsburg Bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan on her way to work. She learned later that several of her company's clients had died in the attack. She says she remembers how alienated and misunderstood she felt during telephone conversations with family and friends in Europe in the days after.

"I remember how some of the first few phone calls really shocked me — and them," she said, sitting in a small restaurant in London, where she has lived since April 2002. "All they saw," Lohde said, "was the danger of the superpower overreacting, whereas I definitely felt that this could not go unanswered."

She herself was surprised by the force of her reaction, said Lohde, 29, who considers herself left of the political center in Europe.

In New York, Janice Brooks sympathizes. An Englishwoman, she transferred with her company from London to New York in August 2001, two weeks before the attacks. Brooks survived Sept. 11 against all odds. An executive assistant at Euro Brokers, an American brokerage firm, she was on the 75th floor of the World Trade Center on her way to her office on the 84th floor when the second plane hit the building, demolishing floors 76 to 84. Sixty-one of her colleagues died that day.

Today, Brooks, 44, in contrast to broader public opinion in her home country, is an unabashed supporter of Britain's embattled prime minister, Tony Blair, because he has stood by America over the past three years.

"I feel very proud of my little island to have stood by America when it counted," she said from New York in a telephone interview. "A stand needed to be made."

…What sets them apart from their friends and families in Europe to this day, it became clear in long conversations, is not just sharp memories of the smell of kerosene and the endless dust that blew through the city for months, but their intense everyday bonding with Americans. Brooks describes herself as an "honorary American." To all three — even Lohde, who plans to move to Washington shortly — the United States is home as much as France, Germany or Britain.

Like many on the European side of the Atlantic, Lohde feels unease with an American stance she perceives to be too unilateral and reliant on military might. But she also says Europeans have failed to understand just how fundamentally Sept. 11 altered American psychology. …

Dellinger says he can relate to both: America's military view of the world and Europe's soft-power approach of working with diplomacy, aid and economic incentives. In his opinion the current rift goes beyond Iraq. "Ultimately it's about how safe you feel as a nation and how you view threats," he said. "Europeans feel safe; Europe is at peace. America in many ways is not."

…Raised in the Old World, where after 60 years of peace taxpayers choose to fund welfare over weaponry, Dellinger said that as a European, he had been humbled when he moved to the United States to realize the amount average American families pay for their country's defense bill every year. "Let's just remember that Europe still relies on America for its security," he said.

…For Dellinger, the United States is about idealism, an idealism the French sometimes sneer at as empty or superficial. In the weeks after Sept. 11, he says, he saw that idealism at work. People grieved together, but they immediately went on to rebuild their businesses and their lives with an energy he can't imagine fellow Europeans at home ever would; it made him buy the little flag now resting on his bookshelf.

For Lohde, who is leaving London to move to Washington next month, America is a place of diversity — diversity of culture, opportunity and views. She gets upset when her European friends fail to see how many Americans have a profoundly mid-Atlantic point of view, one she holds herself.

And for Brooks, who has stayed on in New York and just renewed her work permit for another two years, it is, above all, camaraderie and personal freedom — "the belief that you can do anything" — that keep her in New York.

Brooks says she wishes she didn't have to choose between Europe and the States: "I want to make my own country and take the best of both worlds."

Thinking of the Iraqis, who, rather overwhelmingly, support the decision to topple Saddam Hussein: isn't it strange how the people who are the most directly concerned by America's (or Bush's) "crimes", or the most directly involved in the tragedies involving Uncle Sam, are always the least inclined to criticize the United States?