First women fined under France's Burka ban

Well, I've been wondering when it would happen, and here it is:
First women fined under France's Burka ban | RFI:

A French court on Thursday imposed fines on two women for wearing the full Islamic face-covering veil, for the first time since a law was passed making it illegal to wear it in public.

You may remember that the enforcement of the law mostly depends on other citizens making a complaint given that often police would not be around to observe it. I wonder whether, as well, some of the other people who said they would try to get arrested for fulfilling the law's strictures without a niqab. When will those cases come to court.

One of the things I pointed out in earlier comments is that this arguably flouts the EDHR, and so it is no surprise to read that this will be tested:
"Yann Gré, who is the lawyer for the two women, declared that they will appeal against the ruling and are ready to take the case before the European Court of Human Rights."
Of course, this is a bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut situation. It is estimated that about 2000 women in France wore niqab before the law. This may now have halved. I'm no fan of niqab, but I don't think that bearing down on people's beliefs like this is a terrible afront to freedom of conscience. Which is the point of the EDHR's protecting of life-stance beliefs. Far from creating a neutrality, the French form of secularism creates a public sphere in the image of humanistic rationalism. It is itself a belief-system and it, ironically, persecutes other belief systems whose actors cannot enter the public realm shorn of their life-shaping commitments.

What's the French for burqa?

Written the day before the French law regarding facial covering in public (the actual title en Anglais is The Bill Prohibiting Facial Dissimulation in a Public Place) came into force. I'd meant to write about it then but "life got in the way" it'll be interesting to see how it works out.. The article is here: Libert�, �galit�, fraternit� – unless, of course, you would like to wear a burqa | Viv Groskop | Comment is free | The Observer:
Now the way it works is interesting, perhaps even quite clever:
"if they wear a veil over their face in a public place, anyone can ask them to uncover their face – or leave. ... If a woman refuses to co-operate, citizens are advised to call the police. The fine is €150."
I say possibly it is clever because it relies on activist citizens to enforce it. So if people aren't really bothered it come to be a dead letter: though, of course it would remain a bully's charter in those circumstances.
I must confess I'm also wondering whether we will see political opponents monkeying around with this. Now the article seems good at putting the arguments in favour though comes out unhappy at the illiberality of it -a perspective I tend to share. I'd rather they didn't but I'm sure I don't want to criminalise those who do -I can think of some styles of dress I'd far rather criminalise if we were to go down that road and most of them involve more cloth not less!

Anyway one comment would offer a potential test case and, having just been reading up about EHR equality legislation this is very opposite:

Presumably, it's now against the law in France to attend a fancy dress party dressed as Zorro or Catwoman. Because if there's one rule for one set of people who cover their face, that same rule should surely apply to anyone whose face is not immediately visible

.
So political opponents prepared to go into non-violennt resistance mode could do precisely those things and see what the reaction is. I'll leave you to work out the ramifications depending on whether people do or don't react to Zorro, catwoman or Spiderman in the boulevards and rues. Anyway let's see if that happens particularly in the ski season ...

And then there are the reductio ad absurdam cases:

Le Figaro has already expressed distress that it is technically against the law to wear a ski mask in a public place. Bad news for the black run at Val d'Isère. Aren't there some rampant beards that might sprout dangerously in the direction of facial dissimulation? What happens if you make your living as Papa Noel at Nouvelles Galeries' answer to Santa's grotto?

Presumably there will be case law approaches develop; but how they can do so without falling foul of EHRC is an interesting point and one to watch.

Secular and Catholic France grows evangelicals

"From a postwar population of around 50,000, French evangelicals are now estimated to number between 450,000 and 500,000. According to the Evangelical Federation of France (FEF), the number of churches has risen from 800 in 1970 to over 2,200 today." That's quite a big change. It looks like a lot of the growth is in Pentecostal style churches but not all. The Guardian article has a kind of comment overview:
For secular and Catholic France, a shock to the system: the rise of the evangelicals | World news | The Guardian. However, if you're interested in a bit more detail on the way the figures look, and you read French, then the article in Le Figaro is better: Le protestantisme en pleine mutation (if your French is rudimentary, the Google translation kind of works but is very stilted). The occasion is the 500 anniversary of the birth of John Calvin (in France, recall).

Je ne regrette rien: phonetics

Beyond the voice and the passion of the line in the famous song, typically, I find the linguistics of the song fascinating. So it was great to come upon this posting Language Log: Je ne regrette rien: phonetics and phonology: which draws attention to one of the things I notice, partly because I've been trying to imitate the words as la Piaf sings them: "she sings je ne regrette as something very much like [ʒnʁgʁɛt], although the first two consonants are certainly soft and indistinct".
It's the reason I find Parisian French so hard to understand compared with, say, southern or West African: the Parisian version seems to have a principle of removing schwa as much as possible, often resulting in Piafesque strings of consonants. (And getting the 'light touch' on the consonants is also not easy). I spend loads of processing time working out which consonants belong with which morpheme or word ... clearly I need more practice. That's the reason to look to visiting Paris on Eurostar ...

'Basque land not for sale'

It looks like ETA-stylebombing is now a French problem. Similarly to what happened briefly in Wales about 20 years ago. Note the underlying issue might be asmuch the issue of urbanisation as nationalsim. By 'urbanisation' I'm referring to the way that true rurality is dying in western Europeas the effects of urban wealth and systems reachesoutinto the countryside evermorefully via transport, telecommunications and the economics of home-ownership. :"the current campaign - attacking the villas of French 'outsiders' and firebombing cars with Paris-region number plates - has sparked fears among politicians of a return to the violent campaign of 20 years ago. Then the French Basque movement, Iparretarrak, carried out hundreds of attacks against villas and property firms under the slogans 'No to tourism' and 'Let the Basque country live'."
Of course the effectsare short term and more immediately mosre likely simply to push would-be buyers towardsareaswherethe nationalist factor is not itn the mix. These areaswill then eventually getto enjoy the prosperity and the fact that they don't haveso manyruinedand abandonedbuildings in their landscape. The other interesting thing is to note and learn from the Cymraeg experience: in Wales, somehow, learning Welsh has become importnat even to Saeson incomers...
'Basque land not for sale' - bombers hit holiday homes | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

Cultural creatives chez France

Just found this handy little résumé of the characteristics of 'cultural creatives' on a French emerging church website.

"Les <>
* Sont pour l’écologie et le développement durable.
* Reconnaissent l’importance du rôle des femmes dans la société.
* Sont dans l’être davantage que dans l’avoir et dans le paraître.
* Sont pour la connaissance de soi et ont une sensibilité pour ce qui touche la spiritualité.
* sont ouverts sur le monde.
* Sont défavorables au développement économique à tout prix et s’impliquent au niveau collectif."*

It's interesting that this list pretty much corresponds to a list I use for teaching about post-modern spirituality which draws a lot on John Drane's writings about New Agery. It reminds me quite a lot of the characters in Les Particules Elementaires.

(*which being interpreted for the non-Francophonic is:
-are for ecology and sustainable development.
-recognise the importance of the role of women in society.
-are into being more than having are image.
-are for self-knowledge and have a spiritual sensibility
-are open to the world
-are against economic development at all costs and see themselves as part of a whole.)
www.temoins.com - La culture chrétienne interconfessionnelle: See also here and here -both in English.