WTF France Seriously?

This is disgusting. Arguments about face veils in different public setting aside (the lady in question was not wearing a face veil), no government should ever force anyone to touch or be touched by anyone else at a citizenship ceremony or risk having their citizenship revoked. This is not defense of a culture. This is paranoia.

Not sure if this thread belongs in Hell or Purgatory, but it really makes me angry, so I started it in Hell.
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Comments

  • HelenEvaHelenEva Shipmate
    I thought this was going to be about the Macron-Trump bromance
  • HelenEva wrote: »
    I thought this was going to be about the Macron-Trump bromance

    Me too. Macron did a rather good job of reeling in a shark, patting his nose and then telling him off when speechifying to the USA legislatures.
  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    edited April 2018
    Oh yeah, that was a really good sucker punch Macron pulled. I wonder whether he gave Trump a heads-up? I would have, but I think that's about my personality rather than strategy. Actually, I wonder whether Trump was as fooled as the media? Who says to a friend that they have dandruff in a public setting?

    I reckon the French attitude to Islam betrays their fear and weakness. I agree stonespring. The French attitude to Isalm and protecting their fragile culture disgusts me. Don't get me wrong. I love visiting France, and I love their culture, but this is despicable.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    Not online enough right now to contribute much, but:

    1. this story is a week old and it's the first I've heard of it, so it hasn't played big in the French media or attracted howls of protest from the Muslim community.

    2. The linked article states that the woman was acquiring nationality through marriage, rather than an application in her own name on her own standing, which makes her standing in the matter slightly less strong.

    3. It further says that she made a deliberate point of her refusal to shake more than one official's hand.

    4. The Council of State took the view that refusal of this formal gesture in this formal setting to make a religious statement demonstrated a failure of integration, and I, not noted for my extreme anti-immigration views, would agree.

    France is struggling to find a way for there to be "Islam of France" rather than "Islam in France", by which it means Islam that is compatible with French secularity and not coordinated and funded from Muslim states abroad, and this decision illustrates where that debate is at right now.

    (My own naturalisation had nowhere near this level of ceremony, the official grudgingly handed over our naturalisation certificates as though they were dog licences, and the only dodgy moment was when one lady encouraged us all not to use our new-found status to vote for Sarkozy....).
  • Sarkozy's in a spot of bother I hear.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    Indeed he is, but that is entirely irrelevant to the thread.
  • ThunderBunkThunderBunk Shipmate
    edited April 2018
    This is not islamophobia; it's a rather punctilious enforcement of the general secularity of all official functions in France. In that interpretation of secularity, it is simply not admissible for a secular ceremony to accommodate religious requirements in any sense. I've been interested in matters French for most of my life, and I find nearly all of them attractive and repellant in equal parts. The attitude to religion, which is more or less equivalent to that of the average person to a venemous snake, is no exception to my rule. There is no attempt to embrace or understand the place of religion in citizens' life; it's simply a matter of beating it back into its place and making sure it doesn't reach public life, beyond a public expression for those who are already (I exaggerate, but only slightly I would suggest) tainted by its touch.
  • Whatever France may do internally regarding Islam, or any other religion for that matter, is one thing, and mostly appears consonant with the country's secular nature, anyway.

    Quite another is the marvellous way in which young Manu seems to be able be able to manipulate the strings when it comes to making POTUS dance....

    Uncle Vlad, Uncle Xi, Uncle Kim - watch your backs! Little Manu is coming for you next.....
    :grin:

    IJ
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Circus Host, 8th Day Host
    Manu is my favourite current French president :wink:

    In his dealings with Trump as in other matters, it's always worth remembering that the subject of his thesis was Machiavelli.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited April 2018
    And I daresay he is well acquainted with the thoughts of Napoleon I, who was only in his mid-30s when he became Emperor...

    IJ
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited April 2018
    There is no attempt to embrace or understand the place of religion in citizens' life; it's simply a matter of beating it back into its place and making sure it doesn't reach public life, beyond a public expression for those who are already (I exaggerate, but only slightly I would suggest) tainted by its touch.
    This has been historically true for many years, but I genuinely believe one possible unintended benefit of Islamic terrorism is that France may make more of a place for religion in the public sphere as a way of combating extremism. There are certainly more elected officials thinking that way than there were.

    It should be noted that in the case in the OP, it was the woman who believed she would be tainted by a touch, not the other way around, and made a point out of it.

  • Back to the OP:

    IMVHO, speaking as a non-French person, treating the woman that way is ridiculous, rude, and a long list of other things.

    Much worse than banning burkinis on various French beaches--and that was bad enough.
  • There was a similar case involving male Muslim pupils refusing to shake a female teacher's hand at a school graduation somewhere in Switzerland. Apparently, education officials agreed “a teacher has the right to demand a handshake” from any of their pupils.
  • Hmmm. Don't know what current practice is, but handshakes were rare in my grade school, junior high, high school, and college. It would've been really odd for a teacher to demand a handshake.

    And women weren't necessarily expected to shake anyone's hand.
  • Is the situation more complicated than this? I wondered. The internet seems to have the same virtually identically worded story reprinted on hundreds of webpages (okay I looked at 10s, but really, what has happened to reporting?)

    Question: is faith-based sexism okay?
    Are there parallels? We have had quite of bit of discussion on the ship how it isn't okay for bakers to refuse to decorate cakes for gay couples because the bakers say their faith says so. Is this parallel at all? Why would it be thought okay for a woman to refuse handshakes and the bakers not to refuse cakes?

    I see there are prior handshaking controversies in Europe. Which have gone both directions.

    I also see controversy as to where exactly this male-female contact prohibition comes from, that it is "tradition" - the word used is "Hadith" which to my rudimentary understanding may mean the adoption of local Arab customs and cultural ideas into Islam versus actually instructed by the Quran and religion's founder Mohammed. I'm not versed in the Quran at all to know if this handshake thing is really religious discrimination or like the cake thing, an invention of rigid people with peculiar interpretations of things. Even if the majority of Muslims local to any particular country share the rigidity.

    [tangent]
    I don't also understand why we don't continue to spell it Koran which is much more intuitive than the Q spelling. I also see objections to even writing or saying "Mohammed" with doing a little prayer of "peace be upon him".
    [/tangent]
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    1. this story is a week old and it's the first I've heard of it, so it hasn't played big in the French media or attracted howls of protest from the Muslim community.

    2. The linked article states that the woman was acquiring nationality through marriage, rather than an application in her own name on her own standing, which makes her standing in the matter slightly less strong.

    3. It further says that she made a deliberate point of her refusal to shake more than one official's hand.

    4. The Council of State took the view that refusal of this formal gesture in this formal setting to make a religious statement demonstrated a failure of integration, and I, not noted for my extreme anti-immigration views, would agree.

    This isn't really about religion for me - no one should be forced to touch someone or be touched by someone as part of a citizenship ceremony, in any country, in any culture. The right to give and/or reserve consent regarding who touches your body and when is fundamental and universal (through deliberate contact - I'm not talking about being brushed against accidentally in a crowd).

    Valid exceptions for reasons of public and national security may exist when law enforcement has a judge-issued warrant to search someone's body, going through security to get on a flight, etc.

    And choosing to become a citizen of another country is voluntary act - there, I said it -

    - and I agree that respecting certain norms and values particular to a country are part of citizenship anywhere.

    But saying that to fully assimilate into a country and fully participate in its political life you have to submit to being touched by a stranger - or by anyone, for that matter - is basically saying that a "true" member of that society has to let someone violate her/his rights over her/his body if the state considers it a matter of etiquette.

    A non-Muslim, even an atheist, of any gender, even a native of a country where hand-shaking is customary, has just as much right to refuse to touch or be touched by anyone else as a condition of citizenship in any country.

    What if an autistic person who is deeply uncomfortable with bodily contact did not want to shake hands as part of a citizenship ceremony? What if someone who has suffered horrific sexual and/or physical abuse and has difficulty with bodily contact with others, especially with strangers, did not want to shake hands as part of the ceremony? If these are understandable exceptions, why not the lady in question?

    A handshake may seem innocent enough, but once you say that refusing to let someone touch you is showing insufficient assimilation at a citizenship ceremony, what really is stopping a different country with a different culture from requiring any other form of bodily contact as evidence of assimilation? This is not about sexual vs. non-sexual touching or customary gestures of goodwill vs. more idiosyncratic forms of bodily contact. It is about the basic human right of bodily autonomy.

    Furthermore, the person threatening consequences for not submitting to unwanted touching is an authority figure, a representative of the power of the state - a power that all too often in history has been used to enslave, subjugate, devalue, and commodify the bodies of countless groups. This makes a person's right to refuse bodily contact in a public ceremonial setting even more important.

    Even if most of the French - or even most French Muslims - do not think this is important or agree with the court, that does not make this less of an issue of human rights. I actually find this worse than the burkini ban, the face veil ban, or the ban on veils in schools. I think a person's right to self-police the boundaries of one's own body is more fundamental than freedom of religion, almost more fundamental than any other right.
  • Golden Key wrote: »
    Hmmm. Don't know what current practice is, but handshakes were rare in my grade school, junior high, high school, and college. It would've been really odd for a teacher to demand a handshake.

    And women weren't necessarily expected to shake anyone's hand.

    Hand gestures were common at my school.
  • MMMMMM Shipmate
    As a non-French person, and Eutychus will correct me, it seems to me that shaking people's hands is common on a lot of occasions in France and perhaps on the continent generally when it wouldn't be in the UK. In the small town in France with which I am most familiar (no names to protect the innocent), when you go to the bakers, you always shake hands with the person behind the counter (but not in the little supermarket).

    It is clearly a socially important matter in the way it is not so much in the UK.

    MMM
  • There is something I don't really understand, perhaps @Eutychus can explain.

    As far as I understand, this specific ceremony was unusual and special because the President himself was attending. So there was more attention and pomp than is normal. Am I wrong in thinking that?

    Most of these ceremonies happen out of the limelight, and therefore someone who objected to something (such as touching by a state official) would not normally be a major conversation issue. Is that correct?

    My question is therefore whether one can normally pass on a "special" ceremony in favour of a normal everyday one. Perhaps one doesn't like the President or doesn't want to be in the national papers shaking his hand.

    If you can, it looks like this woman has been publicly shamed for embarrassing the President in a way that a political opponent which was able to find a way to avoid the pomp might not be.
  • RicardusRicardus Shipmate
    AIUI, the concept of 'French values' is quite different from 'British values' and has been since the Revolution.

    'British values' are (so to speak) a posteriori - a value is British if it is one that most British people hold. 'French values' are much more a priori - French people hold them because they are French values.
    What if an autistic person who is deeply uncomfortable with bodily contact did not want to shake hands as part of a citizenship ceremony? What if someone who has suffered horrific sexual and/or physical abuse and has difficulty with bodily contact with others, especially with strangers, did not want to shake hands as part of the ceremony? If these are understandable exceptions, why not the lady in question?
    I would imagine they would be understandable exceptions because they are not based on a difference of values.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    This isn't really about religion for me - no one should be forced to touch someone or be touched by someone as part of a citizenship ceremony, in any country, in any culture. The right to give and/or reserve consent regarding who touches your body and when is fundamental and universal (through deliberate contact - I'm not talking about being brushed against accidentally in a crowd). ....
    Stonespring, if you don't mind my saying, what you've said there seems, as one coming from a different culture from yours, as much of a cultural construct as the role of the hand shake in French and many other cultures.

    It's quite an interesting question to what extent a culture should relax itself to accommodate others, and to what extent it is legitimate to say that those who seek to join a culture should be expected either to join it on its terms rather than their own or remain an alien.

    We do not shake hands here as much as the French do, but I think most of us would construe refusing to shake a proffered hand as a rejection of the offer of friendship and amity that it represents.

    I suspect here, in our context, which often attaches quite a lot of cultural effort into politeness and papering over the potential cracks, people might try to find a female official she could have shaken hands with. But I don't know, and the French are entitled to do things their way, just as we are entitled to do things ours and you are entitled to do things yours. After all, it was France's ceremony.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    mr cheesy wrote: »
    There is something I don't really understand, perhaps @Eutychus can explain.

    As far as I understand, this specific ceremony was unusual and special because the President himself was attending. So there was more attention and pomp than is normal. Am I wrong in thinking that?
    As far as I know the President was not attending. However, AIUI most naturalisations now have some ceremony attached to them, as did this one; an official welcome. This was not the case back in my day (shame).

    It is an important moment and I think it's absolutely right and proper that some ceremony be attached to it, and wholly reasonable for recipients of nationality (especially solely through marriage not on the basis of their own qualifications) to conform to protocol, and decidedly asking for trouble not only not to conform to protocol but try to make a point in doing so.

  • Ricardus wrote: »
    What if an autistic person who is deeply uncomfortable with bodily contact did not want to shake hands as part of a citizenship ceremony? What if someone who has suffered horrific sexual and/or physical abuse and has difficulty with bodily contact with others, especially with strangers, did not want to shake hands as part of the ceremony? If these are understandable exceptions, why not the lady in question?
    I would imagine they would be understandable exceptions because they are not based on a difference of values.

    That's my impression as well.

    The French attitude to citizenship seems to be that if you want to become a French citizen then you have to actually become French. Where that concerns religion one would have to become French first, [Religion] second, and where it concerns culture one would have to become French first, [Culture] second. By refusing to shake hands for religious or cultural reasons this woman has confirmed that she is [Religion/Culture] first and French second, which means she is not French enough to be a French citizen.

    Personally I think there is much to admire with this take on citizenship. Noting, of course, that citizenship is not necessarily the same thing as right of residency or permission to work.
  • mr cheesymr cheesy Shipmate
    edited April 2018
    Just to say that this BBC report was the one which misled me about the President. I'm still not entirely clear if he was there.

    Edit: it looks like the photos are from a different ceremony.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    Ricardus nails it, so much so that I propose to borrow his explanation relentlessly.
  • Ricardus wrote: »
    What if an autistic person who is deeply uncomfortable with bodily contact did not want to shake hands as part of a citizenship ceremony? What if someone who has suffered horrific sexual and/or physical abuse and has difficulty with bodily contact with others, especially with strangers, did not want to shake hands as part of the ceremony? If these are understandable exceptions, why not the lady in question?
    I would imagine they would be understandable exceptions because they are not based on a difference of values.

    That's my impression as well.

    The French attitude to citizenship seems to be that if you want to become a French citizen then you have to actually become French. Where that concerns religion one would have to become French first, [Religion] second, and where it concerns culture one would have to become French first, [Culture] second. By refusing to shake hands for religious or cultural reasons this woman has confirmed that she is [Religion/Culture] first and French second, which means she is not French enough to be a French citizen.

    Personally I think there is much to admire with this take on citizenship. Noting, of course, that citizenship is not necessarily the same thing as right of residency or permission to work.
    Except that a person could be a French citizen by birth and hold the same values as the woman in question. Whilst it is common practice to hold immigrants to different standards, it is still a bit hypocritical.
  • Um...are immigrants who become French citizens (in all senses discussed here) ever actually socially accepted as French? As much as people who are ethnically French, and/or were born there?

    I ask because groups--any group--often don't really accept outsiders, even if they've jumped through all the requisite hoops to officially join. The existing group may go through the motions, but never really want the outsiders there.

    And (speaking as a non-French person from a difficult country that doesn't always accept people who are different) France does have a stereotypical reputation for looking down on outsiders.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    Depending on how you define "adult", I've lived in France for most of my adult life. The longer I live here, and despite having French nationality, the more I realise I'll never be wholly French, simply because in terms of identity, I'm not.

    (This is apparent every time some icon of the 60s dies and the country goes into national mourning, and I'm like "huh?").
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    .... The French attitude to citizenship seems to be that if you want to become a French citizen then you have to actually become French. Where that concerns religion one would have to become French first, [Religion] second, and where it concerns culture one would have to become French first, [Culture] second. By refusing to shake hands for religious or cultural reasons this woman has confirmed that she is [Religion/Culture] first and French second, which means she is not French enough to be a French citizen.

    Personally I think there is much to admire with this take on citizenship. Noting, of course, that citizenship is not necessarily the same thing as right of residency or permission to work.
    Is there? If your summary is true, that take is incompatible with the Catholic faith, historically the dominant religion in France, and for that matter the Protestant and all other forms of Christianity.

    I certainly don't accept any notion that my country has a higher claim on me than God does. I would be either rather disgusted or very angry with anybody who suggested that any other view is compatible with classic Christian faith.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    Except that a person could be a French citizen by birth and hold the same values as the woman in question. Whilst it is common practice to hold immigrants to different standards, it is still a bit hypocritical.
    No it isn't. Most states take the line that if you are born with their nationality, you are automatically bound by the loyalties that go with that whether you like it or not. Irrespective of your feelings on the matter, their view would be that if you choose to align yourself against them, that is treason.

    So if you choose to adopt a new nationality, it is entirely reasonable for the chosen state to expect you to demonstrate that you really mean it, rather than that you are just going through the process for some convenient reason of your own, with your fingers crossed behind your back.
  • RicardusRicardus Shipmate
    edited April 2018
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    Ricardus wrote: »
    What if an autistic person who is deeply uncomfortable with bodily contact did not want to shake hands as part of a citizenship ceremony? What if someone who has suffered horrific sexual and/or physical abuse and has difficulty with bodily contact with others, especially with strangers, did not want to shake hands as part of the ceremony? If these are understandable exceptions, why not the lady in question?
    I would imagine they would be understandable exceptions because they are not based on a difference of values.

    That's my impression as well.

    The French attitude to citizenship seems to be that if you want to become a French citizen then you have to actually become French. Where that concerns religion one would have to become French first, [Religion] second, and where it concerns culture one would have to become French first, [Culture] second. By refusing to shake hands for religious or cultural reasons this woman has confirmed that she is [Religion/Culture] first and French second, which means she is not French enough to be a French citizen.

    Personally I think there is much to admire with this take on citizenship. Noting, of course, that citizenship is not necessarily the same thing as right of residency or permission to work.
    Except that a person could be a French citizen by birth and hold the same values as the woman in question. Whilst it is common practice to hold immigrants to different standards, it is still a bit hypocritical.

    Yes and no. If a French citizen wanted access to a state service that for some reason required shaking an official's hand, and refused to do so, then AIUI the state service would be refused. (Actually a more likely analogous case would involve not wearing a hijab.) There is no concept of a religious opt-out either for citizens or non-citizens. The difference in this case is that the state service requested is the acquisition of citizenship itself.

    That said: from an outside perspective, it looks like French values are not in fact stuck in a 1789 stasis field, but are in fact capable of a degree of elasticity, but that elasticity is more likely to accommodate white people than brown people.
  • My only concern about this is that we seem to be getting to a point where European countries are not allowed to have and defend their own cultural specificities. We are not required to be some kind of capitalist utopia, in which money and the desire to consume are the only requirement for participation. It concerns me greatly that consumption seems to be becoming the only criterion, the only valid activity, even the only real good.
  • My only concern about this is that we seem to be getting to a point where European countries are not allowed to have and defend their own cultural specificities.

    In what way are they not being 'allowed to have' their 'own cultural specificites' [and what do those even consist of ?] ?
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    How terribly brittle.
  • Marvin the MartianMarvin the Martian Admin Emeritus
    In what way are they not being 'allowed to have' their 'own cultural specificites' [and what do those even consist of ?] ?

    The currently pertinent example is the cultural specificity that says you should shake someone's hand when being made a citizen of France.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    I think a person's right to self-police the boundaries of one's own body is more fundamental than freedom of religion, almost more fundamental than any other right.

    I'd tend to agree that she had the right to decline physical contact.

    And if an official were denying her something she had a right to - e.g. some state benefit that she qualified for - because she declined his touch, then I'd be agreeing with you that that's an abuse of power.

    But rights don't come with an exemption from disapproval for exercising them. I may have a right of free speech, but that doesn't stop you from thinking I'm a twit for saying what you think I shouldn't.

    She chooses not to shake hands, she has to live with the negative impression this makes on other people. Acting within one's rights does not come with any guarantee of esteem.

    The article makes clear that legally she does not have French citizenship by right; it is at the discretion of the state, depending on factors that include level of assimilation into French culture.

    You may or may not think that's a bad law. (If you say it's better for the law to set out a clear framework of rights than to give the executive branch of government discretionary power over people's lives, I might agree).

    But ISTM that the French people have collectively the right to decide whom they give French citizenship to.

    So where's the wrong ?

  • ThatcherightThatcheright Suspended
    edited August 2018
    Lot's of people who think the woman was right to not shake hands, but I don't see anyone sticking up for the person whose handshake was snubbed, which is a pity.

    She said, in effect, I am not going to shake your hand because to do so will make me unclean because you are unclean. She has accused the person offering their hand of being dirty, contaminated in some way, and that shaking their hand will leave her dirty and contaminated.

    How does that person who offered their hand feel? What gives that woman the right to offend someone in public by claiming they are unworthy and that the slightest touch will cause the woman to be contaminated with dirt?

    The woman has, in effect, put herself as higher, more worthy person than the person who offered their hand. Why should that be allowed? What gives her the right to accuse someone of being dirty, and believing that the person holding out their hand is beneath her?

    Is it her right to accuse someone of being a filthy low-life because the person holding out their hand was (a) white and (b) male perhaps, and that it is okay to call someone filthy and contaminated if they are a white man? He has rights and feelings as well, and should not be made to feel unworthy or dirty.
  • RooKRooK Admin Emeritus
    Troll score: 3/10

    Back under your bridge, trollkins, until you have something better.
  • He has rights and feelings as well, and should not be made to feel unworthy or dirty.

    Perhaps you should have thought of that before you spat in his beer.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate
    edited August 2018
    AFAIK, she didn't accuse him of being dirty. I think it's just that, in her religion, tradition, culture, it's forbidden to do what she was asked to do. If they had a reception afterwards, would they serve pork and expect her to eat it?

    I know this is one incident, but it and the upthread explanations about how important handshakes are in France don't exactly help my opinion of France. There are many wonderful things about France, but not this.
  • Lot's of people who think the woman was right to not shake hands, but I don't see anyone sticking up for the person whose handshake was snubbed, which is a pity.

    She said, in effect, I am not going to shake your hand because to do so will make me unclean because you are unclean. She has accused the person offering their hand of being dirty, contaminated in some way, and that shaking their hand will leave her dirty and contaminated.

    How does that person who offered their hand feel? What gives that woman the right to offend someone in public by claiming they are unworthy and that the slightest touch will cause the woman to be contaminated with dirt?

    The woman has, in effect, put herself as higher, more worthy person than the person who offered their hand. Why should that be allowed? What gives her the right to accuse someone of being dirty, and believing that the person holding out their hand is beneath her?

    Is it her right to accuse someone of being a filthy low-life because the person holding out their hand was (a) white and (b) male perhaps, and that it is okay to call someone filthy and contaminated if they are a white man? He has rights and feelings as well, and should not be made to feel unworthy or dirty.
    OK, read the article again. This time without the drink. It has nothing to do with him being dirty. It was purely about him being male, but if anything, it is a custom more negative towards women than it is men. And it would not have mattered if he were brown, black or fucking purple.
  • What lB just said.
  • RooKRooK Admin Emeritus
    @lilbuddha, can you not see how obvious Deanoright is being about trying to push buttons? It was a clumsy troll, even for xem. Don't waste any cycles worrying about the content of the troll, as that's xyr whole parasitic purpose.

    I recommend that everybody ignore pretty much everything Thatherdeano posts, other than to reflect on the nature of purely parasitic trolling.
  • A Feminine ForceA Feminine Force Shipmate
    edited August 2018
    Maybe it would be more sanitary and acceptable to all secular authorities and religions if the hand clasp was replaced with the elbow bump.

    AFF
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Golden Key wrote: »
    AFAIK, she didn't accuse him of being dirty. I think it's just that, in her religion, tradition, culture, it's forbidden to do what she was asked to do. If they had a reception afterwards, would they serve pork and expect her to eat it?

    I know this is one incident, but it and the upthread explanations about how important handshakes are in France don't exactly help my opinion of France. There are many wonderful things about France, but not this.

    So her religion, tradition and culture are to override what appears to be almost a legal requirement? What if it were in fact a legal requirement?
  • Being that this is Hell, and I'm in a very different culture, I think it would be a stupid law.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    But what if, was the question.
  • As I said, it would be a stupid law, and they should get rid of it.
  • Gee D wrote: »
    But what if, was the question.

    Well presumably it would result in exactly what has happened. The French courts would have ruled her citizenship to be void.

    The French courts have decided that shaking hands is so tightly woven into French culture and society, that someone not shaking hands is not able to be part of that society, and so her citizenship is void.

    The French courts have drawn a line in the sand and said "this is who we are. This is our society." They have taken the decision to protect their culture, and the concept might spread to other countries in Europe who also have their own unique cultures.

    I understand why some on the Ship are upset, especially those who oppose the very idea of nation states, because those nation states enable borders, behind which different cultures and societies grow. I wonder if some have the idea that if the cultures can be homogenised, then the borders can disappear. It is a legitimate notion, and one which has been used down the centuries to justify invasions and annexations.

    Anyway, the courts have decided to protect French culture. A precedent that will, I'm sure be examined closely in other countries.
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