EVEN SARKO ACTS FRENCH SOMETIMES:

Britain could never debate the burka like France: President Sarkozy's proposed ban may be pure politicking, but it does expose a fundamental cross-Channel difference (Agnès Poirier, 6/24/09, Times of London)

"The burka is not a religious problem, it's a question of liberty and women's dignity. It's not a religious symbol, but a sign of subservience and debasement. I want to say solemnly, the burka is not welcome in France. In our country, we can't accept women prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity. That is not our idea of freedom.”

So spoke Nicolas Sarkozy in Versailles during his first state of the nation address to France's two chambers, the National Assembly and the Senate. He won rapturous applause and there is little doubt that an overwhelming majority of the French agreed with his every word. I say an overwhelming majority because this issue crosses all party lines in France. Republican principles of equality and secularism are so deeply grounded in the French mind that they belong as much to the Left as to the Right.

For someone like me, firmly on the Left, the defence of secularism is the only way to guarantee cultural diversity and national cohesion. One cannot go without the other. However, when I get on Eurostar to London, I feel totally alien. To my horror, my liberal-left British friends find such a position closer to that of the hard Right.

The fundamental value of the Anglosphere is liberty, of the Continent equality. The two are incompatible.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 24, 2009 5:35 PM