One of the more colorful attacks made against the current US administration is that it is suppressing free speech and "orchestrating the right wing media." The first charge is especially troubling if true, if one accepts the concept that a free press is one of the cornerstones of a free democratic society.

How does France stack up?

Not very well, if the following is any indication:


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml...19/ixworld.html

Brigitte Bardot's travails are another example. Elsewhere in Europe, a historically accurate re-enactment of a WW2 battle involving the Waffen SS is illegal in Germany, because any of the Nazi symbols are verboten. In Sweden its unconstitutional to criticize homosexuality.

So, how is Europe stacking up? Does the draft EU Constitution preserve freedom of the press?

Yes, certainly a free press is a key element in a "liberal" regime of any kind, democracy or not. Those examples of European suppression of free speech are disturbing.

A free press is a bulwark against corruption, be it corporate or government.

Those items are quite disturbing, but not surprising. Europe is shaping up to be more of a benevolent autocracy, if you ask me. Do what we say : we know what's good for you.

There is no tradition of unlimited free speech in Europe, not for private individuals and not for the press. Although the principle can be traced to the Scottish Enlightenment, it was never really implemented anywhere in Europe, certainly not set in stone constitutionally as in the USA.

By and large, it works pretty well most of the time, and most Europeans don't feel any less free than Americans, although on paper we are in every state.

There is corruption in mainland Europe, to be sure, and often the press is complicit (witness Berlusconi's virtual monopoly in the Italian media).

However, you can see form the linked Corruption Perceptions Survey survey here (you may need to scroll down to get past the continental tables), that the USA rather more corrupt than five of the twelve current EU mamber states (Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK and Austria) and is only just ahead of Ireland and Germany. This survey is carried out by the USAID project, so it isn't just some back-patting EU exercise.

So seven of the twelve EU members states are as corrupt, or even less corrupt, than the USA - what makes you think that they are going to roll over and play dea while the French drag them down to their level. The constitutional draft is just that - a draft. It's at least five years' away from full implementation.

Now, the proposed enlargement will drop the average EU score, because lots of the Eastern European states queuing up to join are low scorers,

So if a completely free press and unrestricted free speech are the bulwarks against government and corporate corruption, how come the US (which has a constitutional guarantee of fee speech) lags behind so many European countries which do not? It can't be just luck, surely?

Julian,

You must admit that the poll you referenced makes it very hard to draw conclusions from...it states the methodology, but not the ranking mechanism. I am thinking it's some kind of 1-10 ranking (1 being the worst, 10 being the best) and it is only the "perception" those polled, nothing more concrete than that.



Freedom of press is obviously only one factor in the equation. It seems funny to me that although France would block a book describing them as "institutionally corrupt" that they still ranked fairly high on the charts. If it were transparent that the accusations were false, why the fear of the book being published?

I wasn't primarily trying to justify the French government's actions, nor was I attempting to do any playground "my government's less corrupt than yours", or pious "let he who is without institutional corruption cast the first lawsuit". (Although I admit to squeezing the last two in for fun )

Instead I was just pointing out that in Bikerdad's original, where he says
(My italics)
the conditional clause IS conditional and is not the unchallenged universality that most posters on the thread seem to have assumed.

By posting the poll - which you rightly point out is only one of perception and relativity - I just tried to indicate that, while the French government is undeniably corrupt, other EU states are perceived to be LESS corrupt, by the American polls that contribute to the CPI figures, than America herself. And that many of those states do not have free speech or a free press the way Americans understand it. Or rather, the way I understand that Americans understand it - i.e. that it is only really free if it is completely unrestrained by any government legislation or pressure.

Objectively, the French people are no less free than you are. Although the writers of this particular book have been told they can't print or sell it in France, doubtless they will find a way to get it on the internet; sell copies in other countries, perhaps through the likes of Amazon; and so on. The ideas they promulgate will not be suppressed, and the readers will be free to access their information should they wish to.

The same thing happened in the UK when the book "Spycatcher" was banned from UK publication by the Thatcher government, ostensibly because it put serving agents at risk and jeopardised national security, but actually because it was critical of some aspects of government policy that they were touchy about. Everyone that really wanted a copy just ordered it from abroad.

Contrast that with China, say, where international trade and internet access are such that the readers are constrained - you'd be punished for accessing a site that was critical of the government there, rather than just for writing something that is.

Guess I'll wade back in here for a bit. I do subscribe to the idea that a free press is one of the bulwarks of a free society. It is not, however, the only one.

Julian raises some points about the polls that are unsupported by the information given. It is unclear whether the individuals being polled were Americans, or denizens of the countries in question. It is also unclear whether folks were being polled about their countries, or other countries. Finally, the "seven independent institutions" are not positively identified. As a result, we cannot positively conclude, as Julian has, that the polls are "American", only that the aggregation of data was done by Americans. A modest point, and perhaps irrelavent, but nonetheless worth making.

Second, Julian makes the argument that "Objectively, the French people are no less free than you are." Well, "objectively", they are, at least where freedom of the press is concerned. While the barriers to free discourse in France may not be as burdensome as they are in China, they are objectively greater than in the US. Can the barriers be overcome? Yes. Does this mean they aren't there? No. If one person decides that reading Bardot's book isn't worth the hassle of ordering it from the 'Net rather than getting it at his usual bookseller in Paris, then the censorship has had an effect. Furthermore, the writer now has a higher bar in order to get their work out. Posting on the Internet is all fine and dandy, unless of course one pays the rent with the proceeds from writing, proceeds that have been blocked. Finding a foreign publisher is more difficult than finding a domestic one, etc. The short term effect may be of the censorship may be a flurry of interest in the censored work, but the overall effect is one of reduced freedom as the next individual asks themself: "Am I willing to risk the potential hassle of offending the power's that be?"

Lastly, just as freedom of the press is only one bulwark in maintaining a free society, it is also only one measure of the freedom in a society. The overall "freedom" score for the various countries may very well be different than the Corruption indexes indicate, or a Freepress index would indicate.

Grace and peace, BD

BD, forgive me for not making myself clear.

My point is not so much that France is a haven of freedom, peace and tranquility, but that :
a. France is not very much worse than the USA
b. other places in Europe that are negotiating the structure of the impending EU constitution are less corrupt than France is, even if only based on a subjective poll or uncear provenance, so it is not really fair to use France as the model for what the EU will become, since France is not the sole determinant.

That's all.

Julien



excuse me??? Denmark has had free speech for a very long time. Our constitution grants every one, (even scum like the neo nazi's) a voice.

'E's right mate! The Scandinavian countries have the most powerful free speech ethic in Europe. All of them ranked as 1,1s on the "Freedom Index". The same cannot be said for France or Germany, which are ranked 1,2. (Political liberty, civil liberty). Hopefully the Danes, Brits, East Europeans, Iberians, Italians, et al will respond to the EU draft Constitution with something that is more about individual freedoms and a decentralized gov't rather than creating a centralised superstate gov't.

A somewhat useful tool for investigating the issue of press freedom is Reporters sans Frontieres, aka Reporters Without Borders. However, it should be noted that they appear to only concern themselves with professional journalists, and that some of their "incidents" appear pretty flimsy. From reading some of their reports, especially those dealing with the West, I'm uncertain that they're bothering to distinguish between hassling people because they're journalists, and simply hassling people. Writers and non-journalists who have their freedoms of expression limited aren't really on their radar.

Grace and peace. BD

BTW, Moif, you may want to recalibrate your understanding of where rights come from. The US Constitution doesn't grant Americans any rights, it recognizes that we have them. This is an important, nay, fundamental distinction. As long as the socio-political paradigm is that government grants rights, then there's little ethical or moral basis for objecting when government changes course. Consider it like the difference between an allowance and money you earned yourself. Your parents can always take your allowance away cause they gave it to you in the first place, but its wrong for them to take money you've earned away. Now, I don't know whether the Danish constitution recognizes inherent rights, or doles them out at the pleasure of the government, perhaps you can illuminate the issue.

Sorry Moif. There is a tradition of unlimited free speech in Denmark.

But not in France (the country we're talking about) or the UK or Germany - the three largest European nations by population and economy.

So, I'll rephrase - there is little tradition of unlimited free speech in Europe compared to the USA.

And besides, the EU constitution is supposed to be a document that recognises the rights of individual governments and defines the areas of legislation where the EU has the upper hand and those where the national governments have priority.

As far as I know - I've not seen the most recent draft - it will not cover the rights of individuals are currently enshrined at national level (to the extent they are enshrined at all), with the notable exception of the European Declaration of Human rights. While this does not guarantee unlimited free speech, it does guarantee the right to freedom from execution - one that American citizens found guilty of certain crimes do not have.

But underneath all this is my frustration with the unspoken assumption by some of the posters here that unless rights are defined in exactly the same way that they are defined in the American constitution, they are somehow sub-standard. You are assuming an absolute and universal set of rights where none exist, despite the Founders holding them to be self-evident and God-given.

European constitutions are pretty diverse and have suited Europeans pretty well, just as the American constitution has suited Americans. They both have flaws and unintended consequences. "Liberal democracy" is not defined as "exactly the same as America" in any dictionary I've ever seen. I don't doubt that the proposed EU constitution, whenever it appears, will either suit people well and be followed, or not suit them and be resisted until it is adapted to suit them.

I don't think you can say there is no free press in france and germany, it's not true, you can't say that just based on the prohibition of hate speech (that i consider a good thing). We don't have the same perception about what the press has the right to say or not (for exemple, your right to have a private life is consider more important), and that insulting people doesn't have anything to do with free press.
Have you ever heard about the book "Blacklist" written by american journalits, who explain how there were censored (and most of the time fired) because they were going to publish articles that were distatefull to some powerfull people?

As Julian says,
"Objectively, the French people are no less free than you are. Although the writers of this particular book have been told they can't print or sell it in France, doubtless they will find a way to get it on the internet; sell copies in other countries, perhaps through the likes of Amazon; and so on. The ideas they promulgate will not be suppressed, and the readers will be free to access their information should they wish to."

My recent readings about the age of enlightenment and the modern philosophers that so influenced our founding fathers addressed the same issue. Seems that most of the French philosophers had to go to England to get their ideas published.
Ideas will get out, there are no governmental fabrics fine enough to hold them back.

And human nature has always been such that as soon as the government or some other entity of power starts to suppress something, the public becomes more aware of the issue, and next thing you know we all want it.

I wonder what would happen if our politicians were to try to suppress public debate forums.

There is another thing that you don't consider, it's what happen in germany when such ideologies like the nazi one were allowed to be expressed, when the nazi party was legal and could spread their hatefull ideology in the society, and were elected during a free election. Do you think that we could allow this to happen again? Or that we should, by the means of law, show that this sort of thinking is not acceptable in a society such as ours?
About the book that you talked about, maybe it's the one of Oriana Fallaci, where she wrote that the muslims reproduce like rats?

Well, I still don't get why there would be a different perception in what the press has a right to say or not. If what the press says is not slanderous or libelous, what's the problem?

hmmm, I suspect that Voltaire would disagree....

Well, Michael Savage was recently fired because what he said was distasteful to some powerful people, i.e., the one's who paid him. What we're talking about here though is government censorship, not the private market manipulations of the powerful. Getting fired from your job for offending he powerful sucks, but its a risk everybody takes, not just journalists. When the powerful send the Polizei after you, that's when freedom is gone.

Of course you can, hopefully you won't.

No, because society's limits should be set on actions, not thoughts.

Its a book by Bardot, not Fallaci, although I've heard a little bit about her.

Fallaci remarks that the children of Allah "multiply like rats" and "spend their time with their bottoms in the air, praying five times a day." The simple question is: are these statements true?

If they are (and the prayer comment certainly is), then what's the problem? If people are going to go to jail for telling the truth, is the country that puts them there a free country?

I understand the European concerns about fascism, I just think they're taking the wrong approach to dealing with the subject.

Vive Armstrong!

What Brigite bardot wrote in this book was insulting and she deserves what she got (I would give you some extract if I can find some in english, thought I don't think there are some available). She basicaly says that the "sans papiers" (the commonly used description for illegal immigrants in France) were porks that poo-poo in church, that she believes in the purity of the race, that homosexuals, transexuals, were the crap of humanity that loot the french Health Care System, and so on ...



I just can't understand how it is possible to wonder about such a question, of course not, and it's insuting for the muslims (She was not saying that they make a lot of baby, but that they multiply like rats!!!!). How would you react if I make a statement like "The americans ###### everywhere like the rats they are" ? Not very well I think.

PS : excuse my language, but it is actually the language that this 2 persons use.

Sorry - we don't excuse such language. We have young school children in here everyday. Keep it clean. There is rarely a reason to be so crass.

I was just quoting the books, these are not my words, I just wanted to explain to people why they have been forbidden, and considering your answer ,I'm sure that some here will reconsider their position about the books.
This two books are just torrents of hate and of insulst and there is no need to defend them.

Never heard of the one writer, but have heard some about Bardot. What gives either of them credibility on the issues they write about? And surely the French people are asking the same question. Were the books well received by the public? If the writers are being racist, bigoted, or whatever, and the books are selling by the hundreds of thousands, that would be a concern.
I hope to hear more from you, boulou38. If you want to know what is going on in France, it helps to ask someone who lives there. Your nearby neighbors may have good info and be spot on most of the time, but it helps to get information straight from the horses mouth, or in some cases, the other end of the horse?
Perhaps if we learn more about successful liberal democracies elsewhere, some of our far right types here won't be so afraid of it. Surely there are some good ideas to be shared.

I don't understand the need to ban a book regardless of whether or not the content is hateful. If it is really so bad, the majority of the people will either not purchase the book or they will purchase it out of curiosity. If the fear is that they will suddenly believe in what the content is saying (which I don't think is likely unless there is an undercurrent of that belief already existing within the society) then the problem of hate needs to be dealt with on a deeper level. Freedom of speech should be a fundamental part of any liberal society.

I think this is mostly a problem of culture. In some culture, some things are less accepted than in others.
An other exemple can be movies, we are more tolerating to violence and nudity here, a film ranked under 18 in the US will be under 12 (only X ranked movies are ranked under 18 in France).
In France, you can see naked women (and men too) everywhere in advertizements, in magazines, in movies, and, well, it doesn't shock anyone, and so for french people it is really strange to hear these stories about magazines censored etc ... It seems to us that you are less free than you say, even if I know that it's not true, but it's really easy to generalize from the exemples that arrive from abroad : they are only really partial, talking only of the few books that are forbidden althought thousands of books are releasead each year is .
And for the book of Bardot, he was first released and then people sued her and won, under the law that forbids instigation to racial hatred.

Bonjour Boulou.

I confirm what he said. My wife (she's American) was shocked during the first few months of her life in France, but she's now used to our way of living and our differences.

Like Boulou said, it is very much related to culture. France is indeed a liberal democracy.

When I used to perform stand up comedy, I had some observations about the difference in free speech between the US and other countries. I used to say "Some countries allow nudity on TV, but no TV evanglists or political ads of any kind, we allow TV evangilists and political ads forever, but no nudity, and then we wonder why we are the more violent country- because let's face it, naked breasts make me alot less angry than Jerry Falwel and Ronnie Raygun" LOL

So, poeple say America has free press? Then why no nudity allowed? It is censored and banned except for "naughty" books that are taken to court with some regularity. Even Russia has total frontal nudity on the covers of thier mags at the newspaper Kiosks!

The banning of nude human beings is a banning of content over something that society finds distasteful, just like the Germans find the Nazi part of thier history so distasteful. I would even go so far to say I find the European press far more free than America, simply because it has a common sense approach to hate speech and very little censorship elsewhere, such as the American press with it's "decency" standards, on CDs, Mags etc.