Charles Johnson was stunned.

You think you’ve seen French appeasement at its worst. Then they go and do something like this.

Last year’s French riots were triggered by the deaths of two “youths,” who fled a police ID check, broke into an electrical substation to hide, and were electrocuted when they touched something they shouldn’t have.

Last Friday officials and residents of Clichy-sous-Bois, scene of some of the worst rioting, dedicated a monument to these two disenchanted fleeing criminals.

What would Godfrey of Bouillon have done?

From Marty Peretz in New Republic:

France has neither winter nor summer nor morals. Apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country. France has usually been governed by prostitutes.” –Mark Twain

“I would rather have a German division in front of me than a French one behind me.” –General George S. Patton

“Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion.” –Norman Schwartzkopf

“We can stand here like the French, or we can do something about it.” –Marge Simpson

“As far as I’m concerned, war always means failure.” –Jacques Chirac, President of France

“As far as France is concerned, you’re right.” –Rush Limbaugh

“The only time France wants us to go to war is when the German Army is sitting in Paris sipping coffee.” –Regis Philbin

“You know, the French remind me a little bit of an aging actress of the 1940s who was still trying to dine out on her looks but doesn’t have the face for it.” –John McCain, U.S. Senator (AZ)

“I don’t know why people are surprised that France won’t help us get Saddam out of Iraq. After all, France wouldn’t help us get Hitler out of France either.” –Jay Leno

“The last time the French asked for “more proof” it came marching into Paris under a German flag.” –David Letterman

“War without France would be like … uh … World War II.”

“What do you expect from a culture and a nation that exerted more of its national will fighting against Disney World and Big Macs than the Nazis?” –Dennis Miller

“It is important to remember that the French have always been there when they needed us.” –Alan Kent

“They’ve taken their own precautions against al-Quaida. To prepare for an attack, each Frenchman is urged to keep duct tape, a white flag, and a three-day supply of mistresses in the house.” –Argus Hamilton

“Somebody was telling me about the French Army rifle that was being advertised on eBay the other day–the description ‘Never shot. Dropped once.'” –Rep. Roy Blunt (MO)

“The French will only agree to go to war when we’ve proven we’ve found truffles in Iraq.” –Dennis Miller

“Raise your right hand if you like the French. Raise both hands if you are French.”

“Question: Do you know how many Frenchmen it takes to defend Paris?
Answer: It’s not known, it’s never been tried.” –Rep. Roy Blunt (MO)

“Do you know it only took Germany three days to conquer France in WWII? And that’s because it was raining.” –John Xereas, Manager, DC Improv.

“The AP and UPI reported that the French Government announced after the London bombings that it has raised its terror alert from ‘Run’ to ‘Hide.’ The only two higher levels in France are ‘Surrender’ and ‘Collaborate.’ The rise in the alert level was precipitated by a recent fire which destroyed France’s white flag factory, effectively disabling their military.”

“French Ban Fireworks at Euro Disney. … The French government announced today that it is imposing a ban on the use of fireworks at EuroDisney. The decision comes that day after a nightly fireworks display at the park, located just 30 miles outside of Paris, caused the soldiers at a nearby French Army garrison to surrender to a group of Czech tourists.” –AP Paris

They must have imported these dogs from Germany.

video

Hat tip to Ratty.

La Belle France’s answer to Dagny Taggart, glamorous libertarian Sabine Herold, is running for a seat in the French Assembly, and the libertarian and the right side of the Blogosphere is justifiably echoing with expressions of admiration for both the lady’s political soundness and the lady’s charms.

If the French fail to support her, they deserve to wind up like those folks having a problem in the train tunnel.

Glenn Reynolds

Captain Ed

Publius Pundit

The Telegraph

Occidentality remains pessimistic on the fate of France.

Our own earlier posting.

Eugène Delacroix, La Liberté guidant le peuple (Liberty leading the People), 1830
oil on canvas, 260 Ãu2014 325 cm, Musée du Louvre

Reuters reports:

French President Jacques Chirac scrapped a youth job law on Monday after weeks of angry unrest, in a climbdown that undermined his prime minister and handed protesters victory.

Gateway Pundit is providing major coverage.

Convicted terrorist Ilych Ramirez Sanchez, known world-wide as “Carlos the Jackal,” though serving a life sentence, was permitted by the enlightened government of France to give an interview in 2004 broadcast by French M6 television.

In that interview, Sanchez argued that his crimes were justified and that there were no innocent victims of terrorism. He also expressed satisfaction over the September 11 attacks in the United States and allegedly laughed that “the Great Satan got it up the arse.”

French prosecutors sought a fine of E20,000 ($34,022) for these remarks. But, at the end of the judicial proceedings, French courts only fined him E5000 ($8505), finding that his arguing that terrorism was justified did constitute a crime under French law, but his expressions of pleasure at the Al Qaeda attacks on the United States represented only a personal reaction, and were not justiciable.

Guardian – Telegraph (Australia) – Reuters

Recently visiting Toulon, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin signed the guest book of the city’s town hall: “To Toulon, Upright Before the Sea and Facing the Future. Very Amicably, Dominique de Villepin.”

John Rosenthal wonders if the French are not embarassed to have a prime minister who writes (and thinks) like teenage girl.

Pat Buchanan (even a stopped clock is right twice a day) argues that the British strikes and French student riots represent a futile effort to preserve a Welfare State, doomed by world economic competition, which European demographics in any case could not sustain.

Like the U.S. campus riots of the 1960s, the French protests appear to some of us as the Revolt of the Over-Privileged. For what these pampered young people are demanding seems to be some kind of student deferment from the Global Economy.

The striking public employees in Britain and the young in Paris are protesting something unavoidable, like middle age. For what they see slipping away is something they are never going to see again.

What is happening in Britain and France is happening across Europe: the unwinding of the social welfare state. “Are the good times really over for good?” wailed Merle Haggard, decades ago. In Europe, the answer to Merle’s question is, “Yes, they are.”

In Belarus, people of all ages were beaten and arrested by police for demonstrating against tyranny. In France, rioters burned automobiles, looted shops, and mugged fellow demonstrators in the midst of demonstrations demanding secure jobs at somebody else’s expense.

Some people struggle for freedom; others passionately desire its opposite.

Eugéne Delacroix (1798-1863), Attila suivi de ses hordes, foule aux pieds l’Italie et les arts (Attila followed by his Horde, Trampling under Foot Italy and the Arts), Bibliothèque, Palais Bourbon, Paris, 1843-47

The Sorbonne was occupied for twelve hours by rioters, before being retaken by French police.

“A sad assessment succeeded the forcible intervention of the police: at least six rooms sacked, five offices of the National School of Chartres looted, two lecture-halls and all the cafeterias destroyed, three other devastated rooms, and forty rare books mutilated or burned. Those who held out for reasonable dialogue were overtaken by events, observed someone from the Rector’s office. Everything degenerated because of a horde of savages.

RARE BOOKS STOLEN OR BURNED

Rare religious books of great value were burned or stolen at the time of the occupation of the Sorbonne on the night of March 10 to March 11. Not only were hundreds of tables and chairs destroyed in the Sorbonne. Some 300 people, some students, some not, who occupied the place also violated works of a great historical value. A preliminary list of books burned on the spot or stolen has been just transmitted to the vice-chancellor of Paris by the Director of Studies of the School of Chartres, Jerome Belmon.

An American commie web-site has a manifesto from the barbarians.

interior of 1936-1939 Panhard & Levassor Dynamic

Steve Bodio takes up the discussion of the wondrous eccentricity of French design begun by Donald (at 2Blowhards) focussing on the 1930s Panhard Dynamic, a French automobile featuring a central driver’s position and curved (“Panoramique”) windows, and turns to the subject of the Darne double-barreled shotgun with its remarkable sliding breech.

Mohammed Overcome by the Fundamentalists
(Balloon:) “It’s a Drag Being Loved By Idiots”

Left-Wing French humor magazine Charlie Hebdo sided with Liberté in its latest issue, publishing the Danish cartoons and an addition (above) of its own.