The 60th Anniversary Celebrations of Le Monde

As I recently wrote, Le Monde has been celebrating its 60th anniversary. In that context, it has printed 60 articles, one per day (and one for each year) for the past two months. Each of those 60th anniversary pages also included a photo from the respective year, as well as a vintage editorial taken verbatim from one particular day during the 12-month period.

Recently I wrote about the very first of these commemorative articles, which focused on the newspaper itself (i.e, on its birth). Here is a list of the rest, with comments on a dozen and a half of them…

The 60th Anniversary Celebration of Le Monde

• The daily's Iraq coverage
• The daily's film reviews
• The daily's VIP portraits
• The daily's Le Monde 2 magazine
• The daily's Letters to the Editor section
• The daily's 60 years in 60 articles series
• The daily's birth and origins

Before we start, allow me to point out that the main headline of its very first issue (dated December 19, 1944), reads France and the USSR Have Signed a Treaty of Alliance and Mutual Assistance… It is true that offhand, this means nothing more than simply reflecting the news of that particular day. Still, some might find it fitting… Read through the comments and decide for yourself.

(The three hyperlink-filled paragraphs that follow and that precede the comments are comprehensive lists of the articles, vintage editorials, and photo (caption)s chosen for the 60th anniversary; although they are here mainly for archival sake they are sometimes quite instructive in what was chosen — and what was not — if you are in a hurry, though, scroll down past them…)

The main (in-depth) articles have taken on the following subjects: the first issue of Le Monde, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, the Nuremberg trials, the partition of India and Pakistan, the birth of Israel, the death of boxer Marcel Cerdan, the Korean War, the Schuman plan, the coronation of Elizabeth II, the death of "Marshall Stalin", the fiasco at Dien Bien Phu, oddities of the climate, the Malpassat dam disaster, Hungary's revolution put down by Soviet tanks, the Treaty of Rome, the birth of the Fifth Republic, the new franc, the Bay of Pigs, the assassination of JFK, the fall of Krushchev, the Vietnam quagmire, France's departure from NATO, the Six-Day War, May 1968, the rise of Georges Pompidou to the presidency, the death of Charles de Gaulle, Mitterrand grabbing the reins of the Socialist Party, Nixon's trip to China, the coup d'état of Chile, the decriminalization of abortion, Juan Carlos and the advent of democratic Spain, the resignation of Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, the birth of the anti-nuclear movement, the assassination of Aldo Moro, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the failure to free the US Embassy's hostages in Tehran, the election of François Mitterrand, Mexico's banking crisis, the Soviet downing of a Korean Boeing, the Bhopal tragedy, the Rainbow Warrior affair, the onset of la cohabitation, the French right's privatizations, the reelection of Mitterrand, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the first Gulf War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, France's yes in the Maastricht referendum, the suicide of former Prime Minister Bérégovoy, the Rwanda genocide, ethnic purification in Kosovo, the expulsion of the band of illegal immigrants occupying a Paris church, the cloning of Dolly, the condemnation of Maurice Papon for his WWII crimes against humanity, the antiglobalization movement's undermining of the WTO summit in Seattle, the damning videotape that accused Chirac and his ruling RPR party of fraud, the 911 attacks, Le Pen's victory in the French elections' first round, the dead in France's heat wave, and the Madrid attacks.

These in-depth articles are accompanied by reprints of vintage editorials from the respective year, with no context provided, which is important, as we will see further down. They concerned the ancestors of Le Monde, the Yalta conference, the birth of the Fourth Republic, the new communist international, the progress of communist forces in China, the Soviet acquisition of the atomic bomb, Einstein's warning about the H-bomb, the assassination of Jordan's King Abdallah, gold and public loans, the execution of the Rosenbergs, the death of Matisse, natural disasters, the optimism of Krushchev, trouble in Little Rock, the return to power of General De Gaulle, Fidel Castro's "adventure without precedent", the price of independence of the African states, the Berlin Wall, the Cuban missile crisis, the march of blacks for equality, the victory of Cassius Clay, De Gaulle's election win, China's cultural revolution, the military coup d'état in Greece, the Prague Spring, the race to send a man to the moon, Salvador Allende chosen president of Chile, the end of the dollar-gold conversion, the massacre at the Munich Olympics, the oil crisis, the election of Giscard d'Estaing, the 30-year war of Vietnam, the death of Mao, the fate of Germany's Baader terrorist group, the advent of John Paul II, the peace agreement between Sadat and Begin, the Polish crisis, the imposition of martial law in Poland, the Sabra and Chatilla tragedy, the Klaus Barbie trial, the birth of Canal +, the Heysel soccer stadium tragedy, ruminations on who might be the beneficiaries of terrorism against France, the anger of the Palestinian youth, the attack on the Ouvéa stronghold of New Caledonia's separatists and hostage-takers, Beijing's repression of the students on Tien An Mien square, the problem of violence in the cités, Bill Clinton's election, the case against Andreotti, the Zapatistas in Chiapas, the massive demonstrations against Alain Juppé's economic plans, science and politics, the 35-hour work-week, the assassination of Corsica's prefect, the lessons of the Kosovo conflict, the loss of the Kursk submarine, French TV's first reality show, Lula's election in Brazil, the Iraq war, and the enlargement of the European Union.

Each year's in-depth article and verbatim editorial are also accompanied by a photo; the latter show scenes from the Battle of the Bulge, the liberation of Buchenwald, Jewish violence in Palestine, the creation of the Avignon theater festival, the French miners' strike, Mao's proclaiming the Popular Republic of China, Maurice Herzog's ascension of Mount Annapurna (why this Frenchman's feat is more important than Edmund Hillary's conquering Mount Everest, I cannot say), the wedding of Yves Montand and Simone Signoret, Nassar's coup in Egypt, the discovery of DNA, the plan for a European Defense Community, Citroën's ultra-modern DS car model, the Suez Canal crisis, the Nobel Prize to Albert Camus, the election of Pope John XXIII, the exile of the Dalai Lama, France's atomic bomb, the Paris demonstration against a curfew for Algerians, the burial of Edith Piaf, Jean Moulin's entombment in the Pantheon, the miniskirt, floods in Florence, the dead body of Che Guevara, the new society of Chaban-Delmas, Sihanouk's ouster from Cambodia, the independence of Bangladesh, the Biafra tragedy, the first women to graduate from the Polytechnique engineering college, the Lip factory takeover, Nixon and Watergate, the violence in Corsica, Soweto's anti-apartheid march, the case leading to the end of France's death penalty, Vietnam's boat people, Iran's Islamic revolution, the murder of John Lennon, the coup attempt in the Madrid Cortes, the birth of France's first test-tube baby (why this is more important than the world's first test-tube baby [four years earlier] I am not sure), the discovery of the AIDS virus, the mass demonstrations against the Mitterrand government's plans to abolish France's private school system, Coluche's Restos du Cœur, the Chernobyl disaster, the landing of a Cesna plane on Red Square, mob violence in Algiers, the sabotage of a French DC-10 over Africa, the desecration of Jewish tombs in Carpentras, the contaminated blood scandal, the 10th Frenchman to win a Nobel Prize in physics, the inferno at the David Koresh sect's ranch in Waco, the chunnel, the shooting of French terrorist Khaled Kelkal, the Talibans' seizure of Kabul, the meeting of Europe's new socialist prime ministers (Tony Blair and Lionel Jospin), the French soccer team's victory in the World Cup, the storm of the century, the crash of a Concorde taking off from Roissy airport, violence at the Genoa summit, the first Paris Plage, the Sars epidemic scare, and the Abu Ghraib scandal.

Needless to say, a strong anti-American flavor is present throughout the series. Going backwards in time:

Starting with Facts and Stealthily
Evolving Towards Partisan Viewpoints

In the article on Le Pen's win in the first round of France's 2002 presidential election, Hervé Gattegno shows the French aptitude to put things into perspective as he compares the "shock" of April 21 to that, in America, of… September 11 (something Plantu's cartoon did as early as the following day).

The article on 911 itself starts out in a surprisingly benign manner, with about half of the story devoted to UA flight 93, the fourth hijacked plane whose passengers decided to "roll" when they knew what fate lay in store for them. It's not unusual for a benign beginning to turn out to be a sort of "trick" to stealthily "evolve" towards more partial (read condescending) viewpoints, and Patrick Jarreau's piece is no exception: the United States discovers "its vulnerability", "the mightiest country on Earth has been shown to be at the mercy of a 'private' organization", and, of course, "the Americans have become conscious of their unpopularity" and "the United States have paid the price of their egotism and the support they bring to the oppression of Palestinians by Israel." (In the context that the latter sentence is written, it is true that it is only presented as one viewpoint — the opposing viewpoint to the Bush administration's that "the United States was attacked because it defends liberty and justice" — but reading through the article, one can hardly escape the conclusion that the former viewpoint is the only correct one.) More follows on "the disproportion of the Washington leaders' means and will to limit losses among their soldiers [in Afghanistan] brought about 'collateral' damage that provoked [mass] indignation. This reached its apex by the transfer of the prisoners captured in Afghanistan to the Guantanamo Bay base … outside of all legal processes." (Opponents of (the) war continue showing their ignorance of military strategy when they suggest it should be treated like a football game, with fairness all around.) Jarreau continues with "the measures taken by the Bush administration have given the image, to part of the American people and abroad, of a government implementing a régime of exception." In case you hadn't realized that all the pain and sorrow on Earth are America's fault, Jarreau ends as follows: "The invasion of Iraq … made the division of the world complete between a minority which approves the American president's policy and a majority which condemns it."

Grands Donneurs de Leçons

So there we have it: the French, in their legendary fame for lucidity, are experts at mass indignation, at the use of the legal process (and the respect that such deserves), and at condemning the people (or administrations or countries) who deserve such condemnations. In that perspective, the article on the videotape that accused Chirac of fraud teaches us that a television producer had tried to get several TV stations interested in the tape damning Jacques Chirac and his ruling party (France 2, France 3, Canal +, and M6 — you know, the TV stations that regularly embark on crusades against Uncle Sam (or Bush) when scandals such as the Abu Ghraib affair break out), but all declined to do so. What's more, Hervé Gattegno tells us, the law would "concentrate much more on the conditions of the taping [of the late Jean-Claude Méry's posthumous confessions] and the use of his testimony than on its compromising contents." When Judge Eric Halphen tries to summon Chirac before the court, the case is taken from him and before long, all the accusations against the president are dropped. The article ends with this sentence: "To this day, the Méry videotape has produced but one judicial consequence: the former lawyer of Mr Méry was sentenced, on January 15, 2003, to a four-month suspended sentence along with a fine for 'violation of professional secrets'."

Meanwhile, the verbatim editorial from June 1999 explains how, regarding the Kosovo conflict, Chirac declared proudly that "we did not follow the Americans" and how Rambouillet and Kléber demonstrate "successes of French diplomacy." "Our vision of a multipolar world has been strengthened" by "a complete integration of Russia", beamed Chirac, and by Europe's capacity to hold its own before… Uncle Sam. ("It is only Bush we have something against, vous devez comprendre, it is not all Americans, like Bill Clinton and such…")

The Vultures and Their Disgraceful
Perfidy in Causing the Collapse of the USSR

The article on the end of the Soviet Union is seen almost entirely through the (disapproving) eyes (and autobiography) of Mikhail Gorbachev. We thus witness examples of Boris Yeltsin's "perfidy" throughout Natalie Nougayrède's article, hear of how the latter sought "alibis" in order not to allow the USSR to continue its existence, and are scandalized to learn how the Russian president, in conjunction with his Ukrainian and Belorussian counterparts, informed George H W Bush of their decision (to scuttle the USSR) before they did Gorbachev, which in turn caused the Soviet leader to react thus on the telephone: "What you did behind my back, with the nod of the president of the United States, is a disgrace, an infamy!" The article ends with Gorbachev's words: "It was a triumph of vultures, I can't find other words." I can: in other words, there is no guilt-casting, no castigation, no mockery, no criticism, and no perpetual seeking of mistakes among the leaders, élite, and idealists of the USSR. (You know who that is reserved for, right?)

Castigation, Mockery, and Criticism
Are Reserved Entirely for Uncle Sam

The article on the first Gulf War is subtitled the coalition's triumph opens the road of Al Qaeda. Véronique Maurus's piece is replete with examples of how Americans were/are blind, arrogant, and greedy ("American companies rubbed their hands in face of the promise of juicy reconstruction contracts"), and of all their mistakes, all their supposed misreadings of the Arab street, their negligeance of "the psychological impact of that deployment of forces on a frustrated Arab opinion", "to what extent the first Gulf War was [an indirect] preparation for the second one", and how "the American takeover of his native country" revolted "a young, still unknown Saudi, a transfuge from Afghanistan" by the name of Osama Bin Laden. (I thought the common wisdom was that the CIA's support for the Afghan resistance to the Soviet Union was what created Al Qaeda — And what about the cancellation of the Algerian elections that very year, an undermining of the winning Islamist party that was supported, if by any Western nation, by France, and an event completely ignored by Le Monde in its 60th anniversary series? I guess it doesn't matter what historical example one chooses, as long as one can mix it into the charge that Uncle Sam, in the last resort [directly or not], is responsible for all the tragedies in the world.) In addition, we are told, "the war aggravated the situation" up North. "The Palestinians … lost the financial support of the Gulf's rich monarchies and, everywhere, are chased away." The reason for this, of course, is that the Palestinians chose the side of Saddam Hussein, but, needless to say, although Véronique Maurus does mention the reason, she refrains from adding, in any way, that in life, choices and actions lead to consequences and she makes the comment without changing, in any way, the usual depiction of Palestinians (and of the Iraqi victims of the war, for that matter) as mere innocent and totally hapless victims. No — guilt-casting, castigation, mockery, criticism, and the perpetual seeking of mistakes is a domain reserved entirely for Uncle Sam, of course. Indeed, the article ends thus: "the first Gulf War creates the foundation for Al Qaeda and thus a dramatic escalation of terror: anti-American attacks will multiply in Sudan, in Kenya, in 1998, in Yemen, in 2000, until the attack on New York, on September 11, 2001…" Folks, you knew it all along: it's all America's fault…

The Sadness of Germany Since the Fall of the Berlin Wall
and the Perfidy of Capitalist Companies

In the article on the fall of the Berlin Wall, we read little about the context (failed policies, tyrannical government, repressive society, etc), just like the article on the fall of the Soviet Union, and likewise, we hear words of wisdom from (former) communists: there is barely a word on the former East German régime (and its policies, financial, repressive, and other), but the opus is put on the fact that in the aftermath of reunification, the country has been on two different speeds. This allows Georges Marion to look for a quote of wisdom from the leader of… the (reformed) communists (!), Gregor Gysi, who says "It was not a reunification, but an Anschluss!" And Le Monde's journalist to note that the "harsh" judgment cannot be but true and regretting that no account was taken of what the GDR society used to be.

In contrast, Babette Stern's article on the antiglobalization movements manages to skewer "savage globalization" through and through, something Hervé Kempf's full-page story on the Bhopal tragedy manages to do just as well with American-style capitalism ("the imperative of profitability remained"; "548,000 survivors ended up touching an indemnity, in conditions in which corruption, the intermediaries, and bureaucracy swallowed a large part of the initial sum"; "justice must be rendered to the martyrs of Bhopal, a justice which has always been denied them"); while the Chernobyl disaster deserves merely a photo along with its caption, including a comment (indirectly) praising the Russians — "it is also a lesson for the West: involuntarily, the Soviets demonstrated that an ecological disaster has no borders".

Relativizing French Debacles Toward French Innocence and
Relativizing Soviet Debacles Toward … American Guilt

Similarly, in the Rainbow Warrior story, Fabrice Lhomme uses quite an amount of relativisation:

along with the Rainbow Warrior, it is a large part of the illusions of the "people of the left" that sank to the bottom of Auckland Bay on July 10, 1985. In giving the order to sink the ecologist boat — provoking the death of a passenger — and in the subsequent denying of the act, the Socialist government, which had already been forced to revoke some of its economic promises by decreeing the state of "rigor" of 1983 [in two years in office, the Socialists had handled the economy so badly that they were forced to take drastic measures that year, for example, forbidding French citizens from taking, and spending, anything above a fixed sum (10,000 Francs? I forget) when travelling abroad], sacrificed on the altar of the raison d'état the ideals which had brought François Mitterrand to power in 1981.

No mocking or castigating of Socialist — or French — ideals, here. Only the tragic fact that, (again) almost by accident, and because of individual mistakes, the ideals — unlike American and/or capitalist ideals, always put into question — have suffered a setback in their great advance towards a better world (a world made better by the defeat of capitalist forces).

The subtitle on the Soviet downing of a Korean Boeing reads "the price [to pay] for the tension between the Soviet Union and the United States", thus putting the blame for the "tragic affair" at least partly on Uncle Sam. Partly? Mainly, in fact. "For years, both sides used this tragedy to feed their respective propaganda" and "truth was hardly the preoccupation of that era's leaders" writes Philippe Pons, thus taking moral relativism (and American guilt) to new heights. The rest of the story is, offhand, 'a curse on both their houses' (suggesting that if only the legendary tolerance of European-type pacifism had triumphed instead of "the 'war of nerves'," 269 lives would have been saved), but effectively a blistering attack of the American leadership, "which had 'demonized' the USSR into the 'empire of evil'" (the piece ends with the tongue-in-cheek statement that the Soviets "could only be 'devilish', blood-thirsty assassins"). While speaking of the Americans' "great efforts to publicize" the story and their "selective intelligence", Pons quotes all the Russians' excuses (from another spy plane in the vicinity to the increased espionnage activities in the region), ending his piece with a reference to the Soviets' "tragic but culpable error" — is it me, or is "culpable error" the epitome of contradiction in terms?

In the story on the Tehran Embassy hostage crisis (in which he calls Jimmy Carter's rescue fiasco a "farce turned into drama"), Michel Tatu admits that 39th president, too, had a moral streak linked to religious beliefs but he waxes eloquently on how, contrarily to Dubya, he used them "in a totally different way", i.e., for positive goals (pacifism, human rights, etc). Whether, and how, the human rights situation has improved inside Iran, Tatu does not say…

Vietnam Compared to the Iraq Quagmire;
There, Too, Americans Are Liars of the Worst Type

The Vietnam quagmire is regularly compared to the Iraq conflict, with the article's first sentence stating flatly that "In Vietnam as in Iraq, the war started with a lie". No less, no more. Americans are treacherous liars, and there you have it. (Or if you want to be smart and protest that "only their leaders are liars", then the only conclusion can be that your "American friends" are all, or mostly, doofuses, and doofuses of a criminal type.) Later on, we read that "America … engaged itself without providing for an exit door — another parallel with today's Iraq". But Jean-Claude Pomonti goes further, explaining to the French populace how America has a history of irrational and fear-based politics. "Prefiguring the coming denunciations of the 'empire of evil'— Ronald Reagan on the Soviet Union — and the 'axis of evil' — George Bush about Iraq, Iran, and North Korea — America's intervention in Vietnam was based on fear", he writes (before adding that "this war is a total engagement" of America's, which is exactly the opposite of what many American servicemen felt). And never mind the millions (or hundreds of thousands) of people tortured or killed by Stalin and Saddam Hussein, the repression and the lack of freedom in the communist block or the Middle East, the bloody adventures embarked upon abroad (whether wars or terrorism), and — last but certainly not least — those leaders' very real lies. Pomonti prefers to wax eloquently on the "half million victims" of Indonesia's Communist party, swept aside by Islamist militias and soldiers.

(As for Vietnam's boat people — a direct result of the Hanoi government's policies following the Vietnamese "victory" in the conflict — all they are allowed in this 60th anniversary compilation is one photo and one caption, a caption which, needless to say, assigns no blame whatsoever but only evokes the "tragedy" of the "massive exodus"… Similarly, Mao and Red China get three contemporary editorials, but all Tibet is awarded is one single photo with its caption.)

Who Lurks in the Shadows When
Soviet Tanks Crush Democracy Movements?

By contrast, the story on the Hungarian revolution is an exercise in relativisation that starts from the first sentence: "In the history of the Communist camp, the year 1956 is that of crises and paradoxes." Daniel Vernet goes on to give a pretty straightforward story of various Warsaw Pact members' attempt at revolution against the Kremlin's oppression in the early 1950s, even using colorful language at times (the East German workers' "revolt was drowned in blood by the Soviet tanks", Hungary's "democratic movement is broken at the price of thousands of victims"), but of course it wouldn't be a European mainstream media article if some ugly anti-Americanism were not allowed to seep in. "During the 'Hungarian October', the Americans played a murky game. On the one hand, the information and propaganda outlets encouraged the anti-communist demonstrators, on the other President Eisenhower ruled out any intervention in their favor." A fact no one will dispute in itself, but one will notice that the vocabulary used always concerns "the Americans" where Washington is concerned, and rarely, not to say ever, "the communists", "the Soviets", or "the Russians" where the Kremlin is used. (Nor did the article on the Rainbow Warrior speak of "the French" or the article on Nuremberg of "the Germans".) There it is all about "Stalin", "Krushchev", "the leaders of the socialist camp"; in other words, while the latters' anti-democratic tenets are almost described as an unfortunate — and incomprehensible — accident, the murky treachery of the double-dealing [lying] "Americans", as well as their "games", are seen as evidence of the dark forces that lurk inside the US of A's very soul. (No language here like that reserved for the Abu Ghraib scandal — "Iraq: the War, the Torture, the Disgrace".)

In Korea, the American-Led Force
Included Soldiers of 15 Nationalities

No, indeed. Nor is there any language of the type reserved for the Pyongyang régime in the article on the Korean War (either before or after the conflict). It is filled with the same type of relativising, starting with its subhead: "the high price of the Cold War". "With its two and a half million deaths, civilian and military, the Korean War will have been the most murderous of the so-called Cold War." Three items of interest: André Fontaine informs us that Kim Il-Sung told him 25 years after the war that the North Korean strongman had talked to Stalin about invading the South as early as March 1949, and that, after first trying to discourage him, Stalin had given him the green light in April 1950. In addition, the article starts with an interesting quote from Stalin to Eden in 1941: "I am not like Hitler. I will always know how to stop in time." Finally, it tells us that "the United Nations [-approved] force, under the command [of Douglas MacArthur], would include soldiers from fifteen nationalities, including a French batallion." In the wake of the strident denunciations that accompanied the Bush administration's decision to take out Saddam Hussein (admittedly, without UN approval), two questions that arise are the following: 1) How does the number of foreign allies in the Far East then compare with that in the Middle East today; and 2) Did all of the contingents in Korea have that many more men on the ground than do some of the allies in Iraq?

No Context, Whatsoever…

On the sidelines, alongside these "in-depth" articles, are editorials of the respective year, verbatim, meaning they appear without the slightest attempt of providing any context whatsoever. There is a 1950 editorial concerning Einstein's warning about the H-bomb and a scathing one from 1953 on the execution of the Rosenbergs (whose treason has been ascertained at least since the CIA's Verona program was declassified in mid-1990s). As for the Cuban missile crisis, in 1963 the newspaper of reference discounted the presence of Soviets nuclear rockets on a "communist base" whose "significance" was "more political than military" while wondering why JFK didn't continue to "stand up" to America's "overexcited public opinion". In 1968, Le Monde seemed to lecture Americans about the Prague Spring, putting seemingly the onus on General Patton for not capturing Czechoslovakia for the West 23 years earlier.

On March 21, 2003, the editorial of the day asked "what is the American project?", adding that "the United States have not explained all of their goals in this affair. The objective is to 'disarm Iraq', 'free its people', and 'defend the world against a grave danger' [the WMD]. Is that really all?" There is nothing wrong in casting doubts on somebody's real motives, of course, whether that somebody is an individual, a citizen, a politician, an administration, or a country. In fact, that is the duty of the press. The danger comes, of course, when a periodical, or the entire media, always puts into doubt the motives and claims of the same politician(s), the same administration(s), and the same country(ies). It is even more perilous when the periodical of the press of a given country always puts into doubt the motives of a foreign country (one in which the press does not apply such double standards!) and never its own. In the Iraq case, Le Monde never asked "what is the French project?" It never went on to state that if Paris's stated objectives was to ensure the peace, defend international law, and protect the United Nations, was that really all? Not a word on the ties between French politicians and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. It is an issue that the French media never made much about before the conflict erupted, it is an issue that the French media never made much about during the Iraq war, and that it an issue that the French media has not made much about since Baghdad fell — even as news of food-for-oil have gotten ever more strident.

No, issues that the French media make much about invariably concern Uncle Sam: going 30 years back in time, Sirius's (Hubert Beuve-Méry's) June 1953 editorial on the execution of the Rosenbergs speaks of "a serious defeat of the entire Atlantic coalition", "horrendous blackmail", "the protest of millions of people", "the supplication of the highest moral and religious authorities on this side of the Atlantic", "the height of a symbol, the symbol of essential values that, alone, can be the justification of the West", and "two beings who, according to all appearances, did not deserve" their fate. These expressions are accompanied by the following statement and question: "Free men who can still protest without risk don't feel better or more courageous than others — perhaps only more lucides, because more engagés. They fear to see growing around them the shadow of gigantic idols nourished by lies, terror, and informants." And "How can one explain that the condemnation, on the opposite shore of the ocean, of a young unknown couple has united [Frenchmen] in a unanimity they had not known for a very long time?" (Why is it that these words, expressions, moralizing, and questions somehow remind me of the opposition to Bush's Iraq war?)

Meanwhile, in Marie Jégo's (modern) article devoted to that year, on the death of "Marshall Stalin", i.e., "the man … who made 200 million subjects tremble for 30 years", we learn that a judge (Ryumin) was executed by firing squad a month later. No "Moloch states" to speak of here (neither today nor in the 1950s nor in the intervening decades); no criticizing of the Soviet Union; no emotional editorializing on the massacres and the purges of the Stalin era; no comments, finally, on the ties between the Rosenbergs and the country that Stalin ruled over (the country, that is, that they spied for); only the optimistic (!) words, "The Krushchev thaw had started."

The July 1951 editorial on the assassination of Jordan's King Abdallah ends with a sentence that sounds strangely like all the condescending statements we've heard since the Reagan administration started helping Afghanistan's Mujaheddin battle the Soviet occupiers: "Can one hope that the Americans understand in time the enormity of the price to pay when one encourages fanaticism, even in the name of the defense against communism?"

The February 1950 editorial on Einstein's warning about the H-bomb speaks about "a hysterical character" on both sides, a semi-dictatorship on the rise in America, the scientist's call for a creation of supranational judiciary and executive organisms, and ends thus: "In his opinion, a simple declaration in which all nations promise to collaborate loyally towards the advent of [a] 'world government' would suffice to reduce considerably the danger of war." Right. Like a declaration signed by the likes of Stalin, Kim Il-Sung, Mao, Hitler, and Saddam Hussein. Why is it I prefer Ronald Reagan's famous words: "Trust, but verify"?

Expression "Crimes Against Humanity" Used
Only Where Uncle Sam In Concerned

The (2004-written) in-depth article on Hiroshima brings us full circle. Talking of horrors, barbarity, and gratuitiousness, fully ignoring the context, minimizing the extent of Japan's defensive fighting, using cynical viewpoints of Washington and the Pentagon, referring to "the Americans" and "the United States" at every turn, and dusting off comparisons with 9/11. It starts thus: "Time softens wounds. But the atomic bombings of Hirsohima, and Nagasaki, remain thresholds in the horror of the massacre of civilian populations." "In the American rhetoric, the bombings were 'a necessary sacrifice for peace'," Philippe Pons writes, using the quotation marks to mark his (lucid) distance with its content. Just in case anybody believes that, he continues thus: "Hiroshima and Nagasaki do not claim a monopoly of an incredible number of deaths in one single stroke: the incendiary bombs dropped by the United States on Tokyo in March 1945 razed a large part of the capital, creating more victims than the atomic bombings." "[A] tragic page in [Japan's] national history — the most tragic one, probably —" is the occasion for Philippe Pons to quote a Monde correspondant who was allowed to travel to Hiroshima three months after the bombings: "I felt shame for the West, shame for science, shame for humanity." (Strange that a corrrespondant from a daily only eight months in existence should be granted that privilege, before other, better-known, French colleagues — I suppose that, in Charles de Gaulle's words, Robert Guillain could thus represent France abroad, by focusing on the blood-letting of other countries — and give, by indirect comparison, France a positive view of itself.) Thank goodness the authorities have erected, in "the two cities forever united in martyrdom" places of "official memory" — peace parks, museums, and monuments built in the epicenter of the deflagrations. Pons goes on to speak of "a graduation as useless as indecent into horror, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the places of the crystalization of a type of power crushing everything in a haughty indifference of the laws created by men to check barbarism." Uh-oh. Here it comes: the comparison of uncouth Americans of yesterday with uncouth Americans of today, all of them "ignoring the United Nations and the foundations of international laws": While a former mayor of Nagasaki called the bombings "a crime against humanity" and says "Never again", the mayor of Hirshima lashes out at the Bush administration: "The egocentric world view of the United States has reached its limits." From there, it's only a short step to sentences such as "And yet the nuclear bombings took on a new significance after September 11". You can already guess the rest: the barbaric Americans deserved 911.

What Le Monde ignored in all this, of course, were such things as the fact that — in contrast to the war in Europe — as Allied armies (and navies) approached the enemy's homeland, the fighting got tougher, not lighter. (Unless I am mistaken, the costliest battle for the Americans of the Pacific war — if not of the entire war — took place on Okinawa, i.e., after Nazi Germany had surrendered.) In speaking exclusively of civilian populations, Le Monde likewise ignored the term "the important naval base of Hiroshima", which is what …Le Monde itself called the Honshu island city on its front page …on August 8, 1945. Finally: evoking the 80,000 victims of Hiroshima and the 40,000 victims of Nagasaki is far from unimportant, of course, but if Le Monde is so intent on writing about the "haughty indifference of the laws created by men to check barbarism", about "Hiroshima and Nagasaki [not claiming] a monopoly of an incredible number of deaths in one single stroke", about "martyrdom" and "crimes against humanity", and about "thresholds in the horror of the massacre of civilian populations" (i.e., quoting Japanese self-images of itself as a victim), why would it ignore the victims of the rape of Nanjing? I.e., the massacre of some 300,000 Chinese nationals — men, women (some of them pregnant), and children — which the Japanese imperial army embarked enthusiastically upon in late 1937? Maybe that, too, some might say, is "a tragic page in [Japan's] national history"?…

It's like Le Monde's article on the Korean war …

It's like Le Monde's article on the Hungarian revolution…

It's like Le Monde's article on the Vietnam quagmire…

It's like Le Monde's article on the downing of the Korean Boeing…

It's like Le Monde's article on the Bhopal tragedy…

It's like Le Monde's article on the fall of the Berlin Wall…

It's like Le Monde's article on the first Gulf War…

It's like Le Monde's article on 9/11…

…And all the rest…

It's called, Double standards…

60 years of it…

Une Union subjuguée, prête à brader sa culture et son histoire pour se rendre agréable à un partenaire économique

Ivan Rioufol dans son bloc-notes :

Devant la Turquie, l'Europe [béni-oui-oui] dit s'il vous plaît. Deux exemples : le Parlement européen voyait naguère, dans le refus d'Ankara de reconnaître le génocide arménien, «un obstacle incontournable à l'examen d'une éventuelle adhésion de la Turquie à la Communauté». Aujourd'hui, face au négationnisme du premier ministre turc, l'Union lui souffle juste de faire un geste, pour dépasser «l'expérience tragique du passé». Pareillement, elle n'ose exiger de l'inflexible Recep Erdogan la reconnaissance préalable de Chypre, membre de l'UE, partiellement occupée par l'armée turque depuis 1974. Surtout ne pas fâcher le chatouilleux invité.

Les faits sont là : l'Europe, qui devrait confirmer aujourd'hui son accord à l'ouverture des négociations d'adhésion de la Turquie, s'est soumise aux humeurs d'Erdogan. … Quelque chose ne tourne pas rond dans cette Union subjuguée, prête à brader sa culture et son histoire pour se rendre agréable à un partenaire économique ne faisant pas mystère de son «islamisme modéré» … L'historien devra, demain, démonter les mécanismes de cette suggestion collective, qui aura converti les plus hauts dirigeants européens. Au point d'en oublier les invasions ottomanes qui terrorisèrent l'Europe et de laisser dire, en revanche, que, «pendant deux siècles, les Européens ont envahi et colonisé l'Orient avec des canons».

Relire Victor Hugo. Il rappelle, dans Les Orientales, ce que furent les massacres des Turcs commis à Chios (Grèce) en 1822. … Pourquoi vouloir à tout prix réécrire une histoire irénique, où nous serions tous, selon Jacques Chirac, «enfants de Byzance» ?

Les étourdis s'enchantent de ces fiançailles imposées avec ce grand pays d'Asie (près de 100 millions d'habitants en 2050). Ils sont persuadés qu'il se pliera aux règles des démocraties occidentales, et notamment celles qui garantissent la liberté de penser et l'égalité devant la loi. … Au nom du «respect de l'autre», l'Europe bonasse ne se pose pas ces questions.

Un insidieux endoctrinement, appuyé par la vision inoffensive d'un libre marché élargi, veut faire croire que l'islam, force de paix, sauvera l'Europe menacée. A condition que celle-ci s'associe à une Turquie «rempart contre l'islamisme» et s'ouvre plus généralement à la culture musulmane. … La réalité peut être vue ainsi : l'Europe est disposée à vendre son âme pour avoir la paix. Au nom du sympathique dialogue entre les cultures et de l'émouvante réconciliation entre les peuples, ses dirigeants parient les yeux fermés sur une laïcisation des valeurs, des modes de vie et des règles de la Turquie au contact de l'Occident, alors qu'ils n'en savent strictement rien. Et la France, par l'intermédiaire de Jacques Chirac, participe à cette prise de risque en poursuivant son même souci, déjà apparu lors du conflit irakien, de consolider les liens avec le monde arabo-musulman.

Cependant, les Français ne suivent plus leur président. La connivence apparue sur le dos des Américains est rompue. … Certes, le président de la République a redit, mercredi soir sur TF 1, que l'ouverture des négociations ne signifiait pas l'adhésion automatique. Mais il n'est pas certain que les citoyens, tenus à l'écart, se rassurent à si bon compte. Même le Libyen Kadhafi a admis hier que la Turquie sera «le cheval de Troie» du monde islamique dans l'Union. Si l'Europe devait confirmer aujourd'hui son feu vert en se pliant ainsi aux menaces de rupture d'Erdogan, ce qui semble plus que probable, les électeurs n'auront plus que le référendum de 2005 sur la Constitution européenne pour faire entendre leur déception.

Mises en garde

«Propagande islamiste» : c'est par cette expression que le grand intellectuel protestant Jacques Ellul désignait, dès 1983, «la création de mosquées partout, même en URSS, la diffusion de la littérature et de la culture arabes, la récupération d'une histoire». «L'islam, notait-il, se glorifie maintenant d'avoir été le berceau de toutes les civilisations (...) L'islam, origine de toutes les sciences et de tous les arts, c'est un discours que nous entendons constamment.» Ce texte avait été écrit en préface à un livre de Bat Ye'or, spécialiste des minorités religieuses dans les pays d'islam. A Paris cette semaine – elle vit en Suisse – Bat Ye'or estime que nous assistons, au-delà du problème turc, à l'harmonisation d'une politique européenne «suicidaire» visant à faire entrer les pays arabes dans la future «Eurabia», sans que l'opinion en soit tenue informée. Selon l'historienne, le but recherché par la Commission européenne, singulièrement depuis la présidence de Romano Prodi, est le «changement de la culture européenne», afin qu'elle puisse assimiler l'islam. Cette création d'un ensemble euro-arabe passerait, comme le démontrent des documents, par l'affirmation de l'antiaméricanisme européen et par la lutte contre Israël.

… Il faudrait faire l'inventaire des erreurs, imprécisions, faux scoops, rapprochements tendancieux, calomnies, qui auront été trop souvent publiés à cause d'enquêtes journalistiques trop rapides, exploitant des rumeurs, des silences, des informations partielles. … Oui, les médias doivent aussi savoir se taire. …

"Independent Since Its Inception"

In the context of its 60th anniversary commemoration, which Le Monde has been celebrating with 60 articles, one for each year and one per day for the past two months, the newspaper of reference has published an article on the birth of the independent daily.

The 60th Anniversary Celebration of Le Monde

• The daily's Iraq coverage
• The daily's TV guide
• The daily's film reviews
• The daily's VIP portraits
• The daily's Le Monde 2 magazine
• The daily's Letters to the Editor section
• The daily's 60 years in 60 articles series
• The daily's birth and origins

What is hard to understand is why the International Herald Tribune's John Vinocur would evoke "the newspaper's close relationship with" the French Foreign Ministry and why John Keegan would call it the "organ of official opinion and of the ruling class", when it is a well-known fact that the daily's motto is: "Indépendant depuis sa création".

Especially when two members of the French media (who happen to be Le Monde's partners), RTL and Arte, featured broadcasts on the anniversary, called respectively Birth of a Free Newspaper and A Free Press.

Ah, well… let's take a look at Le Monde's version of the circumstances of its own birth. We are in late 1944, Paris has been liberated, the war is not yet over, and… a vow is made…

"I will present the full information. I will force them to read me!" That vow is made by the first director of Le Monde…

So far, so good. Hubert Beuve-Méry sounds exceedingly forceful and independent. But wait a minute; let us read the rest of the sentence:

That vow is made by the first director of Le Monde as he is given the mission to create a newspaper of reference worthy to represent France abroad.

Huh? "Is given"? "The mission"? "To create" not a newspaper but "a newspaper of reference"? "Worthy" not to bring the news but "to represent France abroad"? What's going on here?! Keep reading Laurent Greilsamer's article:

The adventure starts as early as September 1944. For several days, General de Gaulle, the head of the provisional government, has been grumbling as he scans the main titles of the Parisian press. He finds satisfying neither Le Figaro nor Combat and still less L'Humanité. In his deepest self, he misses the great pre-war titles, such as Les Débats or Le Temps.

At the end of September, he convokes this information minister, Pierre-Henri Teitgen, and [gives the following order]: "Teitgen, make another Temps for me! Choose a director whose past in the resistance and competence as a journalist cannot be put into doubt. Get a free-market Protestant and a Gaullist as his deputies!"

When Teitgen tries to stall, arguing that there are paper shortages and that with 30 Paris dailies, there is no assurances that the French can be made to read the paper, de Gaulle interrupts him:

"The French readership, Teitgen, je m'en fiche! We need a great newspaper for the extérieur, and for decades, [our] embassies have held, rightly or wrongly, that a daily on that model, more or less semi-official, better informed than the others, provides better information on what is happening in France. Allez, et faites vite!"

Two months later, c'est fait. Or almost. Teitgen and his team have dug up the rare bird. His name is Hubert Beuve-Méry. … De Gaulle anoints him. He is given the title of manager and the authorization to publish, and he is given two deputies, René Courtin (the free-market Protestant) and Christian Funck-Brentano (the Gaullist). In early December, Beuve-Méry takes possession of the Temps' former offices and printing works, rue des Italiens in Paris.

It is there that he makes

his famous vow: "I will present the full information. I will force them to read me!" That is the challenge!

And thus, the article ends, full of reminiscing and nostalgia, with noone at Le Monde (apparently), either today or at the time, stopping to think whether a daily's independence might be compromised by such circumstances and such relations with the powers that be.

If need be, the influence of France's top political player is confirmed by Doreen Carvajal in the International Herald Tribune on November 30:

Le Monde was founded in 1944 by Hubert Beuve-Méry at the request of General Charles de Gaulle, on the condition that Beuve-Méry could create an independent evening paper that could be the "conscience of the nation."

On October 21, a Paris reader (Patrice Dunoyer de Segonzac) brought complementary information about Hubert Beuve-Méry in a letter to the editor:

One can only rejoice at this [60th anniversary] celebration of the greatest hours of the newspaper and of he who created it, then developed it day by day, with the rigor, the honesty, the scrupulous independence that he was known for, as much with regards to the political power as to the power of finance.

The reader, who is related to the founder of the Uriage National College of Executives, goes on to say that

… it is the ties created at Uriage which will contribute to the creation of Le Monde, since it is resistants like Paul Reuter, professor of law and deputy director of Pierre-Henry Teitgen, who will suggest to General de Gaulle the designation of Beuve-Méry whom they had known at the École nationale de cadres d'Uriage.

But excuse me while I digress. I still don't understand why John Vinocur would evoke "the newspaper's close relationship with" the French Foreign Ministry and why John Keegan would call it the "organ of official opinion and of the ruling class", when, as Patrice Dunoyer de Segonzac says, Le Monde was/is known for its "scrupulous independence … as much with regards to the political power as to the power of finance," and when it is a well-known fact that the "free newspaper's" motto is: "Independent since its inception".

Secousses et effroi

Shock and Awe	Secousses et Effroi
New Paris publisher starting activity in July 2005 is looking for new, daring French language authors. Contact publisher at nouvelediteur@hotmail.fr.	Nouvel éditeur parisien qui démarrera son activité au mois de juillet 2005 recherche de nouveaux auteurs qui osent. Contactez l'éditeur à nouvelediteur@hotmail.fr.

Les mots d'un abord hermétique et un peu hautain pour brimer la cervelle des Français…

Eric Fottorino :

Vraiment non, les 60 millions d'administrés que nous sommes ne méritaient pas ça : des mots d'un abord hermétique et un peu hautain, du genre "irréfragable" ou "synallagmatique" ou encore "litispendance", des mots "qui font souffrir", comme l'Etat vient de s'en rendre compte en essayant de les bannir des formulaires officiels rédigés par une armée de fonctionnaires maniant la langue au burin.

Pour la troisième année consécutive, un organisme baptisé Cosla (Comité d'orientation pour la simplification du langage administratif) s'apprête à distribuer aux agents de l'Etat un lexique d'environ 4 000 termes administratifs pour qu'enfin les Français ne se sentent pas brimés ou infirmes de la cervelle quand ils tentent de comprendre le jargon officiel.

En prime, les étudiants de neuf instituts d'études politiques devront plancher sur une trentaine de formulaires truffés de tournures plus absconses et ampoulées les unes que les autres, dans lesquelles, rêvons un peu, on trouvera peut-être enfin des mots aussi simples que bonjour et au revoir, plutôt que des formules de politesse à la mords-moi le doigt...

… Les mots les plus justes, c'est Pierre Encrevé, le vice-président du Cosla, qui les a trouvés. On lui doit d'avoir remplacé le terme inculpation par "mise en examen". Maintenant, il voudrait transformer une "ordonnance de placement" en "décision de protection", estimant que "les mots peuvent être une double peine", tandis que "changer les mots contribue à changer les choses".

Eric Woerth, le secrétaire d'Etat à la réforme de l'Etat, ne se l'est pas fait dire deux fois. Il affirme que certains vocables ont justement été "mis en examen" et qu'ils seront bientôt "condamnés", pour que l'Etat soit en mesure de s'adresser à tous en équité. Un mot en entraînant un autre, vivrons-nous demain le bonheur administratif ?

"Il y a en France une logique sémantique politicienne surprenante !"

…la confiance est un élément essentiel de toute action politique et gouvernementale. Mais elle se mérite. Elle est acquise par la fixation d'objectifs clairs qui paraissent nécessaires à l'intérêt du pays, par des mesures même impopulaires, mais indispensables, par une détermination sans faille dans l'exécution de la politique choisie.

dit Raymond Barre à Rémi Godeau dans Le Figaro, en ajoutant "les Français sont incapables de surmonter ces difficultés, mais c'est un fait : ils ne se rendent pas compte de la gravité de la situation réelle de leur pays."

À l'interjection de Godeau, "Mais les Français rejettent ce choix libéral", Barre répond :

Oui, et les gouvernements ont tendance à éviter les mesures nécessaires pour ne pas provoquer des réactions négatives dans l'opinion. Mais il y aura toujours en France de telles réactions : sondages, protestations, défilés fleurissent. Faut-il se laisser impressionner par des mouvements inspirés par les intérêts catégoriels et corporatistes alors que l'intérêt national est en jeu ?

…Il y a en France une logique sémantique politicienne surprenante ! Si j'ai appliqué la rigueur [mot banni du langage gouvernemental, constate Godeau], ce n'était ni par plaisir ni par inclination personnelle. La situation appelait des mesures impopulaires. Je les ai prises. … Cela dit, il est vrai que les Français n'aiment pas l'effort continu. A l'époque, un spécialiste en communication m'avait même dit : «Cessez d'employer sans cesse dans vos discours le mot effort !» Les politiques promettent le bonheur et proclament leur volontarisme. Puis il y a le réveil douloureux pour les citoyens...

Les critiques systématiques du libéralisme en France, y compris à droite, sont ridicules. Le système libéral, c'est l'économie de marché moderne, qui n'exclut pas l'intervention opportune de l'Etat. Regardez les pays qui nous entourent : ils ne montrent guère d'intérêt pour le modèle français. …

Il faut toujours regarder autour de soi. Mais pour en tirer les bonnes conclusions. La Grande-Bretagne se porte bien parce que Margaret Thatcher y a introduit de grands changements. Et Tony Blair s'est gardé de les remettre en question. Gardons-nous d'approuver les expériences étrangères sans voir en quoi elles diffèrent parfois profondément de ce que nous considérons comme possible. …

Rémi Godeau : Vous récusez l'idée de déclin, mais dans «Mémoire vivante» publiée en 2001, vous assurez que la France traverse une phase de médiocrité...

C'est à dessein que j'ai utilisé ce terme. Je ne pense pas que la France soit appelée à décliner, mais les Français s'accommodent et se satisfont aujourd'hui de la médiocrité, soucieux de leurs petits intérêts et dépourvus d'ambition. …

(Thanks to Valerie)

Charles Enderlin et France 2 n'ont rien d'un Dan Rather ou d'une CBS, loin de là…

Selon les principes du Monde, l'information doit être rigoureusement vérifiée et soigneusement recoupée

Le Médiateur du Monde

La différence avec Dan Rather aux USA (et avec les conséquences de son reportage à la CBS en octobre) est on ne peut plus emblèmatique…

Il y a quelques semaines, Catherine Simon avait un article sur un "l'un des plus anciens journalistes en poste en Israël", "un vieux routier du journalisme et de la politique", "l'un des meilleurs connaisseurs du Proche-Orient", le "vice-président de l'Association des correspondants de la presse étrangère à Jérusalem".

On l'aura compris : tout est fait dans le quotidien de référence pour encenser ce "chroniqueur averti" comme un sage ("enfant sage perlé d'humour") qui, perle de la sagesse, se sent "de plus en plus Français".

Non seulement Charles Enderlin est laïc, mais il se moque des religieux et il partage le rêve de de "cantonner" les chefs religieux "dans leurs temples". En plus, il a de l'humour ("ajoute-t-il en riant") et de la simplicité («Charles Enderlin dit simplement : "Je viens de là."»). Le citoyen parfait, quoi. Et on allait l'oublier, le correspondant de France 2 à Jérusalem "s'est forgé sa morale" et il a du courage : "C'est en toute connaissance de cause, risques et périls compris, qu'il a décidé de continuer à l'exercer" (son métier).

Le seul bémol, évidemment (Catherine Simon y arrive à la fin), c'est évidemment "la diffusion des images du petit Mohamed Al Dura, mourant dans les bras de son père, lors d'une fusillade à Gaza entre l'armée israélienne et les combattants palestiniens". Le vénérable quotidien du soir nous y prépare ainsi :

Le conflit Israël-Palestine, "exemplaire" à plus d'un titre à l'échelle de la planète, est aussi celui "qui fait fantasmer le plus", note-t-il. Pour le meilleur parfois, mais surtout pour le pire.

C'est sous l'intertitre "PRESSIONS, INSULTES, MENACES" que nous apprenons ce que Le Monde entend par "le pire" :

Charles Enderlin, qui a commenté ces images prises par l'un de ses cameramen palestiniens, devient la cible d'une campagne de dénigrement d'une violence inédite. Sur Internet, des sites juifs francophones l'accusent d'avoir mis en scène la mort du petit Mohamed. Une accusation que le gouvernement israélien se garde bien de relayer.

"La cible", "une campagne de dénigrement", "d'une violence inédite". Heureusement, la légendaire solidarité française veille…

Quatre ans plus tard, le 18 novembre, la direction de France 2, solidaire de son journaliste, annonce qu'elle porte plainte contre X... pour "diffamation publique". Un acte salutaire minimal : dans un contexte proche-oriental marqué par la montée des violences et des extrémismes, ce type d'accusation peut être interprété comme un appel au meurtre.

Malgré "l'appel au meurtre", notre héros fait appel à son héroïsme bien développé par Le Monde …

Charles Enderlin hausse les épaules : "On se fait une peau d'éléphant", assure-t-il.

Le Monde continue dans sa lancée de considérer l'affaire comme une tentative scélérate de censurer la vérité et de museler un homme courageux (et simple, rationnel, honnête, amusant, sympatique, etc, etc, etc…)

Après avoir mis fin à toute discussion du sujet en deux paragraphes, l'article change de sujet pour parler de l'antisémitisme en France, histoire de signaler que le débat est clos et que Charles Enderlin a d'autres chats à fouetter. S'y ajoute une boîte (voir tout en bas de la page URL de l'article) où la sagesse et l'objectivité (et la lucidité aussi, sans doute) du "chroniqueur averti" se trouve encore plus renforcée. Le journal indépendant termine avec une autre démonstration tant du courage, des principes, et de l'indépendance de France 2 et du "vieux routier du journalisme et de la politique s'est forgé sa morale", que de l'ignomie et de l'insignifiance de leurs "détracteurs" :

"Si ma rédaction en chef décidait que tel ou tel sujet doit être tourné différemment du fait de telle ou telle réaction possible, j'aurais alors un problème fondamental. Cela ne m'est jamais arrivé." A bons détracteurs, salut...

Seulement, voilà : l'accusation principale dans la "campagne de dénigrement" ne viendrait pas d'un "simple" site (juif ou autre), mais d'un journal, dont le sérieux, selon les dires de certains, a été assez bien documenté par le passé. L'on notera par ailleurs que Catherine Simon n'a fait aucune tentative pour identifier les sites en question, et — plus important encore — pour tenter, de quelque façon, de contrer les arguments de ceux-ci (n'entend-t'on pas toujours en France des appels au dialogue, au débat, à la logique, à la raison?…). En même temps (fait hautement étrange lorsqu'on considère à quel point la défense est acharnée), le langage a changé ("mourant dans les bras de son père, lors d'une fusillade…") pour ne plus désigner les responsables de cette mort.

L'article de Stéphane Juffa dans le Wall Street Journal ne semble pas regorger de formules brûlantes et d'appels "au meurtre" (directs ou indirects), par ailleurs ; on dirait plutôt une enquête assortie d'une suite de tentatives, pour la plupart infructueuses, de rencontrer les responsables de France 2.

Le rédacteur en chef de la Metula News Agency nous apprend certains faits auxquels nous n'avons pas eu trop droit dans les médias français (y compris l'article de Catherine Simon). L'article se termine par trois questions que Stéphane Juffa persiste à poser à France 2…

Pour revenir au médiateur du Monde :

Le rôle du Monde est aussi de mettre au jour des réalités qui le méritent, de révéler des faits inédits ou cachés …

L'Occident comme on l'aime : intraitable devant les régimes brutaux, corrompus, antidémocratiques

La perte de l'intérêt commun venait de haut

note Ivan Rioufol dans son bloc-notes, en évoquant une "incohérente mobilisation des cheminots", "une énième manifestation de «profs» qui ne savent plus pourquoi ils défilent", "un fils de président de la République, Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, condamné à trente mois de prison avec sursis pour fraude fiscale", et — last but not least — "le procès des écoutes de l'Elysée [qui] dévoile chaque jour un peu plus comment son père a pu s'égarer à ce point dans ses préoccupations personnelles et y entraîner l'Etat."

En ce qui concerne la pensée unique, les

ratonnades insulaires [des Corses] sont une aubaine pour les apôtres de l'universalisme, qui assurent que les préservations culturelles ne peuvent conduire qu'à ces intolérances. Ces démagogues tiers-mondistes interdisent d'aborder l'immigration autrement qu'en faisant applaudir la France terre d'accueil. Mais la société cosmopolite qu'ils préconisent est-elle meilleure garante de la paix civile ? Les Pays-Bas viennent de démontrer le contraire, après le meurtre de Theo Van Gogh par un islamiste. Le pays de la tolérance risque de se couper en deux. …

Pour ce qu'il en est de l'Ukraine, Rioufol ajoute :

Ne rien faire qui puisse affaiblir les démocraties européennes. Telles qu'elles sont, elles restent l'exemple qui fait espérer les Ukrainiens menacés par la guerre civile. C'est en référence aux valeurs occidentales que les partisans de Viktor Iouchtchenko ont trouvé l'énergie, ces dernières semaines, pour tenir tête aux pressions de la Russie de Vladimir Poutine. Ce dernier aura tenté vainement d'imposer — par la fraude, la menace, les coups tordus — son candidat Viktor Ianoukovitch, faussement élu à la présidence le 21 novembre.

L'Occident comme on l'aime : intraitable devant les régimes brutaux, corrompus, antidémocratiques. La Russie est encore de ceux-là : elle ignore les droits de l'homme, bourre les urnes, empoisonne ses adversaires (Iouchtchenko, aujourd'hui défiguré, en sait probablement quelque chose). Parce que l'Europe nous avait habitués à faire sa révérence à la Turquie aux semblables travers et à des Etats infréquentables ...

L'Europe démocratique doit être à la hauteur de l'admiration qu'elle suscite à l'est, en restant exemplaire. Elle a déjà réussi à faire tomber le masque du président Russe — cet allié encensé par la France et l'Allemagne durant le conflit irakien — qui a déclaré cette semaine : «Nous, en Russie, nous ne pouvons appuyer un tel développement de la situation (en Ukraine), même si quelqu'un le qualifie de démocratie.» …

"On a peut-être sous-estimé … son attachement acharné aux valeurs de la démocratie…" De quel humaniste Le Figaro peut-il bien parler?

Étonnant !

Après le passage — obligé — sur les "énormes bévues" des Américains en Irak, Renaud Girard évoque "les succès réels obtenus, ailleurs, par la diplomatie de George W. Bush." Et à l'éditorialiste du Figaro d'encenser le président américain : "Son attachement acharné aux valeurs de la démocratie commence à porter ses fruits à travers le vaste monde."

Pas d'ironie, pas de rires moqueurs, pas de crachats de colère? Non. Suivent des exemples concrets — Kaboul, Ukraine, Proche-Orient… Nous pouvons même lire (toujours sans connotation négative) : "On a peut-être, en France, sous-estimé George Bush" (!)

Une citation de Renaud Girard que j'aime particulièrement :

C'est une tactique vieille comme le monde que d'accuser un adversaire des mauvaises intentions qu'on a soi-même.

Elle concernait Vladimir Poutine, mais ne pouvait-elle pas, à l'occasion, aussi évoquer la France, le "camp de la paix", Jacques Chirac ? …

Abou Ghraib et Abidjan : quand "il s'agit de la France, de Chirac, du camp de la paix, pas de tollé, pas de protestation"

Bruno José Lebeau compare Abou Ghraib et la Côte d'Ivoire :

Que n’aurait on entendu à la radio, lu dans les journaux et vu à la télévision, si Donald Rumsfeld avait osé déclaré pendant l’affaire Abu Ghraib ce que Michèle Alliot Marie a lancé mardi soir à propos des tirs de l’armée française contre une foule désarmée en Côte d’Ivoire ?

Imaginons un seul instant, que Rumsfeld donc, eut déclaré « il y a eu visiblement des provocations qui avaient pour but d'essayer de faire perdre leur sang froid aux militaires » pour justifier ce qui se passa à Abu Ghraib.

Imaginons même que Rumsfeld eut ajouté : "Il est évident que si la situation d'attaque, de menace, contre des ressortissants étrangers se produisait, nous assumerions exactement de la même façon que nous l'avons fait précédemment, nos responsabilités"

Le tollé général eut probablement suivi de tels propos, et non sans raison d’ailleurs.

Et à Bruno José Lebeau de faire une liste de quatre contrastes entre la réaction de l'administration Bush face aux évènements impliquant leurs militaires à Abou Ghraib et la réaction du gouvernement français face aux évènements impliquant leurs militaires en Côte d'Ivoire. (Allez vite les lire…)

Si tout cela, ces actes, ces paroles [de Michele Alliot Marie et du gouvernement français], venaient de l’Amérique de Bush, celle-ci serait probablement dénoncée, désignée comme « fasciste », et un tollé mondial serait organisé par les gauches mondiales qui ne manqueraient pas une telle occasion de faire vite fait, bien fait, le procès des Etats-Unis dans des medias largement complaisants. Mais puisque il s’agit de la France, de Chirac, du camp de la paix, pas de tollé, pas de protestation.

On a eu affaire à des choses bien pires que Falloudjah…

N'oublions pas la distance que nous avons réussi à parcourir est le type d'article qu'on aimerait voir un peu plus souvent dans Le Monde ou Le Figaro…

Qui a tué Pandora Swifer ?…

Soudain Umma sentit une ombre inquiète chercher quelque chose en elle et regarda instantanément Nim. Une force venant de lui semblait vouloir faire...

Lucien Oulahbib, webmaistre de La Minute du Sablier, a écrit un roman fantastique du nom de L'Oeil brisé.

Le monde des images est dorénavant un continent que les humains explorent pour le meilleur et pour le pire. Un dramaturge, Nim Myotis, cherche à réconcilier la multiplicité avec l'universalité dans un Opéra censé en incarner l'harmonie. Il recherche une héroine qui pourrait en être l'Etoile parce qu'elle incarne l'époque et en même temps la possibilité de la surmonter. Mais dès qu'il la trouve, il se heurte à une bande de criminels dont le chef est amoureux fou de l'héroine choisie par le dramaturge. Il cherche par tous les moyens à ce que cet Opéra ne se joue pas...

Soudain Umma sentit une ombre inquiète chercher quelque chose en elle et regarda instantanément Nim. Une force venant de lui semblait vouloir faire courber ses épaules et déformer l’aspect gracile de son maintien. Elle n’en eut cure, elle connaissait ses objections sur le déluge, et redressa les épaules contrebalança la pression par un surcroît de souplesse et un demi-sourire espiègle. Nim ne put échapper à son rayon d’action et fut bien obligé de reconnaître tout d’abord qu’elle le faisait toujours frissonner malgré ses inepties sur la "colère des éléments". Mais il résista et se demanda si leur divergence se traduisait également par une amorce d’indifférence plastique des souffles et des attitudes intimes d’Umma.