Led by a provocative comedian, a gay atheist, and a socialist teacher, protest against same-sex marriage draws one million

As many as a million protesters descended upon Paris from every corner of France today to demonstrate their opposition to the Socialist government’s plans to introduce same-sex civil marriage. The Prefecture of Police estimates at least 380,000 participated in the three marches from different starting points that converged at the Champs de Mars in front of the Eiffel Tower. Organisers, however, set up counting stations and claim that, by 7:30pm tonight, over one million protestors had joined the march.

Volunteers charted more than eight hundred vehicles to bring protestors to Paris, while six TGV high-speed trains were reserved for demonstrators. “Had the conditions for chartering trains not been as stringent,” an organiser told Le Figaro “the number could easily have been double.”

“In the freezing cold,” Le Figaro reports, “young, old, and families with children were trying to keep warm waving thousands of pink flags to the jerky rhythm of techno music.”

The entire workforce of the Directorate of Public Order & Traffic was called out to handle the massive demonstration, which forced a Paris Saint-Germain football match to be brought forward. Police believed it would be impossible to secure the area around the Parc des Princes stadium when hundreds of thousands of protesters were expected in the centre of the French capital.

The protest today was organised by the eccentric comedian Frigide Barjot, founder of the Collectif pour l’humanité durable, joined by gay atheist Xavier Bongibault of the association Plus gay sans mariage (“More Gay Without Marriage”), and Laurence Tcheng of La gauche pour le mariage républicaine (“The Left for Republican Marriage”).

The unlike troika claim to have launched “a guerrilla war” against the current Socialist Party government’s proposed same-sex civil marriage legislation. Avoiding the mainstream media, ‘Team Barjot’ went direct to supporters through social media such as Facebook and Twitter, and, countering the government’s branding of same-sex civil marriage as “Mariage pour tous”, named their protest “Le Manif Pour Tous” (‘The Protest for All’), asserting that all children have a right to a mother and father.

If opinion polls are to be believed, the campaign against the proposed law seems to be changing perceptions. From 2000 to 2011, polls showed a steady rise in support for same-sex marriage. In 2012, this percentage began to decline; support for allowing same-sex couples to adopt also fell. Meanwhile, polls claim that 69% prefer same-sex marriage be put to a referendum. (more…)

Some Essays of Pierre Manent in English

I’VE BEEN ON a Pierre Manent kick recently, whom a friend in Paris describes as “a giant, grossly under-rated in the Anglophone world and treated with considerable disdain even in France on account of not being a prisoner of ephemeral conventional wisdom. ”

Given the current penitential season, it might be worth reading Manent’s “Reason and Faith: A Lenten Reflection”. This paragraph was one among the many that struck me with its accuracy:

Christian faith, for its part, accepts being called to appear before the tribunal of reason. It is distinctive of the Christian God to leave man to his own counsel, and to put the fulfilment of the plan of salvation as it were at the mercy of human freedom. This is why Christianity is not a law, but a faith. This is why the Bible is not a teaching dictated by heaven like the Koran. It is a chronicle, full of detours, of an often-broken and ever-renewed covenant between divine goodness and human freedom.

Much of Manent’s pondering is on the realm of political philosophy. His 1999 essay “The Return of Political Philosophy” explores the death of political philosophy over the course of the twentieth century, while his lecture “Current Problems of European Democracy” examines the depoliticisation of European societies. “The Greatness and Misery of Liberalism” is also worth a read.

With a view over the Place des Victoires

If you’re in the market for a little place in Paris, centrally located, Knight Frank has got just the thing for you. Admittedly, it’s only a wing of a larger hôtel particulier on the Rue Vide-Gousset, but it has an enviable view over the Place des Victoires. Mind you, I’ve always been of two minds about the Place des Victoires. I’m not particularly a fan of Louis XIV, whose somewhat silly equestrian statue presides foppishly over the centre of the circus: I’ve always blamed him for the French Revolution, failing to heed Margaret Mary Alacoque’s warnings and all that. But the statue’s only been there since 1828, so perhaps it can be replaced with something better in a suitably classical style. (more…)

The blogger ‘Pastor in Valle’, who writes over at his blog Valle Adurni, recently composed a splendid overview of Catholic France basically from the baptism of Clovis onwards. Of course, it’s a very general overview, but Pastor has rather skillfully managed to manage to pack a lot into relatively few words.

It’s in five sections: here are the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth.

Have you ever come across the French Ministry of Culture on the Rue Saint-Honoré? It’s a perfect example of the architecture of immaturity. The government ministry was formerly strewn across nineteen different sites throughout Paris. The decision was made to consolidate their offices in one place, and the suitably central location near the Palais Royal was chosen.

The main building on the site is a handsome building from the late nineteenth-century or at the latest 1900s, with a modern 1960s office building stuck behind it. The Ministère chose architect Francis Soler to “unify” the buildings into one. At first, this was meant to be done solely through an interior reorganisation, but Soler decided to add a strange grille to the façade. (more…)

Farewell, O good old days! Farewell, O affable visage of the proprietor and smiling and respectful reception of the waiters! Farewell, O solemn entries of the Café Valois’ dignified customs, which people were curious to see. Such was the case with the Knight Commander Odoard de La Fere’s arrival.

At exactly noon, the canon of the Palais-Royal heralded his arrival. He would appear on the threshold and pause for a moment to sweep the salon with an affable and self-assured gaze as someone eager to practice a longtime custom. His right hand pressing firmly on the white and blue porcelain handle of his cane, he threw his old faded brown cape over his shoulder with a swing of his left hand. No one ever snickered at this, since not even the most elegant mantle with golden fleur-de-lys embroidery was ever thrown back with a more distinguished movement.

In 1789 the former steward of the Prince of Conti ran the Café Valois; it was rather devoid of political colour and local flavor at that time.

Among the frequenters of the place, standing out by his noble manners, stately demeanor and wooden leg, was the Chevalier de Lautrec. He was from the second line of that family, an old brigadier of the king’s army, a Knight of Malta, of Saint Louis, of Saint Maurice and of Saint Lazare.

The Chevalier de Lautrec was a middle-aged man who lived a modest, though very dignified life on his small pension. Though he rarely appeared in society, he could be seen most often at the Palais Royal and the Café Valois. He was a very cultured mind and an assiduous reader of all the newspapers.

Deprived of his pension overnight, it was never known what the Chevalier de Lautrec lived on at a time when it was so difficult to live, and so easy to die. But here we have something that sheds at least a dim light on this mystery.

One morning after finishing a very modest breakfast in the Café Valois, as was his custom, the Chevalier de Lautrec rose from his table, chatted with all naturalness with the proprietress, who stood behind a counter, bid good-day to the master of the café with a slight gesture of the eyes, and walked out majestically saying nothing about the bill. (more…)

“Vu hier soir à Odéon” writes Nicholas S-M, posting this photo on Facebook.

Of course, my mind immediately wanders to Le Secret de La Licorne, the 3D film version of which (directed by Mr. Spielberg) will be released before the end of the year. I am sure I will hate it, but in that way you can hate things while still liking them.

As if you needed more reasons to despise Nicolas Sarkozy! Well, this one we can’t even blame on him. Shall I explain? The national flag of France is a tricolour of three equal vertical stripes of blue, white, and red. Excepting the heady days of the Bourbon restoration, this has consistently been the French flag for the past two centuries now. A little while into the Sarkozy presidency, however, I began noticing a change only in the French flag as displayed whenever the President gave a press conference. The white stripe was reduced in width by half and the space on either side given to the neighbouring colours. The obvious deduction made was that the President wanted all three colours of the national flag shown whenever there were close-up press photographs of himself, and research confirms that this is the case. This shows an awareness for visual representation, but is nonetheless a highly unusual assault on the official flag of a nation. (more…)

If you can possibly ignore its blood-soaked foundation and its disregard for the freedom of the Church, one can appreciate that the French Republic does republicanism with a dash of pizzazz, as evidenced by the late Philippe Séguin’s official robes as President of the Cour des comptes. Of course, most of this panache it inherited from its intermittent monarchic and (even more so) imperial past. It also inherited from Louis XIV an ever-present spirit of centralisation — the Republic frowns upon the principle of subsidiarity.

Monsieur Séguin was a decent sort. (more…)

A London-based graphic designer has created a series of maps depicting Europe according to the national stereotypes in the minds of various peoples. Yanko Tsvetkov, a Bulgarian living in Great Britain, created the first one in 2009 in the midst of the energy dispute between Russia and the Ukraine. Russia was labelled “Paranoid Oil Empire”, the Ukraine “Gas Stealers”, and the E.U. as “Union of Subsidized Farmers”. Switzerland was simply “Bank”.

“I created the first one in 2009 because at that time there was an energy crisis in Europe,” Mr. Tsvetkov said. “I just created it to amuse my friends but when I put it up on my website so many people liked it that I decided to really focus on the project of mapping the stereotypes based on different places in Europe. I was surprised by the reaction because I never really expected it to take off like this.” (more…)

The Pentecost Paris-Chartres Pilgrimage 2010

PENTECOST commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit, often considered the birthday of the Church. Each year, this great feast of the Church is marked by the pilgrimage from the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris on the Île de la Cité (above) to Notre-Dame de Chartres in the Orléanais by pilgrims young and old devoted to the traditional form of the Latin rite. The pilgrimage, often a feast of flags and banners, takes three days beginning on the Saturday of Pentecost weekend, continuing through the great feast itself, and arriving in Chartres on Pentecost Monday (which is still a public holiday in France). This year, Cardinal Vingt-Trois, the Archbishop of Paris, graciously led Benediction on the second day of the pilgrimage, and met with and blessed individual pilgrims. (more…)

A number of prominent French men & women have written a ‘call to truth’ supporting Pope Benedict XVI in the current media storm and pedophilia scandal. As the Appeal’s about page says, Pope Benedict XVI “is the first pope to address head-on, without compromise, the problem. Paradoxically, he is the subject of undermining and personal attacks, attacks relayed with a certain complacency on the part of the press”.

The list of original signatories includes writers, essayists, literary critics, bloggers, professors, philosophers, businessmen, senators, members of parliament, mayors, publishers, actors, a Protestant minister, a Fields medal winner, and even a sexologist.

The ‘Appel à la Vérité’ is reproduced, in an unofficial English translation, below:

Among the unfortunate recent victims of Manhattan’s extortionately exorbitant rents is the Librairie Française. Last year the venerable New York institution had its rent raised from $360,000 to $1 million per year. The shop was founded in 1928 by Isaac Molho a Sephardic Jew from Salonika, who was invited by David Rockefeller himself to rent a space on the Promenade in Rockefeller Center in 1935. The Maison Française, in which the Librairie was located, flanked the south side of the Promenade, with the British Empire Building flanking the north — the bit of greenery in-between is called ‘Channel Gardens’ accordingly. The sign on the façade said ‘Librairie de France’ but in conversation I have never heard it referred to as anything other than the Librairie Française.

During the Second World War, the shop also operated a publishing house called La Maison Française that printed Gaullist propaganda as well as titles by French writers like Jacques Maritain, André Maurois, Jules Romains, and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It was the post-war period, however, in which the Librairie Française flourished. (more…)

Various sources have brought to light the new film “Lourdes” by the Austrian director Jessica Hausner. The film depicts the pilgrimage to Lourdes of a non-particularly religious woman (played by Sylvie Testud) suffering from Mutiple Sclerosis who is healed of her illness. The film by a non-believing director has met with both praise and suspicion from Catholic quarters, and has been compared, at least stylistically, to the work of Michael Haneke (whose latest, “The White Ribbon” is currently showing in New York). Latest to weigh in is the Catholic Herald‘s indispensable Anna Arco, who writes:

I saw it as an exercise in theodicy where God loses. In a quiet dispassionate way, Jessica Hausner, the film’s Austrian director, paints a bleak picture of a world where fate is a blind, arbitrary force and human beings clutch at the straws of faith, half-truths in their cowardly despair. The suffering are not healed, human nature is selfish and the problem of pain is not solved. God can’t exist because he isn’t fair. Christianity offers a web of half-truths obscuring a nihilistic reality.

Miss Arco recently spoke with the director, and the interview will be published in the next Catholic Herald. (more…)

The Viscount Philippe de Villiers is an MEP, sometime French presidential candidate, and head of the Mouvement pour la France but his brother, General Pierre de Villiers, has just been named personal Chief of Staff to the President of the Republic (whose name we refrain from mentioning, lest we feel compelled to boo and hiss). Given this recent appointment, we reckon that General de Villiers outranks his brother in the grand apparatus of state; Chef d’etat-major particulier beats President of the General Council of the Vendée.

There is, however, at least one regard in which the civilian has his military brother beat: Pierre only has six children, Philippe has seven.

While there are but a few days to go, I can’t let this year depart without finally showing you photos of the 2009 Paris-Chartres pilgrimage which takes place every year on the weekend of Pentecost. (See 2008, 2005, 2004). The theme for the upcoming 28th Pilgrimage from Notre-Dame de Paris to Notre-Dame de Chartres was recently announced by the Association Notre-Dame de Chrétienté which organises the event. The 28th Pilgrimage will take place on the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th of May 2010, with the theme “The Church is Our Mother”. The themes for the individual days will be: 1) Teaching, under the patronage of St. Peter; 2) Sanctifying, under the patronage of St. Jean Vianney, the Curé d’Ars; 3) Governing, under the patronage of St. Pius X.

The following photos, however, are compiled from various sources, and show the pilgrimage which took place this past Pentecost. (more…)

Did you know that Le Figaro used to have a “dingbat”? No, neither did I, until I was stumbling through the archives the other day. For a brief period in the 1930s, the Fig stylistically dropped the article “le” from its nameplate, while continuing to be known as “Le Figaro” for all intents and purposes. Simultaneously, they introduced a handsome horizontal dingbat to sit atop the newspaper’s unique name. (more…)

I‘m sure I’m not the only one whose information-gathering habits have changed for the worse since Le Figaro started charging for access to their online digital version. I much prefer flipping through digital “e-paper” versions to trying to sort through a newspaper’s actual website. When you flip through a laid-out newspaper, you get an overall picture of news and information as the editors have sought to present it to you. On websites, it’s all too easy to ignore all but that which you click on. I was about to complain that Le Figaro‘s change means I will no longer be able to stumble upon interesting articles on Romanian restitution cases and a bold Hungarian countess, but in truth those were from the days when I tended to pick up the actual printed edition rather than flip through it online.