Bad News for France

I got this bad news in a plea for a signature, which will be given:

Two recent events illustrate this trend.

On the occasion of World Down Syndrom Day, a beautiful video entitled "Dear Future Mom" was broatcasted for several days on some French TV channels. But the French television authority (CSA) considered that broadcasting such a message of support, to reassure women expecting a baby affected with Down Syndom, "was not of public interest", and therefore asked the TV channels to stop broadcasting the spot.

The 7 young people affected with Down syndrom and featuring in this spot sued the CSA's decision, but the Conseil d'État rejected their plea. It considered that the CSA's decision was well-founded and that the content of the TV spot message was "inappropriate" for such a broadcasting. The children’s smiles might “disturb” women who have had abortions... The case may go to the European Court of Human Rights.

The second threat comes from the French Parliament in which a Commission just passed a bill targeting pro-life websites displaying a message intended to dissuade women from having an abortion.

This bill, which contains only one article intends to extend the notion of "impediments" to abortion and creates a new crime of "digital interference" to abortion. The mere dislay on a website of, for instance, information about the risks of having an abortion, or an attempt to convince women that there are other solutions than abortion would be considered, with the new law, as a criminal offense punishable by up to 2 years of imprisonment and €30,000 fine.

This bill will be examined by the French Parliament in public debate on Thursday, December 1st .

The other bad news was about a month ago, when Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet proposed to make it a crime to preach that the laws of God (or of a Sacred Text) are more obliging than the laws of the French Republic.

"For example" she argued, "if you preach that a woman is worth half as much as a man, because the Qoran says so, you are to be charged with this crime" (equality between men and women being one law of the French Republic).

Obviously, if the proposed ban on digital interference with abortion becomes another law of the Republic, this means that preaching that it is a good thing to dissuade from abortion becomes an offense too.

Imagine a parish and a blogger. Next year.

A blogger commits the "crime" (as it would be termed) of "digital interference". His parish (or his ex parish) initially supports him, without much further comment from the parish priest.

Then support wavers. A parish priest can then be telling his parish the blogger did a good thing. If he doesn't, the support will vanish, the little that remains. On Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet's terms, that would be another offense.

Thus, law by law or rather pseudo-law by pseudo-law (because laws contrary to the law of God are no laws, notwithstanding any legislations or legislation attempts by a Republic or other entity), the persecution of Christianity and of a Pro-Life stance is prepared in France.

Next year, 2017, is 112 years after 1905, the year when Clémenceau made another bad law which put Catholics out of the law and led to policemen actually killing Catholic parishioners who were trying to defend their parishes, like the evil Reformations in the North of Europe also did (Sweden-Finland, Denmark-Norway, England and Scotland).

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Vigil of St Andrew Apostle
29.XI.2016