Remember the France2 libel trial?
Long-time readers may remember that in the fall of 2006 I went to France and wrote a great deal about the libel trial involving Philippe Karsenty, France2, Charles Enderlin, and the Muhammed al Durah video.
The archives are here, if you care to review them. Suffice to say that for me it was a sobering immersion into French libel law and the inordinate respect it holds for the august, eminent, honorable, highly-respected, lying-through-their-teeth members of the press in that country.
The intrepid Richard Landes writes about some recent developments in the continuing legal battles here. I see that what I called “looking-glass world” back then may still be in operation, although we don’t know yet; in very French fashion, the verdict won’t be rendered until April.
Landes also has an excellent take-down of Hillary Clinton’s “what difference does it make?” response, full of his usual clarity.
thanks. the situation is, if possible, worse than the dreyfus case (it’s international in scope and damage to civic polities), and less likely to be treated with integrity (both the media and the courts are dedicated to the “honor” of the institutions involved (in dreyfus, the army and the church, in al durah, the mainstream news media and the palestinians). at least the “sacred cows” of 19th cn France made sense.
The French are not robots. We have good friends in France that we stay with and travel with when we are in France and Europe at large. Our French friends want to send all Arabs back to their point of origin. La France est pour le frané§ais.
Thank you for reminding me about the Augean Stables blog.
I had somehow fallen away from checking in over there to see what interesting topics Mr Landes was addressing. (That’s where I’m going now!)