LE PEN CONVICTED FOR AN OPINION

Here's an interesting item. Jean-Marie Le Pen has been convicted of racism and fined 10,000 euros for remarks he made about Muslims four years ago. La Croix reports:

Jean-Marie Le Pen was fined 10,000 euros on Wednesday by the Paris appeals court for provocation to discrimination, hatred and racial violence, as a result of his remarks about Muslims printed in the April 2004 edition of the extreme right-wing journal Rivarol.

The 11th chamber of the court of appeals also sentenced the president of the Front National to 5000 euros in damages to be paid to the plaintiff, the Human Rights League. The lower criminal court had "nullified the suit" against him; thus he escaped conviction at the first hearing.

On April 2, 2004, the criminal court of Paris had condemned Jean-Marie Le Pen for an interview he gave to Le Monde on April 19, 2003, in which he declared: "The day when we have in France not 5 million but 25 million Muslims they will be our masters. The French people will hug the walls, they will walk on the sidewalks with their eyes lowered. And if they don't, they will be stopped: 'Why are you looking at me like that, are you looking for a fight?' And you will have to run, or else you'll be beaten," he added.

A month later Le Pen was back on the offensive in an interview in Rivarol: "Furthermore whenever I said that with 25 million Muslims in France the French people will hug the walls, people in the audience would say to me, and rightly so: 'But Mr. Le Pen, that is already the case now.'"

It was for these new remarks that he was convicted on Wednesday.

"The defendant pits the French against the Muslims (...) and attempts to arouse (...) a feeling of rejection and hostility towards the Muslim community," the court decided Wednesday. "His words instill in the mind of the public the belief that the security of the French depends on rejecting Muslims and that fear and apprehension, linked to their growing presence in France, will cease if their numbers decrease and if they disappear," the court added.

Orwellian thought control is nearly complete. The Anti-Christ is ascending.

FRANCE AND HER MUSLIM YOUTHS

VILLIERS-LE-BEL, France - Rampaging youths rioted for a second night in Paris' suburbs, firing at officers and ramming burning cars into buildings. At least 77 officers were injured, a senior police union official said Tuesday.

The overnight violence was more intense than during three weeks of rioting in 2005, said the official, Patrice Ribeiro. He said that "genuine urban guerillas with conventional weapons and hunting weapons" were among the rioters. The riots were triggered by the deaths of two teens killed in a crash with a police patrol car on Sunday in Villiers-le-Bel, a blue-collar town in Paris' northern suburbs.

Residents claimed that officers left the crash scene without helping the teens, whose motorbike collided with the car. Officials cast doubt on the claim, but the internal police oversight agency was investigating. Rioting first erupted in Villiers-le-Bel on Sunday night. It grew worse and spread Monday night to other towns north of Paris. Rioters hurled stones and petrol bombs at police, authorities said.

The use of firearms added a dangerous new dimension. Firearms are widespread in France, and police generally carry guns. Guns, though, were rarely used in the 2005 riots that spread to poor housing projects nationwide. Police are facing "a situation that is far worse than that of 2005," said Ribeiro, national secretary of the Synergie officers union.

"Our colleagues will not allow themselves to be fired upon indefinitely without responding," he warned on RTL radio. "They will be placed in situations which will become untenable."

Read more commentary on the sad state of French affairs here, but in particular, new observers to this story should first read Hugh Fitzgerald's more comprehensive comments found here.