If you have laws and a legal system which can be ignored with impunity, your government really isn't in control of its territory and you have taken at least a few steps down the road to becoming a failed state. While the end result is a Somalia, that isn't necessarily where things start. The idea that if you are a jew in France and you cannot expect the same rights and privileges normal for a French citizen, that people can hurl stones at the school buses your children ride on, that they can assault you, even murder you, this seems to be a growing reality.
Now this is horrible for French jews but not just for French jews. What if you're a foreign investor, a non-jewish, non-muslim minority, what if you don't live there but you want to do business, to visit, to fly through, are you safe today in France? Will you be safe tomorrow? Can France safely abandon the principle of the rule of law just because it is at the core of Europe? I don't think so, but I'm increasingly not sure what France's elite thinks on the subject.
Posted by TMLutas at May 6, 2004 12:49 PM