The context of my previous reply is France's "direction of travel", which negative like most other European countries. This is a key metric on any meaningful timescale, which is what ultimately matters.
The scariest thing in France I've seen is ~20yo voting for Mel-the-leftist-egocentric-schmuck so that they could keep doing nothing but taxing productive people. Other that that the "direction of travel" is dual: either drown in the mire of ever increasing taxes or kick ass. My feeling is that France has everything for the later, but for some weird reason prefers the former. Yet, in the meantime, it's OK. And the very latest geopolitics headlines are nice, if they ever come true.
My original point was about individual rights. I'm glad the country stands firm on that.
I don’t see how state-enforced irreligiousness (secularism/laicite) doesn’t completely contradict with individual freedoms.
If you have problems with that there are so many 3rd world countries that care about medieval stuff more than development. I think laïcité is one of the coolest words/concept, France should only really enforce it further.
We can see now in the US how not having this concept is creating a lot of social issues with Cristian fundamentalists running the state.
And before I get any questions about it, I say this as a lifelong atheist.
You could not be more wrong.
However, I am not surprised you would believe that: I have quite a few French friends who believe the exact same thing because they've all drunk the kool-aid that was served to them during their school years, namely that France is the country who invented human rights, freedom of speech, etc...
Nothing could be further from the truth (England is a way better approximation to "invented free speech" than France ever was, where do you think Voltaire discovered what Freedom really meant if not during his exile years in England?).
Even today, your average Frenchmen is dead convinced that freedom of speech in France is one of the best in the world and a fundamental value of French society.
If you compare it to Iran or North Korea, fair enough. But then go look up what happened to a guy named Dieudonne if you want a perfect example of there being no freedom of speech whatsoever in France.
Compared to global standards, France is really not high on the individual freedom / freedom of speech scales, but then you have to be able to properly compare things to make vaguely correct calls on such things.
And if you have never left your country nor master English well enough to understand what goes on outside your tiny cultural bubble, and you have been indoctrinated by the French school system since day one, it's a perfectly normal thing to believe.
I thought I already did, but here it is again
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieudonn%C3%A9_M%27bala_M%27ba...
The dude kept on saying completely outrageous things on public channels, none of which should have been an issue in a country with normal free speech laws.
Here's another interesting case, where a TV channel was outright shutdown because they said things that the powers that be didn't like. I guess Moscow isn't that far east of France:
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/french-tv-cha...
Here's another interesting aspect of life in the land of stinky cheese: cash is by law legal tender, as in:
https://www.banque-france.fr/en/monetary-strategy/means-of-p...
However, it is illegal to buy anything with cash if the transaction is more than 1k euros:
https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F10999?...
These are just off the top of my head, the list is very long and quite sad.
At any rate, one of the main reasons was the repeated offenses of the channel, having beaten a record of fines, and never having done anything to correct their course. Fines are not a cost of operation, they are penalties for breaking the law. You can't break the law systematically and then cry about not getting your license renewed. Though I'm sure Hanouna has painted himself quite the victim in this affair.
These fines were often for things I think most people would view as legitimate, such as verbal assault, threats or hate speech.
About cash payments, I think you're making a caricature. From your source:
> There is no limit to the amount paid in cash between individuals (e.g. car purchase). Written text is required beyond €1,500 for to prove payments.
This written text is just a proof of sale, not a justification as to the use of cash or its provenience.
The 1000€ figure is when dealing with professionals, among other reasons to avoid VAT fraud. Many countries implement similar measures, often more stringent. Regardless, I'm almost sure your chauffagiste or mechanic will accept a cash payment of any amount. There is the theory, and then the practice.
I really struggle to see how this affects your life in any way.
What you say may or may not be true, I wouldn't know, I don't watch French TV.
It is, at any rate entirely irrelevant: if that TV channel was advocating that people should tattoo a swastika on their forehead, they still should be allowed to do so, however retarded that is.
That's what free speech means, however horrible and shocking that may be to you. People are free to make up their mind about the channel and not watch it.
The government has strictly no business, in a truly free country, to decide who can and cannot broadcast.
> You can't break the law systematically and then cry about not getting your license renewed.
Why in heaven's name would you even need a license to run a TV channel? Do you need a license to create YouTube videos?
> I really struggle to see how this affects your life in any way.
This tells me you and I likely don't live the same kind of life.
But if you're happy living in a society where every private transaction you make is monitored by your government, hey, what can I say: more power to you, after all, complete and utter surveillance of the plebs is also what happens in Russia. They also likely think it's normal to have your every move monitored over there.
When you've lived your whole life in a prison, you end up not seeing the walls anymore.
I'm personally very happy I don't have to suffer living in a place like France.
> The 1000€ figure is when dealing with professionals, among other reasons to avoid VAT fraud.
Every coercive power there ever was has always had that kind of "won't you think of the children" or "this is for your own protection" bullshit message to wrap their coercion of basic freedoms in a nice package. This is no different.
Rather than offer viewpoints, they suppress any constructive discussion and recenter the debate on bogus issues to rile people up and garner votes for populist parties that are friendly to their stakeholders. They are a poison to democracy. The riling up itself also has direct and violent consequences.
In such situations, the freedom of the perpetrators is at odds with the freedom of the victims. There is no solution that prevents a lion eating a gazelle that doesn't involve restraining the lion. As children are taught, "my freedom ends when the freedom of others begins".
I doubt any country in the world allows you to manipulate someone into murder and then walk away with it once the deed is done. Punishing hate speech is that but on a larger scale. I struggle to see the issue, really. The only matter of discussion is the definition of hate speech, but the principle itself is sound and necessary in my opinion (and of the majority of people who welcome that such laws exist).
By the way, you mentioned England in your initial comment, but the UK has similar laws in this regard. Were you thinking of the US as a freer nation? For having lived in both, I'll have to beg to disagree, I've never felt as surveilled as in the US. Private companies store your whole card number and any details you were unfortunate enough to share with a given retailer (such as email address) are shared across nation-wide networks. But it sure is convenient when WholeFoods knows you have an Amazon Prime subscription. Or does it not count when it's private companies, only the government?
What are you on about? What does the "unpatriotic" bit have to do with anything?
> It is facing many issues but has lacked strong leadership courageous enough to put country first.
Right. What would "putting country first" mean? France is doing what it wanted to do for decades, which is consolidating European power to its advantage. Is that what you consider unpatriotic? If so, I have bad news for you: France is a great country, but absolutely does not have the resources for its ambitions on its own.
> If you follow French news you'll see many.
If you follow sources related to reality in any way you’ll see that some things are getting better and some things are getting worse. What does not change is the agitation about safety and security to make people afraid of their own shadow, even as the situation is quite clear: the country is safer than it has ever been.
You have a valid point hidden somewhere, it’s that the people were shortchanged and that inequality is rising. You are badly misguided if you think that this has anything to do with patriotism. In fact, the people pushing this narrative have their own interests to look after in the class struggle. They might make you think that they have the same enemies as the people but they are just looking after their own. Just look at any country in which the local nationalists came to power.
False.
https://www.interieur.gouv.fr/content/download/135975/107672...
I have talked about it on this forum. I have had my car broken into multiple times in France, and each time I had to file a police report. Guess how many times the culprits were caught? A big fat zero.
So the statistics look good. But what about the reality? Do you think a women coming home at night is felling safer now than she would have been 30 years ago? I don't think so.
Not too mention the rampant Islamism that has taken over entire suburbs were women are not free to wear what they want and the cops don't go there unless they have the CRS (riot police) with them to protect them in case something goes wrong.
It is facing many issues but has lacked strong leadership courageous enough to put country first. So, in fact, it is a fairly typical European country...
The spread of "narcotrafic" is an example of that, there are others. If you follow French news you'll see many.