Well, I learned something today–maybe even a couple of things. 
Yeah, greenmark, you’d better give us a link to the non-law (anti-law? wal? legal koan [/quote]
I think I can help with that question. un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the UN back in 1948.
Article 1
[quote]All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.[/quote]Article 2
The people you see in the video are not infringing on anyone’s basic rights as far as I can tell.
The Frenchmen can be a pain in the derriere sometimes, but you have to give it to them. They are pretty big on human rights.
In their own country maybe, but try telling that to their foreign corrupt practices businesspeople and the way they tend to coddle some nasty dictators for their own geopolitical realpolitik. They can be a nasty bunch when it comes to overseas human rights (not that the US isn’t fucked up in the same way, just with different countries sometimes).
In their own country maybe, but try telling that to their foreign corrupt practices businesspeople and the way they tend to coddle some nasty dictators for their own geopolitical realpolitik. They can be a nasty bunch when it comes to overseas human rights (not that the US isn’t fucked up in the same way, just with different countries sometimes).[/quote]More than meets the eye, indeed.
Whoa! First, lemme just say, I ain’t always happy bein’ me, really I ain’t! But some days I can get on this board and get a real self-esteem boost, ya know what I’m sayin? Well, maybe you don’t.
[quote=“But I guess he orta had”][quote=“greenmark”]
[color=#FF0000]There is no law[/color]
in France banning participating or observing a religeous service in public areas.[/quote][/quote]
[quote=“Charlie Jack”]I’ll help out with the legal research. If I recall rightly, the statute should read something like this:
[/quote]
[quote=“But I guess he orta had”]I’ll help out with the legal research. If I recall rightly, the statute should read something like this:
[color=#FF0000](This space left intentionally blank.)[/color]
[/quote]
I actually thought that that was fairly original, having see most everything on various boards over the years. And after I realized it wasn’t my eyesight failing me or the residual effects of the tumbleweed from the weekend kickin in.
I was wondering about the blank space. I get it. You are a real smart ass, Charlie. 
Aw come on now, man, don’t be sore, if he’d a done that in response to one of the real chuckleheads round here you’d a had a snicker too right. You should enjoy that shit for the edutainment value alone.
I was about to say - I saw that Charlie had my back there. My response was in reply to Guy, if there had been any confusion as to whom I wanted to prove there had been a ban.
I shouldn’t have implied anybody was slow, 'cause I don’t actually think that. I just think y’all don’t read my damn posts! You’re like, “Oh, it’s just Charlie Jack, just zip on through.” Or if you notice, you assume I’m posting that way because I’m slow, or teched in the head (both of which I actually am sometimes). And truth be told, my posts do reward attention and inattention about equally.
I just thought your post was too daft to pay a second thought to. I didn’t even try to understand. So I went on quoting the human rights. 
It’s alright. Bring it on, buddy. Bring it on.
[quote]Aw come on now, man, don’t be sore[/quote]Don’t be silly. Sore? Me?
Groan. I was saying that the original article stated something that other people said was untrue. I’m not an expert on French law and I was hoping that someone might have some more knowledge than me and could readily provide a link to something relevant.
It was in the same sense that there are a whole lot of people here who can quote off the top of their heads (or have bookmarked links or what have you) a whole lot of stuff on other matters that I don’t know. You know, like if I needed something about an obscure point on Chinese, I’d throw a question at ironlady, or for economics, I’d throw a question at lbksig. Just like if someone were to ask what the Seven Years’ War was about, they could spend friggin’ ages tooling about online for answers or I could, off the top of my head, lay dates, causes and aftermath, principle players and theatres of operation down.
So, what WAS the 7 years war about?
[quote=“GuyInTaiwan”]Groan. I was saying that the original article stated something that other people said was untrue. I’m not an expert on French law and I was hoping that someone might have some more knowledge than me and could readily provide a link to something relevant.
It was in the same sense that there are a whole lot of people here who can quote off the top of their heads (or have bookmarked links or what have you) a whole lot of stuff on other matters that I don’t know. You know, like if I needed something about an obscure point on Chinese, I’d throw a question at ironlady, or for economics, I’d throw a question at lbksig. Just like if someone were to ask what the Seven Years’ War was about, they could spend friggin’ ages tooling about online for answers or I could, off the top of my head, lay dates, causes and aftermath, principle players and theatres of operation down.[/quote]
I think that was pretty clear to everyone after you posted this, Guy.
No need to groan. You’re all good. 
An uppity Prussian (and his homeboys in smaller German states, one of whom was related to the English royal family – but then again, all of those fuckers were inbred) in a wig who thought himself a philosopher, but who wanted to be regarded as being as tough as his daddy rather than some dandy. He did this by attepting (and succeeding – for the next one and a half centuries, Prussia/Germany was the fifth major European power) at elbowing himself onto the big stage, whilst being resisted by the Austrians, French, Russians and their lesser European minions in wigs. Meanwhile, the French and English had at it over who got to make the Indians (in both senses) wear which sorts of wigs. The English got pissing rights over both sets of Indians.
Robin: Except people were talking about the onus being on me. Yeah, obviously, but I don’t expect to go to a doctor for a headache and be told the onus is on me to spend six years at medical school and do an internship when the issue could be sorted out quick smart. If there’s no doctor in the house, fine. Just asking.
They probably just missed your inquiry… 
GuyInTaiwan, I apologize. I was just kidding around. I’ll try an analogy (by the way, I know that you merely asked for a link, that you didn’t demand proof, as A does):
[quote]Scene: A and B are waiting for a bus at a bus stop.
A: Damn! Did you just fart?
B: Yes, I did. That was a good one, wasn’t it?
A: You know, it’s illegal to fart in public.
B: No, it’s not.
A: Prove it. Show me the law that says you’re allowed to fart in public.[/quote]
Now, B could be wrong. There are all kinds of laws in the law books, and it’s conceivable that in that jurisdiction there is a law against public farting. But it’s not very reasonable for A to ask B to show him or her the law that says it’s OK to fart in public, i. e., to prove that there’s a law in favor of it. The chances are, there’s no such law. To state it in another way, there are many, many kinds of behavior that the law does not forbid. It doesn’t seem possible to enact all the laws that would be needed if we decided to give explicit approval to the huge number of non-proscribed behaviors. So the law usually doesn’t give explicit approval to non-proscribed acts.
And that’s what I was having fun with. And again, my apologies.
But back to your question(s). Actually, there do appear to be restrictions in French law on some kinds of street assemblies, and apparently some street religious assemblies are included in these restrictions (bearing in mind that I don’t really know French, and that I’m not well-versed in French law):
[quote]Meetings cannot be held on the public highway.[/quote]–Article 6, Law of June 30, 1881 on the right to meet
Babelfish English translation is here.
[quote]Meetings on the public highway are and remain prohibited under the conditions envisaged by the law of June 30, 1881, article 6[;]
Are subjected to the obligation of a preliminary declaration, all processions, processions and gatherings of people, and, generally, all demonstrations on the public highway[;]
However, are exempted of this declaration the [outings?] on the public highway in conformity with the local practice.[/quote]–Article 1, [Decree-Law?] of October 23, 1935
Babelfish English translation is here.
I got the above laws from a 2005 law review article. The laws may have changed since that article was published. In any case, the article purports to offer some kind of explanation of how these laws apply to religious organizations. According to the author of the article, these laws do occasionally work against religious organizations, especially religions which are relatively new to France. The pertinent part of the law review article is as follows:
[quote]To reach the public sphere and to profit fully from freedom of public worship in France, a religion must appear to have the characteristics of an established religion with which society is already familiar. For example, traditional Catholic processions in French cities do not need to be declared to the Mayor, but plans for other religious processions or public meetings must be submitted in advance in an official declaration to the Town Hall. [26] To distribute religious literature was, until December 2004, strictly limited by a law regulating h[aw]king. [27] Public preaching or leafletting is otherwise prohibited in many places considered public ways. [28][/quote]–Blandine Chelini-Pont, “Religion in the Public Sphere: Challenges and Opportunities,” Brigham Young University Law Review, March [?] 2005
You can find the citation of the second law that I quoted (the 1935 law) at footnote 26 to the sentence in the passage immediately above. The first law I quoted is cited in the second one. The law review article gave me the name of the 1935 law.
Charlie Jack: I realise that it’s highly unlikely (and impractical) to have a law for everything we’re permitted to do, I was just wondering if the French, like the Americans, might have something neat and clear like the First Amendment.
Thanks for the article. After reading part (pp. 616-620, plus accompanying footnotes, including footnote 19 on p.615), I’m still none the wiser, to be honest. It seems that in some ways the state does interfere in religion and favour certain religions, and it seems in other ways public officials and the public don’t want the state to interfere. There seems to be a kind of principle of separation between church and state, but it seems to be applied in a fairly ad hoc manner according to that article.
[quote=“GuyInTaiwan”]Charlie Jack: I realise that it’s highly unlikely (and impractical) to have a law for everything we’re permitted to do, I was just wondering if the French, like the Americans, might have something neat and clear like the First Amendment.[/quote] I wasn’t really impugning your reading ability. I just tend to laugh at the wrong things and not laugh at the right things.
Yeah, that’s the impression I got. Bearing somewhat in mind that the law review article comes from the law school of a Mormon University (which could give rise to charges of bias, but in their defense, who’s more likely even to pay any attention to the problems of minority religions?–housing project tenants may be biased, too, but they’re also going to have exceptional knowledge of the problems of living in a housing project), the author seems to be implying that the “local customs” permit exemption of the 1935 law works in favor the Catholic Church.
Some of his language is subjective, but he doesn’t seem to be wildly distorting anything.
In other words, the “Maxime Lepante” fellow in the Christian Broadcasting Network (Pat Robertson) news article may have been in the neighborhood of accuracy when he said:
But that 1935 law does not specifically address religious gatherings.
Addtionally, Lepante says:
The antecedent of it in the quote above seems to be “France’s Laicite’, or secularism law,” in the words of the article’s author. I don’t think that 1905 law addresses whether people must worship indoors.
I think it’s too big to be translated using a machine, but anyway, in both the 1881 law and the 1935 law, the key phrase seems to be vois publique [edit: I should have written [color=#FF0000]voie[/color] publique]. I typed publique in the “Find” box on my browser on the page of the 1905 law, and with the assistance of Google machine translation, I found no references to banning street assemblies.
I could be wrong about the above, though. But for now I’m of the opinion that Maxime Lepante is mistaken about the 1905 law when he says it restricts people to indoor worship.