French Interior Minister Claude Gueant, who also holds the immigration portfolio, caused political uproar on Saturday by claiming that not all civilizations are equal, with some more advanced than others.
“Contrary to what the left’s relativist ideology says, for us, all civilizations are not of equal value,” Gueant told a conference in the French parliament building, but closed to the media.
“Those which defend humanity seem to us to be more advanced than those that do not,” he said in his speech at a meeting organized by a right-wing students group.
“Those which defend liberty, equality and fraternity, seem to us superior to those which accept tyranny, the subservience of women, social and ethnic hatred,” he said in his speech, a copy of which was obtained by reporters.
He stressed the need to “protect our civilization.”
The minister’s comments provoked a torrent of criticism from the opposition and on the Internet, less than three months a head of a French presidential election.
The left denounced his speech as an attempt by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to woo the far-right National Front voters ahead of the presidential election.
The Young Socialist Movement condemned Gueant’s “xenophobic and racist” speech, while the minister’s entourage attempted to dismiss his comments as merely condemning those who practice repression and inequality.
On his Twitter account, Harlem Desir, the No. 2 in the French Socialist Party, criticized “the pitiful provocation from a minister reduced to a mouthpiece for the FN [far-right National Front party].”
The ruling UMP party is in “electoral and moral decline,” he added.
For her part, Cecile Duflot, national secretary of the French Green Party, wrote of a “return to three centuries ago. Contemptible.”
It is not the the first time Gueant has courted controversy.
Gueant has repeatedly linked immigration with crime in France and last month said the delinquency rate among immigrants was “two to three times higher” than the national average.
In April last year, he said an increase in the number of Muslim faithful in France posed a “problem”.
He also said then that he wants to reduce the number of legal immigrants entering France, including those coming to work legally or join their families.
His latest controversial comments come as the anti-immigration National Front’s presidential candidate Marine Le Pen is credited with 20 percent support in the opinion polls, a figure which is sounding alarm bells throughout the French political establishment and beyond.
Sarkozy is trailing in the opinion polls to Socialist presidential candidate Francois Hollande.
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency and the Pentagon on Monday said that some North Korean troops have been killed during combat against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk border region. Those are the first reported casualties since the US and Ukraine announced that North Korea had sent 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to help it in the almost three-year war. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said that about 30 North Korean troops were killed or wounded during a battle with the Ukrainian army at the weekend. The casualties occurred around three villages in Kursk, where Russia has for four months been trying to quash a
FREEDOM NO MORE: Today, protests in Macau are just a memory after Beijing launched measures over the past few years that chilled free speech A decade ago, the elegant cobblestone streets of Macau’s Tap Seac Square were jam-packed with people clamouring for change and government accountability — the high-water mark for the former Portuguese colony’s political awakening. Now as Macau prepares to mark the 25th anniversary of its handover to China tomorrow, the territory’s democracy movement is all but over and the protests of 2014 no more than a memory. “Macau’s civil society is relatively docile and obedient, that’s the truth,” said Au Kam-san (歐錦新), 67, a schoolteacher who became one of Macau’s longest-serving pro-democracy legislators. “But if that were totally true, we wouldn’t
ROYAL TARGET: After Prince Andrew lost much of his income due to his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, he became vulnerable to foreign agents, an author said British lawmakers failed to act on advice to tighten security laws that could have prevented an alleged Chinese spy from targeting Britain’s Prince Andrew, a former attorney general has said. Dominic Grieve, a former lawmaker who chaired the British Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) until 2019, said ministers were advised five years ago to introduce laws to criminalize foreign agents, but failed to do so. Similar laws exist in the US and Australia. “We remain without an important weapon in our armory,” Grieve said. “We asked for [this law] in the context of the Russia inquiry report” — which accused the government
TRUDEAU IN TROUBLE: US president-elect Donald Trump reacted to Chrystia Freeland’s departure, saying: ‘Her behavior was totally toxic, and not at all conducive to making deals Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland on Monday quit in a surprise move after disagreeing with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over US president-elect Donald Trump’s tariff threats. The resignation of Freeland, 56, who also stepped down as finance minister, marked the first open dissent against Trudeau from within his Cabinet, and could threaten his hold on power. Liberal leader Trudeau lags 20 points in polls behind his main rival, Conservative Pierre Poilievre, who has tried three times since September to topple the government and force a snap election. “It’s not been an easy day,” Trudeau said at a fundraiser Monday evening, but
RSS