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 Ahtman wrote:

 godardc wrote:
The burden of proof lies with the accuser, this is why.

Actually it is on a person making a claim, not just 'accusers'. If someone explicitly claims that a person is one way or another then you should back up the claim unless of course someone makes a claim without backing it up, like you did, so then there isn't really a need to provide proof since my job isn't to do your homework. You just state she absolutely isn't a thing with no proof I see no reason to provide proof she is.

And as I said before it wouldn't matter anyway because minds are already made up and no proof would change anything on this; it would be a fools errand.

So someone claims someone is a racist, and we're just meant to accept the smear with no evidence provided? Guilty until proven innocent? What an awesome society we are creating for ourselves, where we can brand anyone we don't like with any smear we like, and just move on with our lives to go find another sinner to brand with our Scarlet 'R'.

There's been evidence. You just don't like it.

 Spinner wrote:
There's been evidence. You just don't like it.

Yep. Someone's going to have to produce a source more reliable than selectively edited clips from a partisan comedy show in order for me to drop the gavel and condemn someone as a racist or xenophobe.

I'd suggest to you that if you are accepting Last Week Tonight with John Oliver as a sufficient source to prove a serious allegation, or even as a reliable source of any information at all, that your standards are much too low, and you are choosing to inform yourself via infotainment. I'm not willing to do that personally.

If anyone can produce evidence of Le Pen's alleged racism and xenophobia from a reputable source, I'd be quite happy to consider it. I am not close -minded to the possibility that she is a racist or xenophobe. Go ahead and provide a valid source, and if I agree with the accusing side here after reviewing it, I'll gladly say so. I don't like racism or xenophobia. I also don't like sketchy allegations of racism or xenophobia levelled against someone without credible evidence.

If you all keep throwing these terms around wily-nilly, no-one is going to believe any of it eventually. The Boy Who Cried Wolf is an instructive parable here.

 godardc wrote:
How can one still think that Le Pen is "racist and xenophobic", in 2017 ?
She isn't her father, and isn't responsible for his deeds and his words.
Her party has always fired racist and xenophobics.

Ask yourself why her party keeps attracting new racists and xenophobes. Le Pen has been president of FN for 6 years, wields enough clout to force her father from the party, but somehow just can't manage to get the racism out of her party, and only acts when racist members are revealed by the media. Wonder what could possibly be happening there? Could Le Pen just be using her anti-Islam position as a more politically acceptable kind of xenophobia, which many of her followers understand, at least on an emotional level, as being a resentment against all foreigners? Surely not, that just couldn't be so, because Le Pen says she isn't racist and that should be that.

A man whose party told that 300 people loosing their job is "anecdotal", a man who was in the former governement (and was bad at that, people were rioting against his laws). ?

So Le Pen isn't responsible for anything her party says or does, but Macron is. Good to know.

Anyhow, 300 jobs is anecdotal. We are talking about a national economy that has 28 million people in work, 22 million of them in full time work. If the nation was to come to a crashing halt and demand government got involved every time 300 people lost their jobs the country would cease to function. What you are attempting to argue is emotive, populist nonsense.

 jasper76 wrote:
I'll respond that nationalism and secularism, whether you think they are good or bad concepts, are not inherently racist or xenophobic.

Actually, Nationalism is by definition Xenophobic. Thats the difference between Patriotism and Nationalism. A nation is the natural state of the human society evolution. It is a natural construct through centuries and history, but it has no objetive, it is just what it is.
Nationalism takes that natural construction of human nature and put it with a "divine" objetive. As if a nation had an ultimate goal.

Basically, Patriotism is about liking your nation for his goods things and wanting the best to your people because they are your people, but with no further connotations. Nationalism is seeing your nation as superior to the others around you, With a goal that must be met.

 jasper76 wrote:
You said she claims "immigrants are here to change the wallpaper and brutalize your wife" when she was clearly taking about illegal immigrants, and there is a distinction to be made there because illegal immigrants, although many are perfectly decent people, are by definition criminals.

Ah, so because the immigrants are criminals through their visa status, then it is reasonable to claim they're here to brutalise our wives. Uh huh. Yep. This is an argument that someone has tried to make.

I'm open to he possibility that she may indeed be racist or xenophobic

You just tried to claim that because someone is a criminal due to their visa status, then it is reasonably to say they are here to brutalise our wives. I'm gonna suggest that maybe you're not quite as open as you claim.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jasper76 wrote:
If anyone can produce evidence of Le Pen's alleged racism and xenophobia from a reputable source, I'd be quite happy to consider it.

One of the issues is that Le Pen has learned how to play the modern racism game, unlike her father. This new version of the game is very strange, because it accepts that everyone knows racism is bad, but no-one agrees on what it is, and no-one thinks they personally could possibly be racist.

So the way to play the game is to stoke racist fears, while never saying any specific word or sentence that clearly shows what you're doing. A Republican strategist and architect of the Southern Strategy used by that party explained it years ago;
"You start out in 1954 saying "[see forum posting rules], [see forum posting rules], [see forum posting rules]." By 1968 that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now that you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is that blacks get hurt more than whites."

That's the game Le Pen has learned. You never, ever say 'France should be white'. Instead you just show a great deal of concern for French citizens, whenever immigrants are mentioned. You don't say every muslim is a wife abusing turd, but whenever Islam is mentioned you start talking about how concerned you are about the rights of women. You don't say that all immigrants are criminals, but wen a small group of immigrants in Germany commit a terrible string of sex crimes, you start talking about a need to review border controls and immigration.

So yeah, you're not going to get a smoking gun quote from Le Pen where she clearly says something that's pure racism. If that's your requirement then it won't be met, and you can conclude her race politics are just fine. But you'd just be closing your eyes to game played by the modern generation of racists.

 jasper76 wrote:

 Spinner wrote:
There's been evidence. You just don't like it.

Yep. Someone's going to have to produce a source more reliable than selectively edited clips from a partisan comedy show in order for me to drop the gavel and condemn someone as a racist or xenophobe.

I'd suggest to you that if you are accepting Last Week Tonight with John Oliver as a sufficient source to prove a serious allegation, or even as a reliable source of any information at all, that your standards are much too low, and you are choosing to inform yourself via infotainment. I'm not willing to do that personally.

If anyone can produce evidence of Le Pen's alleged racism and xenophobia from a reputable source, I'd be quite happy to consider it. I am not close -minded to the possibility that she is a racist or xenophobe. Go ahead and provide a valid source, and if I agree with the accusing side here after reviewing it, I'll gladly say so. I don't like racism or xenophobia. I also don't like sketchy allegations of racism or xenophobia levelled against someone without credible evidence.

If you all keep throwing these terms around wily-nilly, no-one is going to believe any of it eventually. The Boy Who Cried Wolf is an instructive parable here.

Well, I mean, I do like John Oliver. He usually gets pretty in-depth in the issues he covers, instead of simply bashing people, and as far as I know he hasn't had issues with chopping up quotes to make it seem like someone was saying something they weren't. That hardly means that it's the only place I get the information from. How about the interview itself? Have you watched it? I know you said that the clips were 'taken out of context', but in what context does "I'm glad we don't hear from a religious minority" sound good, especially when you're discussing keeping them from practicing parts of their faith?

I've seen you've come up with a couple of potential justifications, but they seem pretty...thin.

There is only a tiny sliver of fringe Christians who want to impose Christianity as the law of the land.

Oh, boy, do we live in different places...

 Sarouan wrote:
It's more about adressing to a highly motivated voting base. Nationalism gives a strong base for their sympathizers; pride, belonging to a strong common history, great facilities to design a clear "opponent" to "fight/repel"...

Xenophobia with a fancier name indeed ^^.

 jasper76 wrote:
What an awesome society we are creating for ourselves, where we can brand anyone we don't like with any smear we like, and just move on with our lives to go find another sinner to brand with our Scarlet 'R'.

Why do you hate free speech so much?
Random accusations of being racist are a very very important part of free speech. You may not agree with them but you should fight for the right of people to make baseless accusation of racism. It is very important. For free speech.
Also you didn't answer to this. I somehow guess that it's not a question of you not having seen the right quote, but more a question of you denying that anything beside overt “This race is inferior to that race” is xenophobia…

Oh boy. I gave a lengthy response to all of your replies to me, but it was afterwards removed. I tried.

Best of luck to the French among you with your election!

Popping in because it has been mentioned briefly, any debate about US politics in this thread won't get it locked, no.

But the users who do drag it into here certainly won't be posting in the OT for a couple of weeks. Just to clear things up.

 jasper76 wrote:

 godardc wrote:
In France, some are even speaking about "fascism" about the FN.
And this week, a member of the Républicains, a man I never liked, took her defense, arguing that a legal, democratic, party, like the FN, is NOT fascist or nazi.
He even took the risk of being fired from his own party by voting for Le Pen (Henri Guaino IIRC).

The words Nazi, fascist, and racist are thrown around these days with such abandon that they are becoming meaningless, or else their meanings have been transformed to simply mean "somebody I don't agree with", which to me a sickening degradation of the English language.

One can excuse Americans because we don't tolerate no readin round these parts, but you would think Europeans would be far more familiar with the real meaning of these terms.

 feeder wrote:

 whembly wrote:
She even defenestrated her father from the FN in an effort to “un-demonize” the party.

I'm conflicted. On the one hand, I want to applaud the author for the use of such a fantastic word as defenestrated. On the other, it's such a clumsy attempt to shoehorn in the word, it appears to be very sesquipedalian writing.

Always remember that the Thirty Years War was sparked by the Defenestration of Prague.

I learned 'defenestrate' in The Collected Diaries of Idi Amin' in Punch about 40 years ago.

In fact, I just found it, in 'Canadian Capers' but can't possible link it, v v v non PC. Funny how things have changed. OT, sorry.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 feeder wrote:

 whembly wrote:
She even defenestrated her father from the FN in an effort to “un-demonize” the party.

I'm conflicted. On the one hand, I want to applaud the author for the use of such a fantastic word as defenestrated. On the other, it's such a clumsy attempt to shoehorn in the word, it appears to be very sesquipedalian writing.

Always remember that the Thirty Years War was sparked by the Defenestration of Prague.

That was good reading. Nothing like getting hurled out of your own window by an angry mob to ruin you day, or kick off a decades-long conflict.

I always thought that the "Defenstrator" made a great superhero

Calling her a racist, its not really hard to prove.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-22739736

The French authorities opened a case against Mrs Le Pen in 2011 after she likened the sight of Muslims praying in the streets to the Nazi occupation of France.

Of course we can go into denial about the French role in the Holocaust.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/09/marine-le-pen-denies-french-role-wartime-roundup-paris-jews

The French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has denied that the French state was responsible for the wartime roundup of Jews at a Paris cycling track who were then sent to Nazi death camps.

The former president Jacques Chirac and the current leader, François Hollande, have both apologised for the role French police played in the corralling of more than 13,000 Jews at the Vel d’Hiv cycling track, which was ordered by Nazi officers in 1942. But Le Pen told the LCI television channel on Sunday: “I don’t think France is responsible for the Vel d’Hiv.”

I honestly can't be bothered to go over French media reporting on the horrible things she says, because I can't be bothered wasting more of my time on something so obvious.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Calling her a racist, its not really hard to prove.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-22739736

The French authorities opened a case against Mrs Le Pen in 2011 after she likened the sight of Muslims praying in the streets to the Nazi occupation of France.

Opening an investigation of the regime's political opponent is not exactly evidence of malfeasance. I'll grant though thats prima facae evidence of the same stupid puffery we get a lot of now.

Of course we can go into denial about the French role in the Holocaust.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/09/marine-le-pen-denies-french-role-wartime-roundup-paris-jews

The French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has denied that the French state was responsible for the wartime roundup of Jews at a Paris cycling track who were then sent to Nazi death camps.

The former president Jacques Chirac and the current leader, François Hollande, have both apologised for the role French police played in the corralling of more than 13,000 Jews at the Vel d’Hiv cycling track, which was ordered by Nazi officers in 1942. But Le Pen told the LCI television channel on Sunday: “I don’t think France is responsible for the Vel d’Hiv.”

That doesn't sound like she is denying it, more denying the responsibility. Obviously the actual french used may be different then this translation and more condemning.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Calling her a racist, its not really hard to prove.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-22739736

The French authorities opened a case against Mrs Le Pen in 2011 after she likened the sight of Muslims praying in the streets to the Nazi occupation of France.

Opening an investigation of the regime's political opponent is not exactly evidence of malfeasance. I'll grant though thats prima facae evidence of the same stupid puffery we get a lot of now.

Regime's political opponent? That's a bit excessive Fraz, she knew what she said was already against the law and only said it because she would be immune from prosecution under that law because of her position as a member of the European Parliament. This is not a witch hunt, this is hate speech pure and simple in almost every country in Europe. Our freedom of speech laws are not as lenient as those in the US and Le Pen was definitely aware of that.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Calling her a racist, its not really hard to prove.
Of course we can go into denial about the French role in the Holocaust.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/09/marine-le-pen-denies-french-role-wartime-roundup-paris-jews

The French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has denied that the French state was responsible for the wartime roundup of Jews at a Paris cycling track who were then sent to Nazi death camps.

The former president Jacques Chirac and the current leader, François Hollande, have both apologised for the role French police played in the corralling of more than 13,000 Jews at the Vel d’Hiv cycling track, which was ordered by Nazi officers in 1942. But Le Pen told the LCI television channel on Sunday: “I don’t think France is responsible for the Vel d’Hiv.”

That doesn't sound like she is denying it, more denying the responsibility. Obviously the actual french used may be different then this translation and more condemning.

She's denying any involvement of France because it was individuals helping them. This is seen to be incredibly distasteful however as the French police were an extension of the French government cooperating with the Germans. This would be like Germany denying any responsibility for the Holocaust because that was a different Germany under different people. I mean you can technically be correct, but its still a vile thing to say.

Its not just that alone, its also to be viewed in light of the horrible things her father said about the Holocaust and measuring to what extent she might privately share that opinion.

 Frazzled wrote:
Opening an investigation of the regime's political opponent is not exactly evidence of malfeasance. I'll grant though thats prima facae evidence of the same stupid puffery we get a lot of now.

It isn't the investigation, it's what she said. She said the sight of a person practicing a religion different to her own is the same as being occupied by a hostile foreign government.

That doesn't sound like she is denying it, more denying the responsibility.

That's right, she's denying responsibility. This matters because she's denying the existence of racism in her own country's past, and the toll in lives that racism caused.


As I said above, none of this is a smoking gun. Le Pen has learned that these days you can't just come out and say "I hate/fear people who don't have my background and skin colour." Instead you have to play it smart, touch on insecurities and link those to foreigners in a sinister way. This works because just about everyone agrees racism is a terrible thing, but at the time we have no agreed definition of what racism is, except that most people earnestly believe they personally can't possibly be racist.

Thing is, everyone does this to an extent. We are all a little bit racist, as the song goes. It'd be nice if we could all address this and work to get better. The difference is that Le Pen and people like her do this kind of thing all the time, and without it their political platform stops making any sense at all. That's a pretty good sign that she is racist, or is at the least operating a racist political campaign.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Calling her a racist, its not really hard to prove.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-22739736

The French authorities opened a case against Mrs Le Pen in 2011 after she likened the sight of Muslims praying in the streets to the Nazi occupation of France.

Of course we can go into denial about the French role in the Holocaust.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/09/marine-le-pen-denies-french-role-wartime-roundup-paris-jews

The French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has denied that the French state was responsible for the wartime roundup of Jews at a Paris cycling track who were then sent to Nazi death camps.

The former president Jacques Chirac and the current leader, François Hollande, have both apologised for the role French police played in the corralling of more than 13,000 Jews at the Vel d’Hiv cycling track, which was ordered by Nazi officers in 1942. But Le Pen told the LCI television channel on Sunday: “I don’t think France is responsible for the Vel d’Hiv.”

I honestly can't be bothered to go over French media reporting on the horrible things she says, because I can't be bothered wasting more of my time on something so obvious.

It was ordered by nazis when France was occupied. What are they supposed to do? Say no and die. I mean yeah they could have but if you had a choice of complying and living and not and dying which choice would you make. Be honest it wouldn't be easy.

Sides the french which fought with the allies to retake their home and punish the other french who sided with the nazis is apparently not relevant. I'm not saying they didn't do bad things but they were forced to do them. Can't hate everybody in a country just because a powerful dictator forces all those in his/her nation to comply or to die. If they actually did it without coercion that's different though.

Isn't 'The Guardian' a very left wing news source anyway so wouldn't they try to smear her?

That said i will admit muslims praying in the streets isn't like the nazi occupation but i mean come on i've heard so much between the political parties these days with smearing others with grossly over-the-top accusations and comparisons that are unfair.

I'm not saying i know much about Le Pen or french politics and it's your country and your election so i will be more than happy allowing the french to vote however they please just as the british did with brexit. I just wish i was allowed to do the same.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
It was ordered by nazis when France was occupied. What are they supposed to do? Say no and die. I mean yeah they could have but if you had a choice of complying and living and not and dying which choice would you make. Be honest it wouldn't be easy.

Besides resisting, they could also pretend to comply and then just do a really crappy job. That option is not without peril, but it's something plenty of press-ganged officials in Nazi occupied territory did.

I agree it is a difficult question, but ask yourself how many people would have answered that question differently if the people they were being required to round up were White, French Catholics much like themselves. That's the issue, how much people are willing to go along with it, or passively accept it, when the terror is happening to the 'other'.

Can't hate everybody in a country just because a powerful dictator forces all those in his/her nation to comply or to die. If they actually did it without coercion that's different though.

It isn't about what they were forced in to. Nor is it about hating everyone in a country that was occupied by a tyrant. It's nowhere near that simple. It is about recognizing that France was not the pure victim that national myths often make it out to be. It is about recognising that France also has a legacy with anti-semitism, like most of Europe.

Isn't 'The Guardian' a very left wing news source anyway so wouldn't they try to smear her?

The Guardian is left wing, but it has journalistic standards. There's a few opinion writers that should be avoided, but that's true everywhere. Thing is, people need to stop confusing 'has a point of view' with 'makes stuff up'. This is one of the biggest issues with media today - readers either demand milquetoast reporting that's so neutral it won't even dare suggest that someone is lying no matter how blatant, or they accept bias but then think that's any and all bias is equal and that it's just about finding something that suits your POV with no regard for accuracy or decent reasoning.

I'm not saying i know much about Le Pen or french politics and it's your country and your election so i will be more than happy allowing the french to vote however they please just as the british did with brexit.

The French are being allowed to vote. People are just pointing out that one of the candidates is pretty clearly racist. If French voters want a racist, or like enough of her other policies that they are happy to look past the racism, then that's how they'll vote.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Calling her a racist, its not really hard to prove.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-22739736

The French authorities opened a case against Mrs Le Pen in 2011 after she likened the sight of Muslims praying in the streets to the Nazi occupation of France.

Of course we can go into denial about the French role in the Holocaust.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/09/marine-le-pen-denies-french-role-wartime-roundup-paris-jews

The French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has denied that the French state was responsible for the wartime roundup of Jews at a Paris cycling track who were then sent to Nazi death camps.

The former president Jacques Chirac and the current leader, François Hollande, have both apologised for the role French police played in the corralling of more than 13,000 Jews at the Vel d’Hiv cycling track, which was ordered by Nazi officers in 1942. But Le Pen told the LCI television channel on Sunday: “I don’t think France is responsible for the Vel d’Hiv.”

I honestly can't be bothered to go over French media reporting on the horrible things she says, because I can't be bothered wasting more of my time on something so obvious.

It was ordered by nazis when France was occupied. What are they supposed to do? Say no and die. I mean yeah they could have but if you had a choice of complying and living and not and dying which choice would you make. Be honest it wouldn't be easy.

Sides the french which fought with the allies to retake their home and punish the other french who sided with the nazis is apparently not relevant. I'm not saying they didn't do bad things but they were forced to do them. Can't hate everybody in a country just because a powerful dictator forces all those in his/her nation to comply or to die. If they actually did it without coercion that's different though.

Isn't 'The Guardian' a very left wing news source anyway so wouldn't they try to smear her?

That said i will admit muslims praying in the streets isn't like the nazi occupation but i mean come on i've heard so much between the political parties these days with smearing others with grossly over-the-top accusations and comparisons that are unfair.

I'm not saying i know much about Le Pen or french politics and it's your country and your election so i will be more than happy allowing the french to vote however they please just as the british did with brexit. I just wish i was allowed to do the same.

That's forgetting and forgiving France's very intolerant past. The French didn't allow the Inquisition in, but that was a purely political move. Instead, every level of society took it upon itself to ostracize jews and huguenots, and for a long time. 250 years ago, it was generally acceptable to decapitate young atheists and burn their corpses at the stakes. Dreyfus, Callas, Sirven, La Barre, Lally- Tollendal are all forever the names of stains of gross injustice which the French must accept to bear. Vel d'Hiv is simply worst because it is more recent.

There is gross hypocrisy in a nationalism based on the spirit of Enlightened justice and fraternity, but that requires at the same time to deny responsibility for the injustices of your ancestors.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

It was ordered by nazis when France was occupied. What are they supposed to do? Say no and die. I mean yeah they could have but if you had a choice of complying and living and not and dying which choice would you make. Be honest it wouldn't be easy.

Er... Nope.
That's why it's so infamous, and such a stain on our history.
The Vichy governement did this on its own, without having been ordered to, to please its "ally".
Furthermore, many countries in Europe, even Axis-aligned ones, passively, or actively resisted such orders.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Calling her a racist, its not really hard to prove.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-22739736

The French authorities opened a case against Mrs Le Pen in 2011 after she likened the sight of Muslims praying in the streets to the Nazi occupation of France.

Of course we can go into denial about the French role in the Holocaust.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/09/marine-le-pen-denies-french-role-wartime-roundup-paris-jews

The French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has denied that the French state was responsible for the wartime roundup of Jews at a Paris cycling track who were then sent to Nazi death camps.

The former president Jacques Chirac and the current leader, François Hollande, have both apologised for the role French police played in the corralling of more than 13,000 Jews at the Vel d’Hiv cycling track, which was ordered by Nazi officers in 1942. But Le Pen told the LCI television channel on Sunday: “I don’t think France is responsible for the Vel d’Hiv.”

I honestly can't be bothered to go over French media reporting on the horrible things she says, because I can't be bothered wasting more of my time on something so obvious.

It was ordered by nazis when France was occupied. What are they supposed to do? Say no and die. I mean yeah they could have but if you had a choice of complying and living and not and dying which choice would you make. Be honest it wouldn't be easy.

Sides the french which fought with the allies to retake their home and punish the other french who sided with the nazis is apparently not relevant. I'm not saying they didn't do bad things but they were forced to do them. Can't hate everybody in a country just because a powerful dictator forces all those in his/her nation to comply or to die. If they actually did it without coercion that's different though.

Isn't 'The Guardian' a very left wing news source anyway so wouldn't they try to smear her?

That said i will admit muslims praying in the streets isn't like the nazi occupation but i mean come on i've heard so much between the political parties these days with smearing others with grossly over-the-top accusations and comparisons that are unfair.

I'm not saying i know much about Le Pen or french politics and it's your country and your election so i will be more than happy allowing the french to vote however they please just as the british did with brexit. I just wish i was allowed to do the same.

Saying no and die is a bit over-exaggerated. The amount of Jews caught in European countries frequently depends on the amount of collaboration. Overall France did ok on the part of dragging their heels on this (as Sebster points out as an option), but they still need to take responsibility for their officers rounding up these people. Certainly people in Western Europe would not have been pressured too much as there could always be others found to participate in these roundups. The first years up until 1942-3 German occupation was not as harsh yet on the population. The really brutal repression occurs once they start losing and become much more brutal in things like labour conscription.

The Free French argument has been made before, but the overwhelming majority of the state apparatus (aka France) stayed in France and helped the Germans govern the country. They could not have done it without the French helping them. There is the running joke in a lot of European countries that when you ask older people what they did during the war they will say they were all in the resistance. But the truth is most people just put up and shut up and worked with the Germans to continue their normal lives. I'm certainly not blaming modern day French. I'm saying that the state of France should feel responsible for what its representatives did and that is the point which she doesn't agree to.

Look, the Guardian being left wing or not has nothing to do with what I quoted. This is just something she said and I don't need you to focus on any spin on what she said, just her words, which are bad enough.

Again the Nazi comment against Muslims comes from herself, she actually said that. This is not some smear campaign, those are her own words!

Also I'm not French, I'm Dutch so our Le Pen would be Wilders (equally racist in a different way). Whether we like it or not we all live in democracies and that means people like Le Pen can run for election. But being a democracy doesn't mean we have to pretend shes not a terrible human being.

France should have learned from Spain. We kick out our jews in 1492, when it was cool, and so far in history that no one will use it today as a political weapon

 HudsonD wrote:

Furthermore, many countries in Europe, even Axis-aligned ones, passively, or actively resisted such orders.

History Trivia:

The Japanese Ambassador to Lithuania Chiune Sugihara was declared by Israel to be one of the Righteous Among Nations in 1985. He received this honor because from 1940 until he was forcibly removed from the country, he issued thousands of travel visas to European Jews, and arranged for the USSR (who was at war with Japan at this time) to allow the holders of these visas to reach Japanese territory via the -Trans-Siberia Railway. He continued to write visas up to the point he was on the train himself, recalled by his country for his actions, and threw them out the windows into a crowd of pleading refugees from across Eastern Europe desperately trying to flee the Soviets and the Nazis. Lithuania per capita had one of the highest Jewish populations in Europe. Thousands escaped because a Japanese Ambassador refused to do what his government told him to.

When a guy working for a country committing its own inhuman war crimes is doing the right thing, you kind of start running thin on excuses.

"They were ordered" is not and never will be an excuse for committing war crimes. Every single person who willingly went along with the holocaust is as complicit as Hitler himself. To even suggest that it is not an issue because they were "just following orders" is absolutely disgusting.

 LordofHats wrote:
History Trivia:

The Japanese Ambassador to Lithuania Chiune Sugihara was declared by Israel to be one of the Righteous Among Nations in 1985. He received this honor because from 1940 until he was forcibly removed from the country, he issued thousands of travel visas to European Jews, and arranged for the USSR (who was at war with Japan at this time) to allow the holders of these visas to reach Japanese territory via the -Trans-Siberia Railway. He continued to write visas up to the point he was on the train himself, recalled by his country for his actions, and threw them out the windows into a crowd of pleading refugees from across Eastern Europe desperately trying to flee the Soviets and the Nazis. Lithuania per capita had one of the highest Jewish populations in Europe. Thousands escaped because a Japanese Ambassador refused to do what his government told him to.

When a guy working for a country committing its own inhuman war crimes is doing the right thing, you kind of start running thin on excuses.

There's a museum in Austria commemorating the resistance against the Nazis, Archives to the Austrian Resistance. It was originally built in the 60s celebrating the figures who worked against the Nazis. But decades ago the museum changed its message, now they straight up say as you come in that there was little resistance, and most of it was ineffectual leaflet drops. They accept that while many Austrians weren't necessarily in favour of the atrocities of the Nazis, very few were actually hostile to the regime, and as a result the resistance was very small.

This doesn't mean everyone modern Austrian has to beg for forgiveness in their morning prayers or anything like that. But it is very important to be honest about the past, and admit how many people really were okay with scapegoating ethnic groups, or at least were okay with it enough that they didn't do anything about it. It's a big part of making sure nothing like it ever happens again.

Le Pen and people like her hate ideas like that and deny them, in large part because it shows how dangerous her racial undertones can be.

 sebster wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
History Trivia:

The Japanese Ambassador to Lithuania Chiune Sugihara was declared by Israel to be one of the Righteous Among Nations in 1985. He received this honor because from 1940 until he was forcibly removed from the country, he issued thousands of travel visas to European Jews, and arranged for the USSR (who was at war with Japan at this time) to allow the holders of these visas to reach Japanese territory via the -Trans-Siberia Railway. He continued to write visas up to the point he was on the train himself, recalled by his country for his actions, and threw them out the windows into a crowd of pleading refugees from across Eastern Europe desperately trying to flee the Soviets and the Nazis. Lithuania per capita had one of the highest Jewish populations in Europe. Thousands escaped because a Japanese Ambassador refused to do what his government told him to.

When a guy working for a country committing its own inhuman war crimes is doing the right thing, you kind of start running thin on excuses.

There's a museum in Austria commemorating the resistance against the Nazis, Archives to the Austrian Resistance. It was originally built in the 60s celebrating the figures who worked against the Nazis. But decades ago the museum changed its message, now they straight up say as you come in that there was little resistance, and most of it was ineffectual leaflet drops. They accept that while many Austrians weren't necessarily in favour of the atrocities of the Nazis, very few were actually hostile to the regime, and as a result the resistance was very small.

This doesn't mean everyone modern Austrian has to beg for forgiveness in their morning prayers or anything like that. But it is very important to be honest about the past, and admit how many people really were okay with scapegoating ethnic groups, or at least were okay with it enough that they didn't do anything about it. It's a big part of making sure nothing like it ever happens again.

Le Pen and people like her hate ideas like that and deny them, in large part because it shows how dangerous her racial undertones can be.

Actual Austrian history is still not prominently taught however. Austrians weren't really a victim of the Nazi regime as much as a willing partner. Austrians were considered German and the amount that served in the Wehrmacht, SS and just Nazi's organs isn't significantly different than Germans. That's the real trick Austria pulled, trying to pretend they were the first victims of Germany with the Anschluss, and succeeding to an extent.

 sebster wrote:
There's a museum in Austria commemorating the resistance against the Nazis, Archives to the Austrian Resistance. It was originally built in the 60s celebrating the figures who worked against the Nazis. But decades ago the museum changed its message, now they straight up say as you come in that there was little resistance, and most of it was ineffectual leaflet drops. They accept that while many Austrians weren't necessarily in favour of the atrocities of the Nazis, very few were actually hostile to the regime, and as a result the resistance was very small.

This doesn't mean everyone modern Austrian has to beg for forgiveness in their morning prayers or anything like that. But it is very important to be honest about the past, and admit how many people really were okay with scapegoating ethnic groups, or at least were okay with it enough that they didn't do anything about it. It's a big part of making sure nothing like it ever happens again.

Sounds like the excuses are thin to me

To be clear I'm not suggesting there was massive and widespread resistance of this type. While many diplomats are now famous for going out of their way, even defying their own countries, to help Jews flee Europe we're really talking about two to three dozen people in a community of thousands. To me the point is that just because some pedestrians walking around a dying girl didn't commit any crimes doesn't mean they weren't responsible on some level for their wilful inaction.* Wilful action in furtherance of immoral acts, is even worse. The buck of responsibility can be distributed by circumstance, but it is not so easily abdicated.