Doctrines now having opposite effect of the intended one.
France the country that invented diversity and multiculturalism is having to abandon them just because they constrain diversity and multiculturalism by forcing the nation into gender segregation.
The problem was thrust into embarrassing pubic prominence a year ago when police were required to guard an Arab potentate’s private beach on France’s Mediterranean coast, writes our European Correspondent.
Some of the police rostered onto the task were women. Such guardianship ran counter to the proclaimed religious beliefs of those using the private beach.
The female police were rostered off. The religious embarrassment of the would-be swimmers was as nothing compared to the public embarrassment in a country in which equality is one of the three tenets of its existence along with liberty and fraternity. The matter of the female police officers being ordered off the job they were pledged to do was allowed to slide into the background.
But it has sprung into life again and this time the issue of gender segregation has taken over a firmer place in the political agenda.
It is now over the seemingly minor detail of specially programmed swimming pool times required for wearers of full clothing or for the all-encompassing “burkini” as it has now been described.
The female angle to all this has long been swept under France’s exceptionally individualistic code known as the Rights of Man which had its beginnings in the French Revolution.
The reluctance to confront the irreconcilable demands of religious diversity and gender equality is very largely due to France’s immense swathe of political parties. A spectrum all the way from the very far right to a die-hard Communist Party. A concensus is virtually impossible amid such fractured political nominal idealism.
This proliferation of parties leads to what the French describe as “clientelism.” This describes the situation in which the Deputies (Members of Parliament) seek election through appealing to the widest possible number of sector and thus religious voter interests.
Clientelism is a code for France’s ruling Socialist Party. This pretty much resembles an Australasian version of a Labour Party being what the French describe as “version caviar” i.e. made up of political class elites from sedentary callings. It gathers strength though as it proceeds Leftward in its gauche de la gauche direction gathering along the way the real worker Left such as one finds in the old northern French rust belts.
The French concept of assimilation is based on the United States experience of the 19th century. Or it was until a few months ago.
The ability of France’s president Francois Hollande is drawing to a close to paper over all this with displays of awkward ecumenism. Instead of showing a votive similarity there is on display instead nowadays the full extent of the gulf between what the French call “confessions.” Especially in regard to gender equality.
From MSCNewswire's European correspondent, Wednesday 10 August 2016