Talk:Status of religious freedom in France

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[edit] NPOV

An article in which support for a stance that France has religious freedom is stated as "declarations" and support for a stance that defines a lack of such freedom is stated as "allegations" deserves the NPOV tag. Maybe some of the writers can clean this up and NPOV the article.--ZappaZ 19:36, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

  • Some Christian leaders declared that freedom of religion was actually well protected in France and that cultural sensitivity and careful relationships with local authorities and other Christians can prevent most difficulties.
  • Members of some of the groups included in the list have alleged instances of intolerance due to the ensuing negative publicity.
"Allegations" are declarations that contain some form of accusation. That's exactly the case here, so I don't see what you disagree with. David.Monniaux 20:57, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
I changed it to "say" which is about as neutral as you can get. --Irmgard 21:28, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] JW

The reference by JW [1] is incorrect because the French state does not recognize any group as religion - none. Also there is no evidence in the report regarding the allegation and it is also not supported by Jehovah's_Witnesses_and_governments#France, therefore I remove it. --Irmgard 21:28, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I reinserted the link with explanations as to how it is very different to be recognized as a religion and as an association cultuelle. David.Monniaux 06:18, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
Perfectly fine with me, as it is - also your other improvements. It's beginning to look like an encyclopedia article. Irmgard 08:14, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

"Religious groups such as the Jehovah's Witnesses have complained that some of their local groups are granted tax exemptions, while some others were not. "

Also added some generic potential problems for American groups in France. --Irmgard 21:33, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ambiguous sentence

What does this sentence mean?

"The 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, of constitutional value, states:"

I understand the first part, but what I am having a problem with is the "of constitutional value" part. I see that the link goes to the constitution of France, but that still is confusing to me in this context. Does this mean that the 1789 declaration is part of the constitution? Pouvez-vous écrire cette phrase en français? Oder auf Deutsch? The English isn't making sense. --Easter Monkey 08:32, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Ok, a little crash course on French constitutional law. The preamble of the Constitution of France refers to the principles set in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. In 1971, the Constitutional Council of France ruled a law unconstitutional because, according to it, it infringed on one of the freedoms described in the Declaration. Since then, the Declaration, though it is not part of the Constitution, is assumed to have equal legal standing with respect to it. The term for those constitution principles is principes fondamentaux reconnus par les lois de la République. (Note that long before the 1971 decision, court recognized the principes généraux du droit that executive, administrative or judicial decisions could not violate; however, these were considered inferior to legislative decisions.) David.Monniaux 08:56, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
Aha, got it, I've changed the sentence in question to reflect what I think was the original intent. --Easter Monkey 09:13, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Apologetics?

This article reeks of apologetics for France's attitude to religion. The article, although well referenced, presents a one-sided view of the controversy. The editorialization, with subtle inuendos here and there, is IMO, quite revealing. If this country really respected freedom of religion would not need such article. --ZappaZ 03:22, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

If this country really respected freedom of religion would not need such article.
Zappaz, you are going too far, I'm afraid.
You were one of the people who initially wrote an accusatory, extremely one-sided article, with few factual references. I'm thinking, for instance, of quotes of people criticizing a law that they apparently hadn't read (including criticism of nonexistent articles in the law!), or of quotes from "expert groups" and "watchdog groups" that seem little more than a mailbox and a web site (which leads to some legitimate questioning whether some of the people who edited the article were not also running the same web site). Some people had to set the facts straight.
But, right, there is no need for such article, for the reason that you state: since France respects freedom of religion, there is no need to focus so much on allegations from special interest groups with specific agendas. In my humble opinion, this article should be the legal issue section of a wider article Religion in France, for instance. David.Monniaux 06:17, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Apart from that, I disagree with your claim that "limited" is POV. It is possible to get an objective, albeit somewhat imprecise, idea of how much discontent is generated by a measure by just counting the amount of op-ed pieces, editorials, petitions, and street protests generated by an event. For instance, Jean-Marie Le Pen appearing on the second round of the French presidential election, 2002 attracted huge discontent, this can be seen from the size of the protests. It is a fact that the security measures surrounding the comings of the Chinese president, as well as that of George W. Bush, were controversial, but that disagreement was limited (some editorials were written etc. but there were no mass protests). David.Monniaux 06:22, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] MILS text

Why is the text on MILS being deleted? --ZappaZ 17:07, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Which text do you mean? User:Irmgard removed a paragraph that had become duplicated. Is that it? David.Monniaux 18:11, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] ICFFS Conference

I am trying to get the transcripts of the ICFFS conference, "Politics and Religion in France and the United States" , that took place last week. http://www.fsu.edu/~icffs/event-politics-religion.html . I think that it will be interesting to read them and see if we can incorporate some of their findings. --ZappaZ 04:23, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

This conference looks interesting indeed! Please let me know if you find the transcripts. David.Monniaux 10:41, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom

There is a sourced copy of some of the conclusions of that commission. However, I'm somewhat ambivalent about whether it should be quoted so lengthily.

Presumably, the US government is not an unbiased expert on internal French political issues. This governmental commission has, after all, not a higher standing than MILS or MIVILUDES — in both cases, they are commissions of people appointed by political authorities to discuss some issues and propose solutions.

In addition, I find that this report somewhat lacks substance — that is, it makes vague, broad statements that are difficult to quantify. What does "atmosphere of hostility" exactly mean? There are also a number of highly conjectural statements: "the proposed restrictions may violate". [...]

On the other hand, most of the criticism about French policies regarding religions has come from the US. It is understandable that this should be reflected in the article. David.Monniaux 07:37, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

I have responded to you on my talk page. (I would prefer to keep the polemics out of article's talk pages. Let's focus on getting this article in good shape, presenting fairly all aspects of the controversy as per NPOV)
Regarding this text:
The Commission went on by giving advice to the French government that it should start to tackle immigration issues, which have been a topic of hot political debate for the past 25 years:
The Commission also stated that though increased immigration in France in recent years has created new challenges for the French government, including integration of these immigrants into French society as well as problems of public order, these challenges should be addressed directly[...]
I do not see what is the relevance to this article. You may consider starting an article on Immigration in France and explore the challenge facing France regarding its demographic problems in detail. I leave you the honors to delete that text from here. Thanks. --ZappaZ 19:02, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

The relevance is that the commission was discussing the French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools, and alleged that this law unduly infringed on fundamental rights by "inappropriately limiting the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and belief". Now, of course, immigration and integration have been major political issues in France for the past 25 years. A number of commissions, probably as respectable, if not more, than this US commission, have written reports on the issue. Regarding this law, the law was voted after something like one decade of hesitations, reports, legal analyses, hearings and the work of the Stasi Commission. Yet, we have some foreign "experts" who apparently claim they know better and urge the French government to solve the integration problem. We have a word for that kind of intervention, in French: yakafokon, which can be translated into English as "Why don't you just...".

Now, people that engage in yakofokon tend to lack credibility. This commission's report on France begins with vague statements and accusations, and finishes with yakafokon. Does this sound serious to you? David.Monniaux 20:11, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

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