An American friend of mine asked me what I thought of our newly elected president.This is the answer I wrote her.I thought it might be a good read for those of you who are interested in other things besides sex. 

Although I consider myself on the left of the political spectrum, I am very critical of the Left in general and the Socialist Party in particular. Having gradually lost the support of the French proletariat, they shifted towards ethnic, religious and sexual minorities, sacrificing some of the core values of our Republic. One of those core values is what we call in French “laicité”   which is a strict separation of religion from politics. This separation is regulated by a law dating from 1905 and is further upheld by our current Constitution which was drafted in 1958.

Historically, the Left in France has always been very critical of the intrusion of religion in public affairs, and of religious conservatism on issues such as the role of women in society, divorce, birth control, etc. At least, this was true as long as the religion in question was Catholicism. With Islam, their attitude changed dramatically. Since Muslims are a minority in France and since most of them are of foreign descent, any criticism of Islam is deemed racism by certain people and most of the Left has fallen for this trick. I call it a trick because it is pretty obvious to me that religion has nothing to do with race. If you are born Black, that’s what you will remain for the rest of your life. You may relax your hair and have some work done on your face to alter your African features, like Michael Jackson did, but your DNA stays the same. Conversely, someone who was raised a Muslim can later decide to forsake that religion. As a matter of fact, the most outspoken critics of Islam are often former Muslims (Salman Rushdie, Taslima Nasreen, Wafa Sultan…). Part of that, I guess, is because, in their case, the racism charge can hardly stick.

You’ll hear many people on the Left criticize the Pope for his stance on homosexuality, among other things. Islam holds much harsher views regarding this matter yet you won’t hear a peep out of those people about that. For instance, the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, a member of the Socialist Party, is gay and was assaulted for this very reason by a man of Algerian descent. He, of all people, should be aware of the threat Islam can pose to our way of life yet he never did anything to prevent some streets of our capital from being ILLEGALY blocked on Fridays for the Muslim prayer. On the other hand, when Riposte Laïque (an association that militates against the islamisation of French society) organized a conference, respecting all the rules regarding the right to assembly, he asked for this meeting to be forbidden. This is how far the French Left is ready to go to appease Muslims and garner support among them, and judging by the number of North-African flags floating in Paris to celebrate François Hollande’s victory, you can tell it worked very well. (Actually, it is no secret that many imams called upon French Muslims to vote for François Hollande)

This is just part of the grudges I hold against him and his ilk. I can further expand on the subject in a subsequent letter if you so wish. I probably made some mistakes in my little diatribe and I would be grateful if you could correct them.

Best regards and Happy 4th of July,

Cedric.