U.S. Conservative Criticizes France for Fining Bardot
by Jim Brown
June 16, 2004
(AgapePress) - A conservative activist says a recent incident in France illustrates what can happen when a government takes a particular side on a social issue and punishes those who espouse the opposite viewpoint.
Recently the French government fined former film star and animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot $6,000 for comments she made in her book, Un cri dans le silence (A Cry in the Silence). According to a Reuters report, Bardot uses the book to lament the Islamization of France and what she describes as the dangerous underground "infiltration" of French society by Muslims.
The book is also critical of the homosexual rights movement, public schools that the author says have become "centers of depravity, and government policy that fails to restrain immigration and even gives aid to illegal aliens. The author claims the latest wave of immigrant population "resists adjusting" to French laws and customs and will inevitably "attempt to impose its own," proving ultimately disastrous for the nation.
These observations have initially garnered precious little appreciation. In addition to the heavy monetary fines imposed against her by the government, Bardot has had to suffer the slings and arrows of the liberal French media, with Le Monde newspaper labeling the former film star "An Enemy of Man" in its headline and publishing a searing review of her book, while the literary magazine Lire attacked it as having "racist and homophobic undertones." Meanwhile, two social activist groups initiated lawsuits against the author, charging her with "incitement to racial hatred."
Paul Weyrich, chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation, believes Bardot was fined by the French authorities mainly for not taking the government's official stance on the social issues she discusses in A Cry in the Silence. He speculates that if Bardot "had written a book in which she didn't in any way question the Islamists but said that they were adding a great deal to the French culture, and she'd praised the gays and lesbians and said that they ought to be allowed to do what they wanted to do, that she would not have been fined."
In fact, Weyrich says if Bardot had written a book praising Islam and supporting the homosexual agenda, she would not only not have been fined by the government, but "she would have been praised as a great literary artist. That's the problem."
The FCF spokesman says Bardot's situation is a perfect example of why it is "extremely dangerous" when the agencies of government start using their power to influence or censor public discourse. "If they are going to take action like that, then inevitably they are going to have to choose sides," he says, "and you don't want government choosing sides."
Weyrich notes that in America, there are all kinds of things published that he personally considers reprehensible. But nevertheless, he says, "we permit them to be published, and I'd be the last person to want to shut down even my worst enemy's Web site or publishing house."
Brigitte Bardot's A Cry in the Silence (Editions du Rocher, 2003) enjoyed a lengthy stay atop the French bestsellers lists in the months after its release and had sold more than 300,000 copies by the end of that year.
