I am a fairly dedicated Francophile. But all countries have their nasty streaks; ours certainly has.
And as if it were not bad enough that middle-aged men prescribed exactly how much flesh women were allowed to show (these same seaside towns have had trouble before about bikinis that were considered too revealing), we now see men with guns using the full authority of the State to force women to undress.
If I were 15, 20 or 25 years younger, and this were done to a woman in my family, then I would be wrong to board the first vessel of any kind that was on the way to Raqqa, or to Google ways of taking more immediate action closer to home.
But that is what they are going to do.
Your mate George Galloway wants everybody in France to go down to the beach in a burkini.
ReplyDeleteDidn't banning Islamic dress for women used to be Ukip policy? Maybe it still is? The people criticising this on the right wing sites would cheer until they wet themselves if this was suggested by Nigel Farage or Donald Trump at least on of whom has suggested it in the past.
It did used to be UKIP policy, but who knows or cares whether it still is? It turns out that Carswell helped his former party to beat Farage, and that, while Farage will be in the room at Trump's rally in Mississippi, no one on Trump's staff has ever heard of him.
DeleteThe British would just never do something like this.
ReplyDeleteThe state telling people what to wear is very French.
As Orwell said, some things that are possible in one country are just not possible in another.
The June purges could never have happened in Britain was the example he gave.
A state ban on a certain style of dress is another.
Compulsory national ID cards, commonplace for centuries in France since Napoleon, also could never happen here.
Labour tried it but had to retreat.
The Tories tried it first. And they have never given up on the idea. In fact, it has "Theresa May" written all over it.
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