Overseas Territories in the French Media

As this AFP article from 2015 shows, regular calls for a vegetarian option in French school dinners have long had the support of the government’s secularism watchdog as a workable solution to the pork-free controversy stoked by Nicolas Sarkozy.

Eugénie Bastié, reporting in leading right-wing newspaper Le Figaro, examines the controversial assertion made by would-be socialist presidential candidate, Vincent Peillon, that current mistreatment of Muslims in France, using secularism as a pretext, is similar to the persecution of Jews during the Nazi occupation.

Writing in Le Monde just before Christmas, French constitutional law expert, Didier Maus, explained the controversial ruling of the country’s top administrative court permitting the installation of Christian nativity scenes on the premises of ‘secular’ public institutions.

In this blog on the theme of French secularism, or laïcité, a group of Lille University masters students present a range of reports from the French media about issues related to the Republic's separation of religion from the state. Their English versions of the articles, complete with glossaries and notes, provide an insight into how the French press is treating this controversial subject.

Writing in the Huffington Post, a group of French senators from the centre-right UDI build a rhetorical case against what they consider the pointless and divisive plan, in the constitutional reform bill, to strip suspected terrorists of French nationality. Alongside the named authors, the article is also signed by two other UDI senators: Olivier Cadic and Anne-Catherine Loisier.

In an article from Libération that is openly critical of the state of emergency, Pierre Alonso summarises the guidelines proposed by French Ombudsman, or 'Defender of Rights', Jacques Toubon, which are designed to make the exercise of exceptional powers by the authorities a little more respectful.

Chloé Rochereuil, drawing on a recent Amnesty International report in an article for France 24, traces the extent of the proposed 'constitutionalisation' of the State of Emergency in France, revealing that many of its supposedly exeptional measures could pass into permanent law if they are included in a bill amending the penal code which the government are preparing to set before parliament.

Editor of technological news website Next INpact, Marc Rees, reports that France has requested a derogation from the UN's International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Having already temporarily opted out of the European Convention on Human Rights, Rees shows that the French state is therefore currently contravening all of the international human rights agreements it has helped to draft.

The morning after the State of Emergency was imposed, French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve outlined its key aspects. This article from the website of national radio station France Info was one of the first to reveal details of the new security measures.

In this blog on the theme of the French State of Emergency, a group of Lille University masters students present a range of reports from the French media about the security measures introduced in the wake of last year's terrorist attacks. Their English versions of the articles, complete with glossaries and notes, provide an insight into how the French press is treating this controversial subject.