Word of the Day: «ultralaïcard» (bis)

[Again, a re-post, merely and purely to deprive the evil Web-bots of their landing-site, which now has been deleted.]

Headline in Le Figaro (Paris):

Le Pen prend la pose de «l'ultralaïcarde»

Marine Le Pen espère que la grande majorité des Français, devenus indifférents aux religions, ne lui tiendront pas rigueur de son idée d'interdir le voile ou la kippa dans la rue.

There is no word for this in English;  a good translation would be “supersecular”.   Even that will still not give the flavor, to Americans who have never lived with an established State religion.  

Marine Le Pen, who inherited the mantle of her father Jacques, is France’s most prominent …. what?  I was going to say “right-wing politician”, or perhaps ultraconservative, but again, in an American context, where those tendencies are associated largely with Christian evangelicals, her initiative will sound baffling.  For what she is proposing is to ban the wearing of a head-scarf or a yarmulke in the street.

Yes, you read that right.  Not making it up -- toleja, I’ve retired from satire, the world is just too weird.  A state ban on private citizens displaying religious symbols is the sort of bogeyman that keeps American conservatives up at night.

You picture the headlines:

Cops Nab Bar Mitzvah Boy

Bicycle chase through the crowded streets of Paris

In the context of Old World history, such a proposal is not as far-fetched as it sounds to us here.  Ataturk implimented much more drastic sumptuary laws when he took power in Turkey.

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Pour d’autres friandises

de la confiserie 

du docteur Justice,

consultez:

http://www.linguasacrapublishing.com/justice.html

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The readers’ comments upon this article  are not the sort of thing an American would expect;  I’ll quote a few of the most colorful.

La kippa est, malheureusement pour elle, le Cheval de Troie des communautaristes de toutes natures.

À choisir entre interdire la kippa et accepter les diverses sortes de cagoules, le choix est malheureusement clair:

Il faut interdire la kippa.

Ce serait d'ailleurs une interdiction toute provisoire:

La disparition de ce Cheval de Troie priverait de carburant une grande partie des jusqu'au-boutistes musulmans.

Ils se retrouveraient en slip, ou plutôt: en burkini.

--

Marine Le Pen a tout à fait raison, au grand dam de notre journaliste qui cherche à mettre les propos de MLP à tort. Elle n'a jamais interdit le port de la soutane, ou De la croix (qui font parti de notre patrimoine et de nos coutumes). Ce qu'elle veut dire surtout c'est qu'il faut arrêter ce communautarisme du à l'immigration musulmane qui mine notre pays et qui met en grave danger notre façon de vivre. Ces minorités sont constamment en conflit avec notre république et essayent de nous imposer leurs Us et coutumes

--

Ma fille est religieuse et je trouverais inadmissible qu'elle soit obligée de retirer son voile.
Et je préfère voir une femme musulmane avec son voile, qu'une autre qui montre ses fesses ou exhibe sa poitrine comme une prostituée.
Marine a poussé son bouchon laïcard un peu loin...

--

Le FN, parti laïque et franc-mac, c'est le monde à l'envers…

I won’t undertake to translate these;  culturally, they are untranslatable.

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Si cela vous parle,

savourez la série noire

en argot authentique d’Amérique :

http://www.linguasacrapublishing.com/justiceexcerptdivorce.html

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In the Netherlands, the most prominent right-wing anti-immigrant hardliner is the flamboyant bouffant-bottle-blond  Geert Wilders, -- digne héritier of Pym Fortuyn (who, however,  as badge and emblem of one knows not what subvariety of paraphilia, sported a shaved pate) -- whose most recent proposal for keeping the riff-raff in their place  is to flood Holland’s streets with police-dogs, since Muslims don’t like them:

Les chiens et la circoncision

http://www.medi1.com/player/player.php?i=5265759

(Actually, I know what it is like  to live like that, since when I was there as a graduate student, Berkeley was flooded with dogs:  only, it was the riff-raff themselves that brought them.)

That radio essay, by journalist Fouad Laroui, also touches upon the bizarre anti-circumcision campaign in Germany, likewise directed against the Other.  It all reads very strangely for an American of my generation:  in my age-cohort, babies were routinely circumcised.   My best friend for a while was a Norwegian-born boy, who felt quite weird and isolated, since he didn’t look like anyone else in the showers.

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~ Commercial break ~

Relief for beleaguered Nook lovers!

http://murphybros.blogspot.com/p/read-murphy-on-your-nook.html

We now return you to your regularly scheduled essay.

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[Encouraging update!] Two weeks later, M. Laroui offers another radioessay:

http://www.medi1.com/player/player.php?i=5278867

Turns out the Dutch are not that crazy.

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For more wild ‘n’ wacky words, click here:  logophilia.

Pour davantage à propos de l’Hexagone, cliquez ici:  francophonie