Word: frenchness
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...rare for public prosecutors to appeal successful convictions in high-profile criminal cases. But that's exactly what French justice officials are now doing, arguing that sentences handed out to several members of a gang that tortured a young Jewish man to death on the outskirts of Paris were insufficient punishment for their barbarous anti-Semitic crime...
...Hundreds of people gathered outside France's Justice Ministry on the evening of July 13 to hail the decision by French authorities to re-try 14 of the 27 people convicted of the abduction and brutal 2006 murder of cell-phone salesman Ilan Halimi. Though the verdict announced on July 10 handed out stiff sentences to the leaders of the gang, Halimi's family, supporters and Jewish groups across the nation were outraged that 14 defendants got lighter punishments than prosecutors had requested. In response, Justice Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie announced Monday evening that she'd ordered prosecutors...
...Over the past two decades, farmers and fishermen have repeatedly staged violent action to denounce falling revenues - including several incidents in which French livestock farmers burned truckloads of live sheep coming in from Britain. Peeved farmers in the provinces have also repeatedly dumped improbable volumes of animal merde in front of state buildings, and in 2000, environmental catastrophe was narrowly averted when industrial workers angry about a plant closure in northern France dumped sulphuric acid into a drainage system that feeds a major river. Not to be outdone, grape growers in southern France have even resorted to "wine terrorism...
...Groux, a specialist in French social and labor conflict for the National Center of Scientific Research, notes that while that kind of activity would bring about legal punishment and public denunciation elsewhere in the world, it's viewed with singular tolerance in France. That's due in part to lingering French admiration and respect for insurrectional and revolutionary movements, and a national inclination toward stroppiness. "French history is filled with examples of rebellion and insurrection sparked by injustice that, like the Revolution itself, involved excesses people tend to minimize as they approve the wider cause involved," notes Groux. "There...
...with New Fabris employees threatening violence of an unprecedented kind, the conservative government of President Nicolas Sarkozy may want to consider the consequences of giving in to demands this time. The French may love to see truly righteous indignation displayed, but feeding that kind of fury could lead to bigger explosions than anyone bargained...