Mystery Vélib jail
In the heart of Paris, within sight of Notre Dame, on the banks of the Seine, I witnessed a shocking sight: Vélib rental bicycles, in a makeshift jail by the Seine.
Who built this prison? What is it for? When will the Vélibs be set free?
No one really knows how much counterfeiting or piracy actually occurs.
The U.S. General Accountability Office, the serious and non-partisan investigative arm of the Congress, released a report this month, Observations on Efforts to Quantify the Economic Effects of Counterfeit and Pirated Goods. Among the report’s findings:
The U.S. GAO report is clearly drafted and offers readers a multiple-page bibliography.
It isn’t the first report to point out that data on the impact of counterfeiting and piracy don’t exist.
In 2008, the OECD published a report, The Economic Impact of Counterfeiting and Piracy, which found that impact assessments “rely exclusively on fragmentary and anecdotal information; where data are lacking, unsubstantiated opinions are often treated as facts.”
I’ve written and taught about intellectual property. I wouldn’t want to understate its importance. But I’m wary of empirical arguments used to justify public policies, such as the misguided “Hadopi” law in France, where I live. Where counterfeiting –goods that bear an unauthorized mark– or piracy –copies made without a right holder’s consent– are concerned, the data simply do not exist that would show a net economic effect.
A student recommended a pair of good books I read recently: Marc Augé’s Un ethnologue dans le métro (published in 1986, translated into English as In the Metro) and Le métro revisité (published in 2008, not translated into English). I enjoyed both and recommend them.
This pair of slender works –each best read at one sitting, in a train or on a plane or over a tranquil weekend afternoon– lets the reader spend some time with a writer who is intelligent and insightful, even if not always easy to follow.
Marc Augé is an anthropologist and very much a French intellectual. He has a lot to say, about many things, including about the Paris metro, which he defines (my translation) as “togetherness without festival, and solitude without isolation”. Augé explains, lucidly, what he means by each of these words. But Augé does not write only, or even mostly, about the metro. He instead uses the metro “as a metaphor of individual and social life, with its directions, its life lines, its changes and connections.”
Augé’s writing turns, suddenly and unexpectedly, from fascinating musing on religious faith to analysis of how Paris has changed. Augé develops, then expands on, a typology of beggars. Other parentheticals seem never to close: Augé’s discussion of the work of anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss leads to a gloss on the latter’s examination of the work of another anthropologist, Marcel Mauss.
If you’re a French-reading English-speaker who liked the film “My Dinner With André”, then I expect that you’d enjoy reading Augé. Lots of big ideas and smart insights.
French government spokesman Luc Chatel is “profoundly shocked.”
Justice minister Michèle Alliot-Marie wanted to prosecute, but found that the law didn’t allow this; Alliot-Marie now is “looking into how we could legally fill this void.”
Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux described what had happened as “unacceptable outrage”, and added that “no one can accept that free expression be deviated without regard for the emblem of our country.”
Flag desecration has made news in France.
Here’s what happened. In Nice, on the French Riviera, a store (that sells books and recorded music, and that probably wanted to boost foot traffic) held a photo contest. A photo (showing a person wiping his behind with a French flag) won an award for political incorrectness. A newspaper reported on the prize. Some people got upset. State prosecutor Eric de Montgolfier dismissed a criminal complaint because the law has an exception for creative work.
I remember when flag burning had been a hot issue in American politics. Usually temperate voices went so far as to call for a constitutional amendment to criminalize the practice. Of course, flag burning had been a marginal practice then, and is basically unheard-of today.
I expect the same will happen in France, even if freedom of expression is less deeply rooted in France than in the USA.
What disappoints me in the French case is less the anger voiced by politicians than the artistic poverty of the incriminated photo.
From press reports, the photographer’s identity seems to be a closely guarded secret; I couldn’t find it. Who are we dealing with: an artist who wants to make a statement, or an adolescent out to get a rise from conventional elders?
Likewise, press reports that defended the photo claim, as I read them, that the work had been taken out of context. Isn’t that saying that the photo was only one entry in a freak-show lineup of images intended to shock only for the sake of shocking? If the work is intended to make a statement, why would context matter?
French president Nicolas Sarkozy opined last week that it would be advisable to legislate against wearing the burka in public.
Sarkozy refers to a loose-fitting garment, generally black, that covers the whole body, head, and face; and that is worn by some women who are Muslim. In France, sometimes it’s called a “burka” or “niqab”.
Late last week, the media gave attention to a case from the town of Nantes, in western France. A motorcycle policeman pulled over and fined a motorist who was wearing a burka. What was her offense? Violating an article of the French traffic code that requires drivers to have freedom of movement, and unobstructed visibility. It’s the same article that would prohibit me from driving in a Star Wars costume or from over-packing parcels on the back seat of my car. The violation carries a 22 euro fine; it’s no big deal.
For the motorist, however, it was a big deal. She retained counsel and met with the press. For the motorist, her case was clearly discriminatory.
No one seems to have suggested that the ticketing officer was acting on anyone’s orders. Whether to ticket this offense falls within the discretion that police on traffic duty exercise –well or poorly– every day.
So it was surprising that the policeman’s ultimate boss, interior minister Brice Hortefeux, made public late last week a letter he wrote to his colleague, immigration minister Eric Besson. Both men are no stranger to controversy, so it should surprise no one that the letter’s contents were incendiary: Hortefeux suggested that Besson look into stripping the burka-wearer’s husband of his French nationality.
More than a routine traffic offense motivated Hortefeux’s suggestion. The motorist’s husband, born in Algeria, reportedly is a polygamist, with at least four wives, and many children. Each of the wives receives an assistance payment for single mothers, a fraud reportedly orchestrated by the husband.
Is it possible, in France, to strip someone of his nationality? For recently naturalized citizens, yes, under a narrow set of circumstances (such as bearing arms against France in wartime). This happens rarely, and it’s not clear whether the husband’s case would qualify. For conservative party spokesman Frédéric Lefebvre, nationality-stripping “expresses the necessary firmness that our society has to demonstrate against those who despise our rules, deviate our procedures, and profit unspeakably from French hospitality.”
What worries me here is the emergence of a rabid clique among certain French conservatives, whose patriotism too often is expressed through extremism, over-the-top hysterics.
Unlike many Anglo-American commentators, who approach the French debate as a question of freedom of religion, I’m receptive to French appeals to “liberté, égalité, fraternité“. What troubles about the burka –more than that only women wear one– is that the covering enables one to go through the public square as a phantom or shadow, without being in public, of the public. The best example of this may be offered by the couple now at the center of controversy: although both husband and wife have held press conferences, neither has been identified by name. Isn’t it odd to speak in public without saying who you are? And when you argue that you have been wrongly accused or targeted for discrimination, would you not want to say publicly who you are?