Paul from Paris

Three noteworthy incidents have punctuated this summer in France:

• On a Sunday afternoon at the Parc Astérix theme park, a couple and two friends from Gisors were relaxing after a wedding, waiting in line for the Tonnère de Zeus ride. A group of youths from the Val d’Oise –boys and girls, minors and adults– chose not to wait in line. They cut in line. Protest from the group from Gisors was answered by blows, leading hospitalization. (Seven youths were subsequently convicted of assault.)
• On the A13 highway near Paris, two motorists have a fender-bender, a minor accident. Instead of filling out an accident report, as is customary, one of motorists telephones for “reinforcements” from the nearby town of Les Mureaux. A group soon arrives and beats to death the brother of the other motorist. (Seven people have been indicted for murder, battery, and other offenses.)
• In the city of Grenoble, a man robbed the casino at gunpoint. The robbery went badly; police responded, gunfire was exchanged, and the robber was fatally shot. The robber was acting alone (or as part of a small group), but his death set off large numbers of area youths, who went on a rioting spree. Over two days, they set ablaze dozens of cars and shot at police with firearms.

I see these incidents as something other than a decline in law and order, or of deterrence. What I think ties them together, and speaks most to these times in France, is a lack or absence of civic-mindedness or fraternité. French life traditionally has witnessed plenty of grumbling, but also of living-together, of getting-along. These incidents turn their back on this tradition, replacing words –not even heated words, not necessarily debate– with egregious violence.

Banishment and deportation were, for centuries, punishments under French law. They helped people (with French natives) French colonies in the Pacific, South America, and North Africa. A pair of some truly odd people might restore banishment and deportation to the French criminal code.

The story starts with a burka-wearing motorist in Nantes, pulled over for a routine traffic offense. Instead of apologizing to the police or paying a modest fine, the motorist chose to contest the limit on wearing a burka. This drew investigative curiosity from law enforcement.

Investigation led to the man in the motorist’s life, Lies Hebbadj, who has 4 wives and 15 children (two more are expected soon). Hebbadj is charged with “instigating” welfare fraud. According to prosecutors, over three years, Hebbadj and his large household received € 175,000 in welfare payments; had all family members lived under the same roof, the amount would have been € 88,000. (For clarity: some payments are based solely on parenthood, without regard to revenue.) For the prosecutors, Hebbadj’s conduct is particularly culpable because he “knowingly” decided not to acknowledge paternity of four children. (For clarity: “isolated”, single parents are entitled to more assistance than couples.)

For interior minister Brice Hortfeux, Hebbadj’s possible conviction is not enough. Hortefeux, one of the oddest characters in the conservative government and freshly convicted of racial insult (injure raciale, a conviction which Hortefeux reportedly will appeal), wants to mete out special punishment.

Hortfeux’s first line of attack was polygamy. Based on the facts of the case, this seemed simple enough. The law, however, prohibits bigamy: a married person who would contract a second marriage (like a homeowner with mortgage might contract a second mortgage). Polygamous cohabitation apparently is not prohibited under French law today.

Frustrated and mad as a hornet, this led Hortfeux to his second line of attack: banishment. For Hortefeux, “When a foreigner gains [French] citizenship thanks to marrying a French woman, and then, in the following years, lives in de facto polygamy, abusing the welfare system, is it normal that he keep French citizenship? My answer is no.” Hortefeux wants to strip Hebbadj of French citizenship, then deport him.

Since when has banishment been a punishment in France? Believe it or not, for hundreds of years. Banishment and deportation (and related concepts, like “civil death”) had a long history in French law, starting in the Renaissance and ending ultimately only with de Gaulle. They were especially serious forms of punishent, on par with execution. They were used, from the revolution of 1789 through the Paris commune in the 1870s, especially for political offenses. A special punishment was enacted for Dreyfus in 1895; one would hop this would give pause to Hortefeux.

A post-script. A big part of the Hebbadj controversy has not been reported or discussed. In addition to welfare fraud, Hebbadj is also charged with serious criminal offenses stemming from employment, from 2007 through 2010, of foreign students or undocumented workers. Apart from working conditions with prosecutors described as particularly deplorable, Hebbadj apparently paid his employees much less than the minimum wage. If the facts are as alleged, the case illustrates the plight of transient or undocumented workers who don’t report abuse, whether from ignorance or fear of attracting unwanted attention from authorities. I think it’s sad that the case has not received more attention.

Another post-script. I can’t help but wonder whether politics fuels Hortefeux’s peculiar interest in Hebbadj’s fate. Does Hortefeux harbor revenge fantasies against François Mitterrand, the twice-elected French president who for decades lived with two women, one his wife, the other his concubine?

News stories this week reminded me how differently France and the United States can answer important questions, such as: why does society put people behind bars?

In the United States, the US Supreme Court ruled that Supreme Court ruled that minors may not be sentenced to life in prison, without the possibility of parole, for crimes in which no one is killed. In the case before the Court, Terrance Graham, a Florida resident now age 22, was involved in armed robberies when he was a minor. There are about 100 inmates in Graham’s position in the United States. As I read its opinion, the Court is prepared to accept that inmates serve a life term for non-homicide felonies committed while minors, on the condition that there exist a real procedural mechanism whereby an inmate can at least be considered for release. As I read its opinion, the Court accepts that inmates serve a life term, without possibility of parole, for homicides committed while minors. There are about 2,000 such inmates in the United States today.

In France, Véronique Courjault, age 42, was released from prison and returned home. Courjault had been sentenced, in June 2009, to eight years’ imprisonment for triple infanticide. As Courjault had been subject to pretrial detention, a common practice in France, she served in total about half of her sentence. Courjault’s case drew much attention, for two reasons. First, the facts were especially shocking. Her husband, Jean-Louis, discovered two frozen, dead babies in the family freezer, setting in motion a chain of events that led ultimately to Courjault’s confession to infanticide in 2002 and 2003, and admission of a third infanticide in 1999, in which she had disposed of the body by burning it in the family fireplace. Second, Courjault’s case brought attention to pregnancy denial, a disorder where a woman believes and acts as though she is not pregnant, even though she is. Denial differs from concealment. At least 1,000 French women reportedly manifest pregnancy denial every year; many are already mothers and lead stable, ordinary lives. As I understand its decision, the French court had not sentenced Courjault to a longer term because premeditation had not been proven, but found her culpable of infanticide, notwithstanding evidence on pregnancy denial.

Loïc Sécher, an out-of-work agricultural laborer, was tried and convicted in 2003 of raping an adolescent girl in 2000 in La Chapelle Saint-Sauveur, a town in the Loire Atlantique (the area of France where the Loire spills into the Atlantic Ocean). Sécher was sentenced to 16 years imprisonment for this grave offense.

On 7 April 2007, Sécher’s victim retracted. She told her lawyer that Sécher was innocent and that she could no longer bear the thought that he was imprisoned. Sécher’s lawyer informed the authorities of the retraction.

On 13 April 2010, the Court of Revision (Cour de révision), a panel of the Cour de Cassation, the highest judicial court in France, annulled the verdict entered against Sécher.

As a matter of policy and the sort of society in which I’d like to live, I’m profoundly disturbed by these developments. Here’s why:

• The decision and its media coverage reinforce suspicion that women fabricate rape charges. (A challenging variant of the problem is set out in Genesis chapter 39, involving charges brought against Joseph by Potiphar’s wife.)
• French convicts serving long prison terms mostly have been convicted of murder or rape. Given the gravity of these offenses, few would contest the justice of lengthy incarceration. But if retraction (by the victim, by witnesses) can cause a conviction to be vacated, isn’t there a risk that witnesses will be pressured to retract? And isn’t this risk of pressuring greatest for those whose testimony leads to the longest prison sentences, in other words those most dangerous to society? Doesn’t retraction present dangers long after the criminal has been convicted and exhausted all appeals?
• Sécher will be put on trial, again. In his case, this makes no sense: his conviction reportedly hinged on the testimony of his putative victim. Without her accusation, there really is no case against Sécher. There is no new evidence. And if it been collected, would forensic evidence have been stored ten years after the fact and seven years after conviction? Even if evidence had been collected and conserved, could a prosecutor ethically make a case against Sécher today?
• Instead of vacating a sentence –in other words, recognizing that a court decided wrongly– wouldn’t it be preferable for Sécher to be pardoned? Or, failing that, for his sentence to be commuted? Grave crimes are the only preserve, in France, of trial by jury. I’m uncomfortable with the prospect, years after a verdict was reached, and outside the channel of an appeal (in other words, the usual means for correcting error), of judges countering a jury verdict, because doing so eats away at the perceived ability of a jury to decide rightly.
• What is the statute of limitations for perjury, and will the accuser now be tried for false statements she made (while a minor)? I would argue that, where the proper administration of justice is concerned, it is more important to punish those who bear false witness than to exonerate those who have been wrongly convicted.
• In France today, a victim enjoys the status of a secular saint. The French justice system often seems to under-compensate victims, but it probably over-sympathizes with them. The Sécher case, I would argue, shows that a criminal defendant urgently needs defense counsel, especially when he is an unappealing, down-and-out suspect.

The postman brought a curious document in my mail.

It was from a company called Pages Jaunes 712 (in French “pages jaunes” means “yellow pages”).

It looked like an invoice. It mentioned (in boldface type) a total payable amount of €297.80, indicated (in ALL CAPS) instructions to make payment by check, together with a payment stub (much as you would receive from an electric or other utility), in a helpfully provided return envelope.

Did I send money? No.

I never contracted with Pages Jaunes 712. I’ve never contacted them; and before this mailing, they had never contacted me.

How did Pages Jaunes 712 choose me? I set up a company earlier this year, creating a public record that Pages Jaunes 712 consulted. (I’ve copied the mailing and attached it to this post, after redacting this information, less from privacy concerns than from unease about copycat mailers.)

What relation does Pages Jaunes 712 have with Pages Jaunes, the publicly traded company that publishes the yellow pages directory in France?

So far as I can tell, none whatsoever. The company that solicited payment asked that I send a check to a Paris address that acts as a domiciliary for many companies. It is not Paris-based, but registered in Nice, on the French Riviera. It’s actually called Webtel (although, like Pages Jaunes 712, this name may suggest connotations that are unreal), its registered offices are at 5 rue Victor Hugo in Menton (another domiciliary service), and its manager is Maximiliano Burgisi, at Via Giovanni XXIII N° 1 in Vallebona, an Italian town across the border from Nice (as reported in the company filing published in the 11 December 2009 edition of the Tribune Bulletin Côte d’Azur).

I’ve asked the authorities to look into the matter. From forums on the web, I do not seem to be alone. I’m still a bit surprised, because in this case, spam:

• was not web-based. It was physical, demonstrated sophisticated production values, and reached me by the postal service.
• was not sent from Nigeria or a Tijuana mail-order pharmacy. It instead came from a French company that sought a reply to a Paris address. Its authors strove to suggest legitimacy.