NOTES TO PAGES 512–16ones. This bias on the part of the authorities is echoed in the media, they say, where every anti-
Semitic incident is highlighted and Islamophobic ones often underplayed.
- Total war as a modern strategy was invented by French generals in their conquest of
Algeria, and torture as a planned part of counterinsurgency warfare was perfected as an art by
French officers in Algeria. - Joan Wolf,Harnessing the Holocaust: The Politics of Memory in France(Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 2004), 23. - In this regard, see Henri Rousso,The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France since
1944 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991). - Consider the recent public statements of Nicolas Sarkozy, head of the right-of-center
Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP), who not only hopes to become President of the
Republic but also wants to strengthen ties with America and further Americanize French society.
His interventions in the matter of anti-Semitism are carefully calculated. Thus on April 28, 2004,
on his return from the United States, ‘‘where he had been received with great ceremony by the
influential American Jewish Committee (AJC), he accused the [previous, socialist] Jospin govern-
ment of giving France the reputation of being ‘an anti-Semitic country.’ This statement set off a
lively polemic with the left.’’ See ‘‘Sarkozy veut convertir les juifs a`sa religion e ́lyse ́enne,’’Libe ́ration,
December 14, 2004. - The phenomenon of men beating their female partners remains quite widespread in
France—see, e.g.: Catherine Simon, ‘‘Hommes violents et ferme ́s,’’Le Monde, March 24, 2004;
Ignacio Ramonet, ‘‘Violences maˆles,’’Le Monde diplomatique, June 2004; and Blandine Grosjean,
‘‘En France, des femmes tue ́es en silence,’’Libe ́ration, September 9, 2004. Ramonet’s survey of
violence by males toward female partners in Europe, written after the death of the actress Marie
Trintingant at the hands of her lover Bertrand Cantat, gives the startling figure of six women killed
every month in France alone. One wonders how many of them die because they reject the veil. - Islamic law treats men and women unequally, but it does give women rights. I say this
because it is a popular misconception in the West that ‘‘Islam’’ gives women no rights, as if they
were all equivalent to slaves. - E. Terray, ‘‘Headscarf Hysteria,’’ inNew Left Review, no. 26 (March/April 2004).
- See Michelle Perrot, ‘‘The Family Triumphant,’’ inA History of Private Life, vol. 4, ed. M.
Perrot (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990), 105. - At the end of June 2004, a large number of graves of colonial Muslim soldiers in a military
cemetery in Alsace were vandalized by neo-Nazis. Headstones were damaged and daubed with
swastikas. Reaction on the part of the government and major parties was swift and unequivocal.
The president, the prime minister and the interior minister condemned the acts strongly. But it is
not entirely clear what motivated them on this occasion, since there had been a stream of similar
acts against Muslims in France, even in Alsace itself, without such a quick response. Was it the
perception that these acts ‘‘are an insult to the memory of soldiers who gave their lives for our
fatherland’’ (Jacques Chirac)? Was it that ‘‘respect for the dead,whoeverthey may be,whatevertheir
religion, isa respect that is required of us all’’ (Jean-Pierre Raffarin)? (See ‘‘Profanation de 50 tombes
musulmanes en Alsace,’’Le Monde, June, 24, 2004; my emphasis.) The outrage expressed in such
cases by representatives of a rigorously secular state is intriguing. Positivism notwithstanding, the
dead are not just dead, and they are readily accorded a ‘‘respect’’ that is less easy to give to some of
the living. - ‘‘L’E ́tat a pour vocation de consolider les valeurs communes qui fondent le lien social dans
notre pays. Parmi ces valeurs, l’e ́galite ́entre l’homme et la femme, pour eˆtre une conqueˆte re ́cente,
n’en a pas moins pris une place importante dans notre droit. Elle est un e ́le ́ment du pacte re ́publi-
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