Le Havre and Greg Sheridan: wonder and wormholes

I saw a movie last night where the main character is one of the most reviled archetypes in Australia: a people smuggler. The film was Aki Kaurismaki’s Le Havre and the character was Marcel Marx, a Frenchman who aides an African boy on the run from immigration authorities.

Though the tone, characters and their dress suggest the film could be set 50 years ago, the subject matter and its undertones bring us straight in to the issues of the present. There is a newspaper report that suggests the missing boy might have links to Al Qaeda, which has no foundation. He stowed away with others in a container ship from Libreville, Gabon and is trying to get to London to be with his mother. The plan goes awry at Le Havre port and he is taken by Marx, a former writer and now shoe shiner. The boy, Idrissa, is no more a terrorist than Marx is a people smuggler. They are both adapting their lot to a broken world magically realised in Kaurismaki’s fond vision.

I was reminded of this in an article I read in yesterday’s Weekend Australian by the execrable Greg Sheridan who masquerades as the paper’s foreign correspondent. Sheridan brought his right-wing culture war world view to the mass killer Mohamed Merah in his article “We must avoid fatal folly that helped create Europe’s leaderless jihad".

Sheridan sees Merah’s murders as part of a giant French Muslim conspiracy, or as he quotes from Le Figaro (he was actually quoting a selected translation from Euro Topics) “the creation of a suburban counter-culture that is alienated from our country's legal basis.” Sheridan claims Merah was a terrorist on a different scale to fellow mass murderers Norwegian Anders Behring Brevik and Afghan killer Staff Sgt. Robert Bales (whom he carefully avoids naming). The reason? Merah’s actions are “part of a huge wave of anti-Semitic violence, virtually all of it originating in France's Muslim community.”

Sheridan doesn’t offer a shred of evidence to back this bold claim up. On the contrary, he admits “the vast majority of France's six million or so Muslims do not engage in anti-Semitic violence” and are law abiding. But the minority “attracted to a jihadist interpretation is disturbingly large.” How big exactly? We don’t know, Sheridan doesn’t offer any facts to back up his disturbances. Instead he rushes on towards a fait accompli discussion of Islam as anti-western religion.

Sheridan’s “leaderless jihad” is a variation on the “faceless men” beloved of those which to show conspirators acting with great intent when there is no evidence to support the suggestion. The fault of the jihad belongs to the civil libertarians for not allowing police to work out in advance Merah’s intentions from his friends or his internet behaviour. There follows some breathtaking conclusions. Merah was a fundamentalist ergo Africans have failed to integrate in Europe as have Pakistanis in the UK.

The lesson therefore for Australia, says Sheridan chutzpah intact, that Australia’s “legal and orderly” process (mandatory detention, temporary protection visas and off-shore processing) for accepting refugees should not be changed. The fear is the dismantling of Howard’s Pacific Solution is that “16,000 people have arrived in Australia in unlawful boats, the majority of them Muslim and from countries with strong traditions of Islamic extremism.” Sheridan doesn’t name those countries, Afghanistan and Iraq, because it would inconvenience his argument to remind his readers why those 16,000 are on the run: long wars in their country which Australia has been involved in.

As Kaurismaki and his honest and engaging characters in Le Havre remind us, refugees are not fundamentalists. They are people simply trying to find a better life in a more prosperous and peaceful country. Marcel Marx has cleaned enough shoes in his time not to forget this and he never for a moment questions Idrissa’s motives. Le Havre is magical realism but more grounded in the facts of human migration than Sheridan’s ponderous and sinister diatribe. If the Weekend Australian is serious about promoting public debate in this country then they should offer its opinion pages to those open up that debate not close it down in anachronistic ideological wormholes.

Dances with democracy: Tunisia at the crossroads

Tunisia’s leaders resist change. It has had only two leaders in the 55 years since independence (though two more in the last 12 days). Colonial master France not only left its language and its culture but it also imparted the doggedness of its political elites. It was a lesson well absorbed by Habib Bourguiba. Bourguiba spent 11 years in French and Nazi custody for sedition where he picked up western ways with power. The Rassemblement Constitutionel Démocratique party was the vehicle for Bourguiba to seize power in 1956. The RCD became synonymous with Tunisian politics and The Supreme Warrior was voted the honour of president for life in 1975. He lasted another 12 years. (photo of Tunisian protests courtesy AP)

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was Bourguiba’s Prime Minister and natural successor. Ben Ali had widespread experience in the military, politics and diplomatic service. With a sluggish economy and the support of the west he took control he used an 1987 medical report and Article 57 of the Tunisian constitution to show his boss should be removed on the grounds of “total incapacity”.

Ben Ali would prove just as tenacious in power as the man he replaced, with the added knowledge of knowing just how vulnerable life at the top could be. He kept Bourguiba under house arrest for the rest of his life and set about cementing his own reputation. He kept the ruling class of the RCD onside by keeping most of them in the powerful positions they had during the Bourguiba era. He won five elections, all of them rigged. After the Soviet era, the West was happy with Ben Ali because he was a strong and stable and secular ruler. Over time, Ben Ali was an elder statesman of the region. The US rewarded the Ben Ali’s regime with an estimated $350million in military aid between 1987 and 2009.

The Americans were not blind to Tunisia’s problems. As a Wikileaked cable said, Tunisia was a police state, with little freedom of expression or association, and serious human rights problems. “They tolerate no advice or criticism, whether domestic or international," the cable said. "Increasingly, they rely on the police for control and focus on preserving power. And, corruption in the inner circle is growing. Even average Tunisians are now keenly aware of it, and the chorus of complaints is rising.”

Despite knowing all this, the Obama administration continued to distribute largesse. As recently as last year the US sold Tunisia $282 million worth of 12 Sirkorsky military helicopters to Tunisia. Congress approved the deal on the grounds they would “enhance the modernisation of the Tunisian Air Force's overwater search and rescue capability and enable continued interoperability with US Armed Forces and other coalition partners in the region.” The sale would also improve “the security of a friendly country that has been and continues to be an important force for economic and military progress in North Africa.”

The sale of the helicopters showed the military progress. But it was harder to make the case for economic progress in Tunisia, particularly for the lower classes. There wasn't much progress in the life of 26-year-old Mohammed Bouazizi. Bouazizi had a computer science degree but sold fruit and vegetables without a licence in Sidi Bouzid because he could not find any other job. On 17 December, police confiscated his produce when he could not produce a permit. When he tried to snatch his apples back, the police officer slapped him in the face. Two other officers then beat him up. Bouazizi walked to the municipal building demanded his property, and was beaten again. Then he walked to the governor’s office, where he was refused an audience. In front of the governor’s gate he drenched himself in paint thinner and set himself alight. The burns covered 90 percent of his body. He died a painful death 18 days later in hospital.

Bouazizi had tapped into something in a repressed national psyche. People protested on the street in Sidi Bouzid where he was arrested. In a country where protesting is rare and the media is oppressed, the word was spread through amateur video which eventually made its way to Al Jazeera. A mass uprising was springing up from a groundswell of long-term grievances with the regime. Ben Ali knew the writing was on the wall and fled to Saudi Arabia on the 14th.

Within 24 hours his longtime ally and prime minister Mohamed Ghannouchi, assumed power. But the Constitutional Court ruled Fouad Mebazaa, the speaker, should be made president and given 60 days to organise new elections. Both men are heavily associated with the RCD and the protesters want the party removed from power, not just a new name at the top. Another Ghannouchi lies in the wings. Rachid Ghannouchi is the exiled head of Tunisia's Islamist party who plans to return to the country within weeks.

The likelihood of an Islamist Government if true democracy was restored is what scares the West the most. It also scares the other leaders in the Maghreb. The Algerian elite overturned the 1993 election when it seemed the Islamists were going to win at the ballot box and unleashed a civil war that killed 150,000 and goes on to this day. Other long-term leaders fear copycat immolation suicides such as the one in Mauretania. Egypt has also had copycat suicides and activists in Cairo using social networks are launching a "Day of Wrath" against Mubarak’s 30-year rule later today.

Next door in Libya Gaddafy is also worried. When he told Libyans in a broadcast “Tunisia lives in fear” he was really referring to himself. “Families could be raided and slaughtered in their bedrooms and the citizens in the street killed as if it was the Bolshevik or the American Revolution,” he railed. Gaddafy, in power for 40 years, has strong self interest at work but he does have a point. Nobody is sure what Tunisia’s troubles will lead to: a transition to multiparty democracy, an Islamist Government, a military coup or a prolonged period of turmoil.

Rachid Sfar, a former prime minister, outlined the problem in an editorial he wrote in La Presse yesterday. "We have to make the democratic process real and irreversible and at the same time guard against the violence and anarchy that threaten our country,” he said. Striking unionists have refused to recognise the new government because Mohamed Ghannouchi is there. A democratic vote will be held in six months but what if people suspicious of the West and the elites that serve it award it to the other Ghannouchi? The unions, and the left generally, should be careful about what they wish for.

France's war on Google hots up with new Internet advertising tax

The French Government has released a report that calls for a tax on online advertising revenue to fund subsidies for French culture. This would include subsidies for newspapers, art, music and other products struggling in the digital era. The media has dubbed it the “Google Tax” which is reasonable as the Silicon Valley search engine giant holds the dominant position for search in France. However, the report’s author says the plan would likely target other big players such as Microsoft and Yahoo (some English reports also say Facebook is included, but this is disputed by French media). (photo by mathias poujol rost)

The government commissioned the report into the wake of complaints from media companies that aggregators such as Google are getting a “free ride” on their content. The report called “creation and the Internet” was an outcome from Culture minister Frederic Mitterrand’s new baby called 'mission Zelnik'. The mission takes its name from Patrick Zelnik, CEO of independent music label Naïve, and other members include Jacques Toubon, former minister of culture and Guillaume Cerutti, CEO of Sotheby's France. While their report had 22 recommendations on such matters as increasing spending on digitising books, creating Internet portals to aggregate online content, cutting the tax for online cultural sales, and setting up bodies to ensure that artists are paid for work downloaded from the Web, it is the “Google Tax” that has hogged all the headlines.

Details are sketchy about how it will work but the idea is that France would place a tax of one or two percent on all online advertising revenue in order to raise 10 to 20 million euros. Silicon.fr (in French) wonders how online music sites would make the proposal work and says the Zelnik report proposes a move to collective management of music rights. It says the Society of Authors and Composers (SACEM) says the proposed solution only partially meets their requirements and says web2.0 services such as Youtube, Facebook and Myspace should also contribute to the scheme.

The idea has been rejected by the big internet firms. Critics say the tax would be difficult to implement and Google says it is not the right way forward as it could slow down innovation. Google claims their partnerships with publishers and content creators has distributed more than 4.2 billion euros worldwide last year. “The better way to support content creation is to find new business models that help consumers find great content and rewards artists and publishers for their work,” said Olivier Esper, senior policy manager for Google France.

The move is part of a growing French trend to shackle some of the more extreme elements of the Internet. In October France introduced legislation to cut Internet access from illegal downloaders. Under the law, a new agency will send out an e-mail warning to people found to be illegally downloading films or music. A written warning is sent for a second offense in six months and after a third offense, a judge can order a one-year Internet rights suspension or a fine. But while President Sarkozy was happy with the legislation, Reporters Without Borders called it "a serious blow to freedom of expression on the Internet."

Last month Sarkozy also took on Google over its plans to digitise the world's books. Portraying himself as a defender of French culture in the digital age, Sarkozy’s concern was that the project would “strip France of its heritage”. He has launched a counter-proposal for a French firm to scan the contents of the country’s libraries. Sarkozy’s call was echoed by Prime Minister Francois Fillon who said France would not accept another cultural industry being "threatened by looting."

It is easy to dismiss such tinkering like some do as French “cultural arrogance”. But France does have the right to take measures to ensure its vital and diverse culture is not reduced to an Anglophone add-on. Other countries are beginning to realise that the invisible hand of the US-dominated market does not necessarily lead to good outcomes and local culture is threatened by this as much as local economies. While Google’s ambitions are, in the main, admirable, France is right to hold up its hand and question its outcomes, if not its motives. If being digital means being democratic, then others should have a part to play in the brave new world, not to mention have access to Google’s enormous profits. If the levy puts an end to “enrichment without any limit or compensation”, it will be no bad thing.

Nicolas Baudin, navigator

Now that I’m at the end of a university semester, I can return to the simple delight of reading books for pleasure. I’ve just finished Klaus Toft’s The Navigators which is the story of the race which took place in Napoleonic times between British captain Matthew Flinders and his French counterpart Nicolas Baudin to find the fabled sea passage through the middle of what was then known as New Holland, but now rejoices in the name Flinders gave it: “Australia”.

The Danish born Toft originally produced the work as a documentary for the ABC. His brief was to celebrate Matthew Flinders on the occasion of the bicentennial of his voyage around Australia. But as Toft explained in the preface to the book that followed, to tell Flinders story without reference to Nicolas Baudin was like telling Napoleon’s story without mentioning Josephine. And as the book progresses, it becomes abundantly clear that the Dane’s sympathies lie even more with the phlegmatic French captain than it does with his more celebrated but temperamental English rival.

Nicolas Baudin’s problem was that he did not survive the voyage around Australia. He died of tuberculosis on the way home at the Ile de France (Mauritius) in 1803. The version of his history that survived was written by his subordinate officers. These were mostly royalists who despised the commoner that commanded their ship in the Southern Oceans for three years. The book of the voyage downplayed his role. After reading the official account of his journey, Napoleon said Baudin did well to die: “on his return I would have had him hanged”.

Toft’s book goes a long way to righting the wrongs about Nicolas Baudin. When he set sail on his scientific voyage to chart the coastline of what the French called Terres Australes in October 1800, he was at the height of his powers and commanded 185 sailors, 22 scientists, and two ships: Le Geographe and Le Naturaliste. Baudin was ordered to find out whether a vast strait existed which separated the two sides of the Australian continent. The journey also had a political point. Napoleon wanted a strategic counterpart to the recently established English colony at Port Jackson. If the strait existed, France could lay claim to the western portion. Meanwhile Madame Bonaparte asked Boudin to bring back live creatures for her private collection.

Baudin was following in the footsteps of four doomed French captains none of whom made it back to France alive from their voyages. St Allouarn claimed the western Terres for France in 1772 but died six months later. Around the same time Dufresne was the first white man to land at Terre de van Diemen (Tasmania) before he was killed and eaten by New Zealand Maoris. La Perouse famously landed in Port Jackson on the same day as the First Fleet before disappearing in the Pacific. And when Admiral Bruny d’Entrecasteaux went to find him and failed, he too died on the way home.

Undeterred by the misfortunes of his earlier comrades, Baudin set off in good heart. But his good mood didn’t last long. He was unable to secure adequate supplies in Tenerife and the diminished rations caused grumbles among the officers and scientists aboard. He lost further time in the Doldrums as the ship drifted for windless weeks at the mercy of the currents. Most of the men on board had never been at sea and blamed the captain for their predicament. Finally in February 1801, the ship rounded the Cape of Good Hope where the winds began to blow, if often from the wrong direction.

Baudin sailed on to the Ile de France. The locals were not happy to see him. They thought he had arrived to enforce the 1794 decree to emancipate French slaves. The local gentry relied on slavery to run the local economy. They refused to feed the sailors and actively encouraged desertion so they could control the two fine ships. Baudin borrowed 10,000 piastres so he could buy supplies from private merchants and set sail again eastward across the Indian Ocean.

In the autumn of 1801, Baudin arrived at the south-western coast of Terres Australes which had been charted by Allouarn. The following day he found a large bay uncharted on the maps and called it Geographe Bay in honour of his ship. Baudin led a party ashore where they met the Wardandi people before sailing on north to avoid coastal storms. According to his orders he was to head south towards Van Diemans Land and see if the fabled strait across Australia existed. But with winter approaching, he headed towards Timor with a view to returning in the spring. Baudin charted the Bonaparte Archipelago islands off the Kimberley before limping into the lonely Dutch outpost of Kupang in West Timor.

Baudin became seriously ill with fever in Timor and many of his crew expected him to die. But after 12 weeks he recovered and headed back south down the Western Australian coastline. By now Matthew Flinders was on his tail. Baudin had a nine month start on the Englishman but the various delays had allowed him to catch up. Flinders’ boat The Investigator also had a scientific motive and hit the coast barely ten nautical miles from where Baudin first sighted New Holland. But Flinders continued eastwards towards the fabled strait.

40 days after leaving Timor, Baudin was back at his survey starting point. His boat crew suffered badly from tropical fever and dysentery and 11 had died since leaving the Dutch colony. Nevertheless the voyage continued until he reached Tasmania’s D’Entrecasteaux Channel. Here they saw no British but did meet friendly Nuenonne natives. One of the crew challenged a Nuenonne to a wrestling contest which he won. But the defeated local threw a spear at the Frenchman in revenge causing a minor injury. Baudin insisted there be no retaliation. His view about indigenous people was they should “observe [them] without judgement”.

After five weeks on Bruny Island observing local customs, they set sail up the eastern seaboard of Tasmania and into a body of water his English charts called “Bass’s Strait”. Heading back towards Southern Australia, he was greeted by an amazing sight: a ship which ran up the English flag. In command of the English vessel, Matthew Flinders was equally shocked but recovered his composure to board the French vessel. The two captains met formally on 8 April 1802 as representatives of nations at war. They compared charts. Flinders told Baudin he had discovered Port Phillip Bay and Western Port, while Baudin spoke about their stay in Terre de Van Diemen. Flinders reveal he had charted the Bight and discovered there was no “Williamson’s Strait” (named for the American captain who claimed to have sailed up it). In honour of the occasion Flinders called the area “Encounter Bay”.

While Flinders sailed for Port Jackson, Baudin went westward. But with half his crew struck down by malnutrition and scurvy, he realised he too would have to head for the British colony at New South Wales. He arrived in Sydney in June where he discovered Britain and France had signed a peace treaty at Amiens. Governor Philip King treated him warmly and sent 22 of his crew to hospital. Despite the colony itself being short of food due to floods on the Hawkesbury, King gave the French ample fresh produce. Baudin met Flinders again and spent the Bastille Day holiday together. But the two men did not share a great rapport. Baudin was more comfortable with King with whom he shared the headaches of dealing with insubordination.

While Flinders then set off on his great circumnavigation of the continent, Baudin resumed his exploration of the south coast. He had accumulated 100,000 natural history specimens including 20 living creatures: dingoes, wombats, black swans, cassowaries and emus. When they arrived at King Island they found the British had set up an armed camp. Baudin wrote a remarkable private letter to King saying “I have never been able to conceive that there was justice or even fairness on the part of Europeans in seizing…a land seen for the first time, when it is inhabited by men who have not always deserved the title of savages”. It would many years before a European would again suggest that Indigenous people had land rights.

But the end was near for the Frenchman. He picked up kangaroos on Kangaroo Island and now both his boats were filled with wildlife. He decided it was time to sail for home. After a stop at Timor, he began coughing blood. He had another revolutionary idea which was to hold a ballot of crew for a second-in-command. He was shocked to find his enemy Henri Freycinet won the ballot ahead of his own choice Francois Ronsard. With his TB getting worse, Baudin’s ship arrived in Ile de France. There he wrote a letter to the Minister of Marine stating his satisfaction with the mission’s achievements. The value of his charts and scientific discoveries was immense. But on 16 September 1803 he suffered the same fate as Dufresne, Allouarn, La Perouse and D’Entrecasteaux and died far from home. And while Flinders is feted today, Baudin’s name remains almost entirely unknown both in France and Australia. Toft’s book is a welcome rehabilitation of his reputation.

Buffett consigns newspapers to the waste bin

Speaking in front of 35,000 investors at the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting, billionaire Warren Buffett joined the growing litany of voices charting the decline of the newspaper industry. The 78 year old cult investor known as “The Sage of Omaha” is an avid lifelong newspaper. However he said newspapers had lost their relevance to the Internet and were no longer an attractive investment option. He told his Omaha audience on the weekend he would not buy newspapers “at any price” because of the possibility of “going to just unending losses”. Buffett’s comments come as The Boston Globe looks like becoming the latest high profile American newspaper to go under.

Despite his grim tidings, Buffett said he would not sell out his existing newspaper interests. Buffett’s company Berkshire Hathaway is the largest shareholder in The Washington Post Company (Buffett is a board member) and also owns the Buffalo News. The Washington Post Company posted a $18.7 million quarterly loss last week as its flagship paper reported a 33 per cent slump in print advertising sales. Buffett continued to show faith as he said the Post had an attractive business model with its cable interests. But he added it "does not have answers to the problems of the newspaper business."

Berkshire Hathaway is not immune from the global crisis with operating profit down about 12 percent from a year earlier to $1.7 billion. Company stock has fallen 39 percent since December 2007. Buffett was asked at the shareholders’ meeting whether there was a good price to invest in today’s newspaper business. His full answer was instructive:

The current environment is accentuating problem in newspapers -but it’s not the basic cause. Charlie [Munger] and I read 5 a day. We’ll never give them up. We would not buy them at any price. They have the possibility of going to unending losses. They were essential to the public 20 years ago. Their pricing power was essential with customer. They lost the essential nature. The erosion has accelerated dramatically. They were only essential to advertiser as long as essential to reader. No one liked buying ads in the paper - it’s just that they worked. I don’t see anything on the horizon that causes that erosion to end.”

Writing in Slate, Jack Shafer said Buffett predicted the death of newspapers as far back as 1992. He quotes a letter Buffett sent to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders that year that said newspaper, television, and magazines were losing their status as mass profit-making franchises. Their previous success was based on product need, the lack of a substitute, and the lack of price regulation. Newspapers had survived despite often being an inferior product because of what Buffett called their “bulletin board” value. But with the rise of cable and satellite broadcasting and Internet, newspapers no longer sold "as if they were indestructible slot machines".

Jeff Jarvis agrees and says the prognosis “keeps getting clearer and clearer”. He says it is making less sense to try to preserve and protect the failing newspaper model. “Every day that papers keep printing is a day that they haven’t reinvented themselves for a new reality,” he said. Jarvis says he is not being a doomsayer, but merely observing inexorable events in the economy. “The insane response to this change is to resist it and mourn it,” he said. “The sane response is to find the opportunity in it.”

Locally, this is also the view of the Australian Newsagency Blog. It believes the crisis has been delayed here by the large home delivery industry because “small business newsagents carry the more of the high cost of distribution than delivery contractors in the US.” However, the writer "Mark" is not naïve enough to believe that that can stave off disaster. “[Newsagents] cannot rely on newspaper generated traffic to our businesses forever, not even for five years,” said the blog. “We need to build new traffic urgently.”

The crisis that now envelops journalism is also starting to impact book publishing. Ian Jack in The Guardian says royalties are tumbling, staff are being cut, and publishers are taken fewer risks. Jack explains that the reasons are similar to newspapers’ demise: “generations are now growing up with the idea that words should be read electronically for free - a new human right - which has grave consequences for the people paid to compose and edit them.”

While no one seems sure how this “new human right” will be paid for, only one country has gone down the path of government bailout. In January French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced a €600m ($800m) emergency aid package for his country's troubled newspaper industry. The French press is among Europe’s least profitable with a rapidly declining readership. The most high profile of Sarkozy’s rescue plans was the announcement that every French 18-year-old would get a year's free subscription to the paper of their choice to boost reading habits. He also relaxed foreign ownership rules, extended tax breaks for investors in online journalism and doubled the state’s advertising in print and online papers.

However there is a legitimate question about whether the package compromises press freedom. The concern is that French journalists will not be capable of biting the hand that now feeds them. But it is also arguable this problem is no different than the one that exists currently in the purely commercial sphere. In the book “Last Rights”, a group of academics from the University of Illinois claim freedom of the press used to be defined as a political matter. However the communication system in capitalistic societies is primarily economic. To have a truly free press, say the authors, there would not only be no state intervention, there would also be a lack of market forces, ownership ties and other material bonds. Clearly no such beast exists in any profitable or influential form. Some form of economic intervention is almost always required to make it work. Sarkozy’s plan may not save newspapers, but might yet provide a reasonable transition path for journalism to cross from print into the digital realm without permanently damaging the public service it provides.

General strike escalates in Guadeloupe and Martinique

A four week old general strike has escalated into riots on the French-controlled islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique. Today a union representative was shot dead as he drove up to a barricade in Guadeloupe's largest city Pointe-à-Pitre, though it is not known who shot him. The Caribbean island had been brought to a standstill for nearly a month by strikes and demonstrations over high prices for food and other necessities. Yesterday protesters ransacked shops and torched cars in several towns across the island. The violence has also spread to the nearby island of Martinique. France has deployed over one hundred riot police to both islands and last night police used tear gas to disperse protesters. The president of the local regional council admitted Guadeloupe was "on the verge of revolt."

That island's mostly peaceful demonstrations were coordinated by an alliance of about 50 unions and associations. The collective goes by the name of "Liyannaj Kont Pwofitasyon" (LKP) which is local dialect for "Stand Up Against Exploitation." The LKP demanded aid and pay rises for workers struggling to survive on an island with a high cost of living. On 30 January they organised a protest of 60,000 people in Pointe-à-Pitre, which represents 15 percent of the island’s total population. LKP have shut down petrol stations, ports, supermarkets, banks and government offices and the strike has caused power blackouts and food and water shortages. The island’s main airport was also closed down yesterday after many employees failed to turn up for work.

With Martinique also now joining the strike action and riots, France sent its minister for overseas territories to the region yesterday for a second round of emergency talks. Yves Jégo left the Caribbean last week after promising €180m in aid to the poor. But France steadfastly refuses to meet the main demand for a monthly €200 increase in base salaries. Patrick Lozès, the head of France's umbrella group of black associations Cran, blamed racial discrimination for the government’s refusal to accede to Guadeloupe’s demands. "Is it normal,” he asked, “that, 160 years after the abolition of slavery, the descendants of colonists possess 90 per cent of Guadeloupe's riches, but represent only 1 per cent of the population?”

The racial theme is also important in Martinique where the mainly black demonstrators chanted "Martinique is ours, not theirs!" Whites dominate the economy of both islands despite representing only around one percent of the population. Both Guadeloupe and Martinique are French overseas regions in the euro zone. France acquired Guadeloupe in the 1630s and was developed for sugar plantations worked by African slaves who still form the vast majority of the population. The islands were disputed by Britain but awarded to France in petty recompense for the loss of Canada in 1763. Today Guadeloupe still depends on sugar and rum production as well as tourism. But both islands’ economy is topped up with support from France. Both Guadeloupe and Martinique were formally assimilated into the metropole in 1946 when they became two of the four departments d’outre mer (along with Guyane and Reunion) with elected departmental and regional councils as well as representation in the French parliament.

While none of the departments d’outre mer have their own currency, postage stamps or official flags, they are still considered second class French citizens in many respects. Unemployment is double that of the mainland and Guadeloupe is considered one of the poorest areas of the EU. France outlawed one major pro-independence group in Guadeloupe in the 1980s. But despite the implied racism of the colonial system, there is no great nationalistic passion in either island. Only a tiny percentage of people in either Guadeloupe or Martinique have ever voted for independence movements. No party in either department has been able to articulate how it would manage economic and social development without French assistance. Even today, the demonstrators on the islands want Paris to do more, not less.

Sur les Papes d’Avignon

It should probably come as no surprise that the idea for the world’s largest Gothic building should come from a Goth. Not one of the East Germanic barbarian tribe who terrorised the Romans in the fourth century, nor a black-dressed post-punk pallid type that gauntly haunt the streets of most cities in current times. No, this Goth is Raymond Bertrand de Got, who was crowned pope as Clement V in 1305. A haughty Frenchman, he decided to be crowned in Lyon not Rome. After his election, he went one step further and moved his whole court and papacy out of Rome and into the southern French city of Avignon.

Clement V was a controversial choice for pope. The conclave of cardinals took twelve months to elect him as it was split down the middle between French and Italian cardinals. Clement was a pawn of the powerful French king Philip IV better known as Philip Le Bel (“the fair”). The king’s nickname referred to his hunky good looks not his morals. In truth Philip the Fair was Machiavellian before the word was even invented and used his influence over Clement to destroy the Knights Templar so he could remove himself from the debts he owed them. It was under Philip’s influence that Clement moved his papal court to Avignon so he could be closer the real action that was taking place in France.

Strictly speaking, Avignon was not a French city at the time but a papal enclave surrounded by French territory. In fact Avignon would not become part of France until the time of the Revolution. The city stood on a strategic position on the Rhone river on the main route between Rome and Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain, the shrine of St James, and Europe’s most important pilgrimage destination since the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin’s armies in 1187. Avignon had long prospered from this lucrative trade of pilgrims.

But to get past Avignon required a treacherous crossing of the Rhone. The city’s only crossing over the hazardous waters was the St Benezet bridge (the Pont d’Avignon) which was regularly washed away by the fierce currents of Spring and early Summer when the upstream Alpine ice was melting. The bridge was finally put out of use by a catastrophic flood in 1668 and remains today as a sort of pier poking out over half the Rhone. Yet as the only fixed crossing of the river between Lyon and the Mediterranean, the Pont and the town it served were hugely important.

Clement V (and Philip the Fair) were clearly aware of the town’s importance when he (they) chose it as the site of the new papacy in 1305. But it was one thing to choose a new Vatican, what was really needed was a new St Peter’s. And so began the creation of the enormous Palais des Papes. Clement V did not build it himself and was content to as a guest at the Dominican monastery than overlooked the town but his successors were far more ambitious.

For most of the 14th century, Avignon would become the home of the popes and the imposing Palais des Papes would be their residence. Clement's French successor John XXII stayed in the city and upgraded the Dominican residence but it took a third French pope Benedict XII to build an impressive palace at Avignon befitting the papacy. Under his guidance a massive Palais Vieux took shape flanked by high towers. Under the popes that followed him, Clement VI, Innocent VI, and Urban V, the building was expanded to form what is now known as the Palais Neuf.

While a succession of popes became ensconced in Avignon, Rome never forgot the slight of losing its primary source of power. Finally under Guillaume Grimoard, crowned as Urban V, it won back its precious prize in 1367. But it was a short lived triumph. With numerous cities of the Papal States in revolt, Urban was forced to return to Avignon where he died in 1370. His successor Gregory XI would be the last of the official Avignon popes. After he died, the Romans rioted to ensure the election of a local pope. But the new man, Urban VI, was quickly disowned by the hierarchy. A majority of bishops elected Robert of Geneva as a rival pope taking the name Pope Clement VII and re-established a papal court in Avignon. The great Western schism had begun.

Now thanks to the Church’s own manipulations, Christendom had a pope and an antipope. But which was which? Britain, Ireland, Portugal and Rome supported Urban, while France supported Clement. The Holy Roman Empire could not wholly support either Roman emperor. But in 1398 France withdrew its support from Clement’s successor Benedict XIII and that made him officially an antipope. The Council of Constance in 1414 ensured the legitimacy of the Roman line, and excommunicated Benedict formally ending the Avignon line.

The city remained a papal possession and a nepotistic papal nephew continued to rule the town. Finally in 1797 the treaty of Tolentino sanctioned the transfer of the city to the French state. Today the city of Avignon proudly wears its papal (and anti-papal) history on its chest. The Palais des Papes towers over the city and the Rhone. The city is a capital of culture and remains an important outpost of Catholic history, antipopes or not.

Rwanda’s Mucyo Commission implicates France in 1994 genocide

An 18 month Rwandan enquiry has implicated dozens of senior French political and military figures for their role in the 1994 genocide that killed up to 800,000 mainly Rwandan Tutsis. A 500 page report commissioned by Rwandan Prime Minister Paul Kagame named 33 senior French officials including the late President Francois Mitterrand and three former Prime Ministers including Dominique de Villepin. The report said French troops took direct part in the massacre and France provided political, military, diplomatic and logistic support. While Rwanda has no immediate plans to seek indictment, justice minister Tharcisse Karugarama said yesterday the report "could be the basis for potential charges against individuals or the state."

Karugarama also highlighted “the role played by France in the aftermath to protect the genocidal forces and make it very difficult for them to be apprehended and brought to justice". Karugarama was referring to Operation Turquoise (pdf), the so-called “humanitarian mission” France launched in the south of the country after most of the killing had ended, in a vain attempt to stop the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) from ousting the genocidal Hutu Power regime.

Mitterrand and de Villepin were among a dozen politicians named by the report along with twenty military officials. Mitterrand was French president at the time with very close links to President Juvenal Habyarimana whose assassination sparked the three-month genocide. De Villepin was the chief aide to then foreign minister Alain Juppé, who was also named in the report along with then-prime minister Edouard Balladur.

The report was the result of the 18 month long Mucyo Commission, named for its president and former justice minister Jean de Dieu Mucyo. Prime Minister Kagame commissioned the report as part of the tit-for-tat campaign which began in 2006 when a French judge issued a warrant for his arrest on charges related to Habyarimana’s plane crash (which also killed several French crew). Rwanda immediately cut diplomatic ties and ordered the French ambassador to leave Kigali within 24 hours. Kagame then asked Mucyo to investigate France’s role in the Habyarimana incident and expanded it to cover the whole genocide period.

The actual report is not yet readily available on the Internet, however the Rwandan New Times is serialising it, and released the first segment today. The report begins by documenting the French military operation in the immediate aftermath of Habyarimana’s death called Operation Amaryllis. While the official justification of Amaryllis was to rescue French citizens from Rwanda, the real reason was to send 464 elite soldiers to shore up the Hutu regime against the RPF (who now rule Rwanda).

France also made a deliberate decision not to interfere in the genocide itself. French senior ministers Alain Juppé and Michel Roussin explained the reasons why Amaryllis would not involve itself in the massacres. “It is not a question of intervening militarily in Rwanda,” said Roussin. “ It is clear that our mission is of a humanitarian nature whose aim is to repatriate our nationals and their families". On the same day, Juppé was more philosophical: "Can France keep order in the whole world?” he said. “Does she have the means and responsibility to stop, on the whole planet, people from killing each other?"

While the French government has not yet formally reacted to the report, Alain Juppé was quick to denounce Rwandan attempts to implicate him and France in the genocide. He called the report an unacceptable falsification and claimed that during his time as head of French diplomacy (April 1993 to May 1995), France did everything it could to help Rwanda reconciliation. "Did we, for example, systematically take the side of one camp against another, Hutu against Tutsi?” he asked. "Did we 'fail' to denounce the genocide committed by Hutu extremists starting in April 1994?” He said both questions were “untruths”. But with this report likely to have serious international repercussions, these untruths may yet be stranger than fiction.

Thomas Paine: These are the times that try men's souls

The recent 271st anniversary of the birth of Thomas Paine mostly passed unheralded apart from a letter to the editor of TC Palm, a small Florida newspaper. This is a poor lack of appreciation for one of the great figures of both the American and French Revolutions. This British born American patriot’s powerful, widely read pamphlet, Common Sense, written in the independence year of 1776, advocated an end to the colonial system and was an important intellectual boost to the baby republic. Paine was also a great influence on the French Revolution. He wrote the Rights of Man in defence of the Revolution and served in the Assembly before being arrested in the Terror. He returned to the US on the invitation of then president Thomas Jefferson and died a hero in New York in 1809.

Thomas Paine was born in Thetford, Norfolk on 29 January 1737. He grew up in an environment of modest poverty which did not prevent his parents from sending him to the local grammar school. Paine was technically brought up in his mother’s creed as an Anglican, but his father's Quakerism left an indelible impression and was instrumental in forging his ideas about egalitarianism. His father also objected to his son’s learning Latin at school because it was ‘popish’. With Latin the lingua franca of intellectuals of the day, this left Paine with the view of an outsider. Paine was later to quote “I scarcely ever quote; the reason is; I always think.”

Paine left school at 13 and moved to London to work as an apprentice garment maker. He worked as an exciseman and then schoolmaster. He became familiar with the new science of Newtonian mechanics. He married only for his young wife to die in labour. Another job with the excise board brought him to the Sussex town of Lewes. Here he met another Quaker Samuel Ollive, a tobacconist, who aroused Paine’s interest in politics. Paine was elected to the local municipal body, the Council of Twelve and quickly became a local celebrity as a vociferous member of the discussion-cum-social Headstrong Club.

In 1773 he distributed his first pamphlet, “The Case of the Officers of the Excise” arguing for higher pay based on the high cost of living at the time. Paine pointed out that to underpay excisemen invited corruption. His case for democracy rested on the principle the rich did not know what it was like to be poor. “There are habits of thinking peculiar to different conditions,” he wrote. “And to find them out is truly study mankind”.

His visits to London to lobby for the cause of excisemen brought him into contact with Benjamin Franklin. Paine was fascinated by Franklin’s experiments with electricity and Franklin in turn was impressed by the younger man’s eloquence, talent and self-education. Paine left for America with a letter of recommendation from Franklin who described him as “an ingenious, worthy young man”. The year was 1774 and Paine was then 37 years old.

Paine arrived in Philadelphia to find a city electrically charged with pre-revolutionary fervour. In England he was known as a conversationalist; suddenly in America he found his vocation as a journalist. He wrote in a number of Pennsylvania journals about black emancipation, justice for women and cruelty to animals, all from a humanitarian standpoint. He was one of the first in America to demand the end of slavery. But it was his attitude to independence that brought him a national audience. In January 1775 he wrote in support of the right of the colonies to control their own affairs.

When fighting broke out later that year, no one really expected that full independence would result. It took Paine’s January 1776 pamphlet “Common Sense” to electrify that sense of growing republicanism. It attacked not only George III’s policies in America but also the monarchy itself. He wrote that a hereditary monarchy was wrong in principle and harmful in practice. He wanted a strong central government and prophesised that a free and republican America would have no argument with European nations. Common Sense’s impact was immediate and tremendous. At the time it looked as if Britain would defeat the republicans but the weight of Paine’s support for Washington was crucial psychological support for the rebels.

In 1777 Paine was possibly the first person to use the term “United States of America” and saw it as a society that would expand its economy in the interest of all productive classes. In 1782 as the war drew to an end, he was employed by the new American government as an official propagandist. He found time to devote himself to the design of an iron bridge and a smokeless candle. In 1787 he sailed to France to promote his bridge ideas.

When he arrived in Paris he became quickly aware of the mood for political change while he also saw the mood of distrust of his native Britain. He crossed to England where he was well received by the Whig opposition. He was in London when the French Revolution broke out in May 1789. He returned to France in September and devoted his time equally to politics and furthering his bridge ideas. He went back to England in 1790 where he was disturbed by Edmund Burke’s ferocious attack on the Revolution in his speech to the House of Commons. Paine’s reply was part one of The Rights of Man in 1791.

It was a strident defence of the Revolution which defended the authority of the people. Britain became polarised in camps for and against Paine. He returned to Paris where he found his pamphlet had caused ructions too. In 1792 he published the second part which was an even more explicit call to revolution. He attacked hereditary government as tyranny. Britain issued a Royal Proclamation against this “wicked seditious writing” and summoned him to appear in court. Paine fled back to France where he took up a seat of the National Assembly despite speaking no French.

His friends were the Girondists but they were out of favour after war broke out in April 1792. Louis XVII was executed in January 1793 despite Paine voting against it in the Assembly. He was opposed to it because of his humanitarianism and the fact Louis had been an ally of the young America. Most of all, Paine was too good a propagandist not to realise the impact the execution would have in the outside world. He was arrested for his rejection of the vote and imprisoned at the Luxembourg. He completed his next major work from prison and smuggled it out to a friend.

The book, the Age of Reason was an anti-clerical work devoted to the idea of refuting the Bible as the word of God. It was pure Enlightenment but it didn't stop him from rotting in a Jacobin prison waiting for the end of the revolutionary regime. He never forgave his former benefactor Washington for failing to use his influence to get him released. He was finally released after pressure from Jefferson in November 1794. Paine’s last important work “Agrarian Justice” appeared three years later and linked his economic ideas with his views on politics and religion.

This book took Paine to the door of socialism but it was a threshold he never crossed. In Agrarian Justice, Paine said the poverty of the majority was a direct result of civilisation, the evils of which included an ever-growing national debt. But it would take others to make the next step to define socialism, such as Thomas Walker, Robert Owen and the Chartists. All of them looked back with a debt of their own to Paine. While the 20th century has not been so kind to his reputation, his critical role in the two great revolutions of the 18th century leaves a giant footprint. As Henry Collins wrote in the introduction to Rights of Man, Paine’s ability to foresee some of the revolutionary implications meant not only did he speak for his time but also “through it, to our own”.

Zoe's Ark group tried for kidnapping children in Chad

Ten French and Spanish citizens appeared in court today in Chad charged for their role in a mass child kidnapping case. Six of the ten are members of the organisation Zoe's Ark, which was attempting to transfer 103 orphaned children from Darfur to France for foster care. They claimed they had the right to do so under international law. That claim is refuted by UN and Chadian officials say most of the 103 children (all under ten years old) were neither orphans nor Sudanese. Most have at least one living parent on the Chadian side of the crisis-ridden Sudanese border area.

Three French journalists working with Zoe’s Ark were released on Sunday. Journalist Marc Garmirian, who works for French news agency CAPA, said the group had lied about their plans and released film footage showing they had put bandages on the children to feign injury. The footage shows the convoy heading to Abeche airport in eastern Chad. Zoe’s Ark staff can be seen putting fake wounds on the children to convince officials they are evacuating them for health reasons. "You could say that they are lunatics,” Garmirian said. “Up until the moment I left the prison, [Zoe’s Ark] remained convinced that their mission was legitimate.”

Zoe’s Ark (L'Arche de Zoe) was formed by members of the French four-wheel-drive community to aid victims of the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. They set up four temporary camps in Banda Aceh in Sumatra in the wake of the tsunami. The group has about 50 volunteers. Its founder, Eric Breteau, is a volunteer fireman and Zoe's Ark says it is motivated by the firefighter's spirit and sense of duty. In April, Zoe's Ark announced a campaign to evacuate 10,000 orphans from Darfur.

Its plan was to place young orphaned children from Darfur in foster care with French families, invoking its right to do so under international law. They sent a seven person team, including a doctor, a nurse and fire-fighters, to Chad. There the group sought authorisation from France to grant safe passage to the children. In August however, the French Foreign Ministry issued a warning saying there was no guarantee the children were orphans and also cast doubt on the project's legality.

On Tuesday last week, local authorities arrested 17 Europeans and 4 Chadians on charges of kidnapping and complicity. Those arrested included Zoe’s Ark head Eric Breteau. In the first hearing Breteau claimed the children were from Sudan not Chad. He also spoke in support of the journalists and aircrew arrested with him, saying only he and his fellow charity workers were responsible for the operation. The main accused face possible forced labour terms of five to 20 years.

The stakes were raised dramatically on the weekend when French President Nicolas Sarkozy became involved. He flew to Chad on Sunday and arranged to free the three French journalists and four Spanish flight attendants. But Chad’s president Idriss Deby ruled out a French demand to extradite the remaining ten accused to France for trial. Deby said justice would be done in Chad. “It is out of the question for the Chadian judiciary to abandon the case,” he said. “On the contrary, the Chadian judiciary will get to the bottom of it”.

Deby has ruled Chad since 1990 but the floods of refugees crossing the border from Darfur have destabilised his regime. Over 200,000 refugees have crammed into the town of Abeche where the Zoe’s Ark group were based. Deby has tried to maintain a neutral stance in the conflict but he has faced internal criticism for lack of support for his Zagawa kinsmen slaughtered across the border in Sudan by the pro-government Janjaweed militia. Deby survived a mutiny in 2004 and an undeclared war has existed between the two countries since 2005.

Chad claims Sudan is trying to destroy his regime by allowing Sudanese militia make daily incursions across the border. Although the two sides signed the Tripoli Agreement in 2006 to end the conflict, rebel groups inside Chad have continued their attacks on government forces. A European peace force is expected to be deployed early next year in eastern Chad to protect Sudanese and Chadian refugees. Meanwhile the war is a humanitarian crisis that Zoe’s Ark wanted to exploit. They lined up 300 families in France who paid between €2,000 and €6,000 for an orphaned child from the region. While the French families feel conned, there is also great anger in Chad. Several hundred locals gathered outside the governor's office in Abeche, where the Europeans were being held and chanted: "No to the slave trade, no to child trafficking."

The Battle of Algeria

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has protested the jailing of an Algerian newspaper editor for criticising the government. On Monday, a court handed out a six month defamation sentence to Dhif Talal, correspondent for the Arabic-language newspaper Al Fadjr in the north-central city of Djelfa. Talal was convicted for an article he wrote exposing poor administration practices in the Department of Agriculture. Another journalist faces charges next month for an article he wrote about the Education Department. The IFJ General Secretary has called on the government to “make a commitment to press freedom and to allow the media to work independently without fear of reprisals”.

Algeria has slipped quietly under the radar of world trouble spots since the 1990s civil war that followed the overthrow of its elected Islamist government. Yet the Islamic opposition have not gone away and anger over the 1992 coup remains deep. Pan Arabic elements are now infiltrating the local opposition. Last month, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika survived an assassination attempt that killed 22 people in a suicide bombing in the north-eastern city of Basna. Al Qa’ida’s Maghreb offshoot have claimed responsibility for this attack and also a bomb attack on a naval barracks in September 2006 that killed 32 people.

Outside interference is now threatening a fragile peace in a country that has long been at war with itself. In the aftermath of the 1992 coup, both government and opposition death squads routinely killed its enemies as well as innocent civilians. 150,000 died in the years that followed. The economy went into a tailspin and there were massive food shortages. President Bouteflika, elected in 1999, is credited with turning Algeria around. He negotiated reconciliation with Islamist fighters in 2005 as well as pacifying the Berber minority.

Bouteflika like all Algerian leaders before him has the support of the French President, now Nicolas Sarkozy. France occupied Algeria for 132 years and continues to be a hugely influential actor in Algerian events. Algeria was one of Europe’s earliest colonial incursions in Africa and one of its deepest in impact. Algeria was incorporated into metropolitan France and one million “colons” (French Algerians) crossed the Mediterranean to administrate a country of nine million Muslims. Algeria has long been an attractive proposition for invaders such as the Phoenicians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Arabs and Ottomans. The latter two inculcated the practice of Islam. But the French brought the iron rule of European law.

In 1830, French King Charles X dispatched a 37,000 strong army under the pretext of suppressing Algerian piracy and easily deposed of the Turkish Dey of Algiers. The tone of the invasion was set on the first day when the French looted 100 million francs from the Kasbah. The French immediately encouraged colonial settlement. By 1841 37,000 settlers had appropriated Algerian land and institutionalised their rule with routine violence and usurpation of all the country’s most productive property. The initial war of occupation would last 18 years and end with the capture of the eastern city of Constantine.

France established a two-class apartheid system where Europeans were “supercitizens” and Algerians were the “servile class”. The Grand Mosque of Algiers became the Catholic cathedral of Saint-Phillipe. Algerian anger at French occupation flared up again in 1870 after the Prussian defeat of France. A rebellion centred in the Berber region of Kabyle took over a year to suppress. In 1881 the French enacted the Code de l’Indigenat, a Native Code statute which had 41 laws that applied only to Algerians. The Code made it an offence to criticise the French Government, travel without a pass, teach people without permission, and gather in groups of more than 20.

Algerian nationalism rose in the period after World War I. A group of French-educated Muslim intellectuals founded the Young Algerian Movement in the 1920s. The first political party was the Algerian People’s Party (PPA) founded in 1937 with a motto of “neither assimilation nor separation but emancipation”. Nationalists took heart from the Nazi defeat of France and then the Anglo-American liberation of Algeria in 1942. After the war several pro-independence groups coalesced into the National Liberation Front (Front de Libération Nationale - FLN).

While the French were divesting their colonies worldwide, there was more resistance, especially among the million colons, to the independence of Algeria. In theory Algeria was part of France itself. The FLN lost patience with French inaction and launched the Algerian war of independence in 1954. One of the great 20th century liberation struggles began in the early morning hours of the first of November 1, when FLN maquisards (guerrilla soldiers or “terrorists” to the French) launched attacks in various parts of the country against military installations, police posts, warehouses, communications facilities, and public utilities. The maquisards operated with a great deal of independence as FLN’s leadership, including future president Ahmed Ben Bella, was in exile in Tunisia and Morocco.

The war would last for the rest of the decade. The FLN supported the guerrillas with an army of 40,000 soldiers along the borders which used hit-and-run tactics to harass the French. It was a bloody war. Estimates of deaths on the Algerian side range from 200,000 to a million. While the French mostly prevailed on the battlefield, they lost on the streets back home. By 1962, the war had killed 25,000 soldiers and 3,000 colons and had put France on verge of bankruptcy. In 1958 the war brought down the Fourth Republic and Charles de Gaulle was brought out of retirement to fix the mess.

In 1962 De Gaulle negotiated the Evian agreements with the FLN. France withdrew from Algeria in exchange for military bases and oil and gas concessions in newly discovered fields in the Sahara. The last sorry chapter of the war was fought by a hardcore contingent of colon militants who formed the Secret Army Organisation (OAS) and killed 3,000 Muslim civilians in a campaign of terror aimed at destabilising the truce. Almost all of the one million colons fled Algeria within weeks of the new nation’s independence.

After the French left, the exiled faction of the FLN led by Ben Bella seized control. Ahmed Ben Bella had spent much of the war in a French prison. He quickly consolidated power in 1962. He declared the FLN the only legal party and co-opted trade unions and other organisations into the party. But Ben Bella promoted a personality cult and that, allied with erratic policy shifts, caused opposition to grow against him. He was deposed in a coup in 1965 by an army which preferred consensus rule to Ben Bella’s authoritarianism.

His replacement was Houari Boumedienne, his former deputy. Boumedienne completed the centralisation of state control and elimination of independent institutions. The military was firmly established as the final arbiter of disputes within the FLN. Boumedienne steered Algeria outside both the US’s and the USSR’s sphere of influence. His unexpected death in 1979 brought Chadli Benjedid to power.

Unlike the previous two leaders Benjedid was only a minor figure in the war of independence. However he was a competent administrator and continued Boumedienne centrist policies. But the first cracks were appearing in Algeria’s apparent mono-culture. Riots broke out at the University of Algiers over the predominance of French over Arabic in classes. The non-Arab speaking Berbers in Kabyle then protested against the growing Arabism. Thirdly, there rose an Islamic opposition initially dedicated to the imposition of strong Sharia laws. The FLN were also deeply worried by the success of the Iranian Revolution in 1979.

Benjedid dealt with this challenge by instituting a Family Code in 1984 which curtailed the rights of Muslim women. They could not marry non-Muslims, could not seek a divorce, and needed permission from husband or eldest son to work or travel. But while this move pacified the Islamists, Algeria continued to struggle economically, stifled by bureaucratic centralism and rampant corruption. The collapse of oil prices in the mid-1980s destroyed Algeria’s foreign income and left most of the country in poverty while the elite of the FLN lined their pockets.

Violence against the regime accelerated through the rest of the decade. By September 1988, labour unrest had spread around Algiers’ industrial belt and into the public service companies of the capital. The government cracked down brutally and massacred over a thousand people at a demonstration. The opposition redoubled their efforts and a panicked Benjedid was forced into a series of reforms. He liberalised the press and legalised political parties. By 1991, over 50 new parties were formed including the largest of all, the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS).

Initially created as a network of informal mosque groups (the only independent groups to avoid takeover by the FLN), they first stood for office in the 1990 municipal elections. They stunned the FLN by taking 54 percent of the vote, almost double the FLN total of 28. The FIS took control of 850 of Algeria’s 1,500 municipal councils. The FLN hoped the newcomers would blunder in their new power role and be a spent force by the time of the national elections. They also hoped the people would quickly find the FIS planned social restrictions distasteful. The FLN were wrong on both counts. The hated French support for the government didn’t help their cause either. In December 1991, Algeria went to the polls and the FIS again trounced the FLN in a violence-free election.

The result horrified the FLN elites who had ruled the country since independence. They quickly moved to secure power. In January 1992 Benjedid resigned and the army High Security Council announced the formation of a collective presidency known as the High State Council (HCS). The first act of the HCS was to declare the December election void. They also cancelled runoff elections scheduled for February. Their argument was that FIS was a sham-democratic movement which had theocratic ends. If it gained power, it would not surrender it, their description of the FIS was “one man, one vote, one time”. The FIS was stripped of its victory, declared illegal and its leaders jailed.

The announcement sparked war. The GIA (Armed Islamic Group) was a military offshoot of the FIS whose core members were known as “Afghanis” because many of them fought with the Mujahideen against the Soviets in the 1980s. In 1993 the GIA issued a challenge to the 100,000 foreigners in Algeria – leave or die. By the end of 1994, foreigners were frequent victims of the growing war. Women who failed to wear the hijab were also targeted by the militants.

The HCS crucially gained the support of France which was desperately worried by a mass refugee movement in the wake of an Islamist victory. The GIA took the war to France. In 1994, they bombed the Paris Metro, attacked the train network and hijacked an Air France jet. Meanwhile Algeria had descended into civil war which immersed the country for the rest of the 1990s. Estimates of total deaths range from 70,000 to 200,000.

Elected president in 1999, Abdelaziz Bouteflika was credited with ending the war. He released thousands of Muslim militants from jail and won support for a civil concord to offer amnesty to armed militants. Many of the rebels accepted and the violence declined. But Bouteflika has been a strong supporter of the US-led “war on terror” and that has led to stronger imternal Islamist opposition. Al Qaeda have now formed an alliance with the Salafist Group (GSPC). The GSPC is itself an offshoot of the GIA. In 2005, the GSPC singled out France as its "enemy number one" and issued a call for action against the country.

While Algeria deals with the international threat of GSPC, it has closed down criticism within its borders. IFJ General Secretary Aidan White says Algeria has been using its criminal law to silence critical voices. “Journalists continue to be victims of this repressive tactic,” White said. “We are calling on the government to make a commitment to press freedom and to allow media to work independently without fear of reprisals.”

Dog of War Bob Denard is dead

Notorious French mercenary Bob Denard died Sunday in Paris, aged 78. The cause of death was not immediately clear though he had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Denard was the quintessential soldier of fortune and led several mutinies across Africa during the decolonisation era from the 1960s though to the 1990s. He was twice convicted in France for trying to overthrow governments in Benin and the Comoros. Yet Denard also had the support of the French secret service over the course of his colourful career in he was involved in a dozen wars and coup attempts in the Congo, Angola, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Benin, and the Comoros. He also worked for the Shah in Iran and the British in Yemen. Denard was the role model for Frederick Forsyth's mercenary in "The Dogs of War".

Bob Denard was born in 1929, in Bordeaux, France. His birth name was Gilbert Bourgeaud and Denard was one of a dozen aliases he assumed. His father was a non-commissioned officer in the French colonial army, and Bob followed his father into the military. In the 1950s he served in Indochina and then worked with Morocco's police force before the kingdom gained independence from France.

By 1957 Denard had joined the French secret service and was posted to Algeria where he worked in vain to stop the long-running Algerian War of Independence. By now he was working for Jacques Foccart, head of the Françafrique, the group set up by French president Charles de Gaulle to organise covert actions in Africa. It is alleged although never proven he also worked for the British MI6.

His mercenary activities began in 1961. The resource-rich province of Katanga led by Moise Tshombe was then attempting to break free of the newly independent Congo and mercenary leader Roger Faulques hired Denard to train his troops. Here Denard earned his reputation for ruthless efficiency when faced with poorly equipped, poorly trained African troops. He quickly earned the nickname for his band of former European soldiers as "les affreux" (“the horrible ones”). When the Katanga rebellion collapsed, Denard and his affreux fled to Portuguese Angola. Later that year Denard popped up in North Yemen where he supported royalist tribes people in a civil war against a newly installed Nasserist government.

Denard was a fervent anti-communist who worked for several dictators and monarchs. He returned to the Congo in 1963, this time fighting for the government side and Chinese and Cuban-backed communist rebels. In 1964, he was believed to be involved (but is not mentioned explicitly in US declassified documents) in the Belgian-American mission to rescue white civilian hostages captured by rebels in the Central Congo city of Stanleyville.

For the next ten years Denard criss-crossed Africa and Asia including a stint working for Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi of Iran. He suffered at least four serious injuries in battle, one of which, in Congo, left him with a limp for the rest of his life. In 1975 he made his first adventure into a country that was to shape the rest of his life – the Comoros. The East African island nation gained its independence from France that year and Ahmed Abdallah became the country’s first president.

Within a month, Denard ousted him in an armed coup. But barely three years later Denard reinstated Abdallah in another coup in response to the new government’s anti-French policies. Denard held true power behind the scenes, married a Comoros hotel receptionist (his sixth wife) and lived a lavish lifestyle for the next decade. In 1989 President Abdallah was assassinated in a dispute with Denard’s men. After weeks of turmoil, the French military sent in 3,000 men to seize control from Denard. He fled to South Africa, where he lived for three years.

In 1993, he faced charges for his involvement in a failed coup in Marxist-controlled Benin in 1977. He was found guilty but had his sentence suspended. In 1995 he was back in the Comoros for one more coup. He led 30 mercenaries in an overnight raid to topple the regime of President Said Djohar. However the alarmed French sent another force in remove him from power. He was captured and was taken to Paris and jailed while awaiting trial.

Finally in 1999 he was back in front of a French court to account for his long-running involvement in the Comoros. Denard was found guilty of the 1995 coup but acquitted of the 1989 Ahmed Abdallah assassination. "I was a soldier. I was never a killer," he told the court, teary-eyed. In his autobiography, Denard said that "often I didn't exactly have a green light from the French authorities, but I went on the amber." Denard was survived by eight children.

Bastille Day: re-writing the revolution

Nicolas Sarkozy led Bastille Day celebrations yesterday in Paris for the first time. The new French president stood in the back of a military jeep which led the procession and circled the Arc de Triomphe before continuing down the Champs-Elysees. He descended from the vehicle briefly to talk with spectators. Bastille Day marks storming of the Bastille prison in Paris by angry crowds. The 14 July 1789 storming was the keystone symbolic event started the revolution that rid France of its monarchy.

The French revolution remains one of the seminal events of Western civilisation in the last 500 years. When Henry Kissinger asked Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai what he thought of the French Revolution, Zhou allegedly replied “it's too early to tell”. As well as sweeping away the French monarchy, it laid the seeds for the democratic movement across Europe and created the modern political meanings of the terms left and right. The revolution also had a profound effect on the press.

University of Kentucky history professor Jeremy Popkin discusses the impact of the revolutionary press in “Journals: the New Face of News”. Prior to 1789, the ancien regime had only one royalist daily newspaper, the Journal de Paris which covered cultural rather than political issues. Political periodicals had to be published abroad and imported illegally into the country. Once the regime was discredited and its complex system of censorship, privilege, and manipulation of the foreign press was destroyed, writers and publishers rushed to fill the void created by the events around the first Bastille Day. One of the early newspapers announced in its first edition “we hope our readers will be tolerant of the mistakes that are bound to be committed at the outset of an enterprise as complicated as ours”.

While the new media were colourful and diverse, they failed to last. They were defeated by constraints such as poor levels of literacy and the dependence on wooden hand presses. Nonetheless they formed a useful counterpoint to the new legislative assemblies and were the printed form by which the revolutionary struggle sought political legitimacy. Newspapers would play a central role in the revolutionary process. Key among those who understood the power of the press was journalist and politician J. P. Brissot. Brissot realised that the press was the only means of instituting popular sovereignty in a large country. Only newspapers could permit the conduct of public debate on a national scale. They could allow intellectual leaders to enlighten voters and provide feedback of public opinions to their elected representatives. Through the press, said Brissot, “one can teach the same truth at the same moment to millions of men”.

Once the revolution started, there was an insatiable appetite for news. The Parisian printing industry was transformed and new enterprises ignored guild restrictions and began to produce their own periodicals. Workers left their old jobs to join the growing new and chaotic industry. But there was no security as newcomers continually entered the field, sometimes using the same style and even the same title as established ventures. Two versions of “Ami du roi” defended the honour of the king while there were no less than six differing “Père Duchesnes” based on Jacques Hébert’s radical original.

Freedom of speech remained precarious in the new era. Despite the 1789 Declaration of Rights, each successive revolutionary government harassed those journalists that didn’t support them. Newspapers were forced to live from day to day which gave publishers little time to adopt new technological innovations in the way more secure operations like The Times of London could. The hand-driven presses could not produce in large numbers and subscription remained expensive. Nonetheless Paris boasted 184 periodicals in 1789 which rose to 335 a year later. Many barely lasted one or two issues, but readers could choose from over a hundred publications at any one time.

While radical in content, the new papers were conservative in format. They resisted English innovations such as headlines and illustrations and contained few advertisements. The two column formats resembled pre-revolutionary encyclopaedias rather than contemporary newspapers. But there was wide variance in coverage of political events. Some slavishly transcribed the words of politicians in the National Assembly and saw their role as reporting events with fidelity. Others provided their own interpretation of events while others still merely reported the results of the debate. The Journal logographique captured the chaos of the times by portraying the assembly warts and all as a confusing, tumultuous entity that all but made the process unintelligible to its readers.

Brissot’s own Patriote François was considered one the best pro-revolutionary newspapers. Brissot took a partisan position and addressed his comments not only to his readers but to the Assembly deputies themselves. It was devoted to defending “the rights of the people” and often led the agenda on issues. Its clear confident tone and its assurance to readers that deputies also needed advice was an effective approach to presenting ideas without seeming patronising or insulting the public.

Jean-Paul Marat’s agitational pamphlet “Ami du people” was the most celebrated radical paper of the Revolution. His biased view of Assembly proceedings was secondary to his outspoken criticism of its deputies. He often denounced those he disliked in the strongest manner. He was fond of exhorting the people against the Assembly’s “criminal faction”. His emotional reactions were designed to evoke anger against deputies’ treasonable intentions. The Royalist press that flourished in the first years of the Revolution, also shared Marat’s angry rejection of the Assembly but for greatly different reasons. The abbe Royou’s “Ami du roi” described it as a criminal conspiracy that oppressed both the people and the king.

As the power of the press grew, the Assembly became increasing caricatured as disorderly, strife-ridden, anti-democratic and idiotic. Revolutionary deputy J. B. Louvet (himself a journalist) angrily denounced “the eternal domination of writers” over magistrates, representatives and public officials. He warned that the press was a perpetual fomenter of revolution that could destabilise any government if not controlled. France was beginning to understand the paradox of press freedom. The people may choose the government, but also may prefer the press’s view of the government over its own version. While Napoleon resolved the immediate issue by taking firm control of both the government and the media, the problem posed by the role of the free press in a democracy remains with us today. Vive la France.