From: silva@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Holly Silva)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.usa,soc.culture.french
Subject: Re: Censorship and Governmental control
Date: 7 Nov 1992 21:10:02 GMT
Organization: Stanford Univ. Earth Sciences
NNTP-Posting-Host: pangea.stanford.edu

sloubtin@dsg.cs.tcd.ie (Sylvain Louboutin) writes:
>jjas@acs.nntp-read.bu.edu (Jason Stephenson) writes:
>
>>	Also, a French police officer may approach you at any time for any
>>reason, or for no reason at all, and demand to see you ID.  This is called
>>a "controle d'identite".  If you are not carrying a proper piece of identi-
>>fication and at least 11 francs, they can haul your butt to jail.
>
>this is wrong.  It is actually illegal in France.  A policeman cannot
>perform such "controle d'identite" at ramdom,  unless you have been
>involved in a crime.  You are not required to carry ID.  Of course,
>police can require you to privide the papers of your car and driving
>license at any time when you are driving but this is quite different.
>
	It is also illegal in France for people to be publicly 
drunk in the presence of minors (under 12), and if I'd a dollar
for every frenchman who has broken this law, I'd be well and truly
rich. If this is the common practice, it really doesn't matter if
the letter of the law goes against it. 
	It has been 15 years since I've been in France, but I distinctly
remember being told by the parisienne I stayed with that identity
cards were required of all inhabitants of France, that they were 
required to carry them at all times, and that I needn't worry
about not having one because,"they only card young Arab men"!
This was back in the days when I believed the common view of
Europeans as supposedly less prone to race prejudice than
Americans, and her statement really took me aback.

>I understand that you were disapointed by your trip in Europe.
>Apparently you did not take much time to learn anything beyond your own
>prejudices.
>
	There is nothing in the portion of Stephenson's post you've
quoted above to suggest this, and I don't remember the rest of his 
article as being particularly suggestive of bigotry or jingoistic 
USA#1ism. I've broadened the scope of this post to included s.c.f,
because I'd like to see some further discussion regarding the present
status of France's identity card laws and practices. My memory is in
direct disagreement with what you've stated, however 15 years is a 
long time and both laws and practice can change radically in such a 
period. 
	It might be worthwhile to point out here that _I_ was not
disappointed by my trip in France, and that rather than having
my 'overly proud' views of my own country 'improved' or dispelled
by my experiences there, I found that instead, my overly admiring
views of French and European society were somewhat damaged by
contact with European reality. You might not be overly pleased M.
Louboutin, by what people do glean from exposure to your culture.
That does not necessarily invalidate their experiences and conclusions
however.
	
>//Sylvain R.Y. Louboutin, fax: (+353-1)772204, e-mail: Louboutin@dsg.cs.tcd.ie


--
======================================================================
|| Holly Silva			I have nothing terribly clever to say||
|| Applied Earth Sciences	today.  You're in luck.		     ||
|| Stanford University						     ||
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