[UPDATE: 2/13/16 11:30 AM CST. I've changed the title of this post from "The General Surrenders" to "The General Retracts." See here for why.]
Three days ago, General Christian Piquemal made an emotional speech ("France is dying...") at a banned Pegida rally in Calais. The 75-year old former Commander of the French Foreign Legion was then unceremoniously bundled off by riot police and was reportedly subsequently hospitalized. He now faces up to a year in jail.
Three days ago, General Christian Piquemal made an emotional speech ("France is dying...") at a banned Pegida rally in Calais. The 75-year old former Commander of the French Foreign Legion was then unceremoniously bundled off by riot police and was reportedly subsequently hospitalized. He now faces up to a year in jail.
The French radio station RTL just reported crucial but disturbing news. Apparently, the General is now repudiating his appearance and participation.
Here is Tiberge at GalliaWatch:
General Piquemal has said in no uncertain terms that he is sorry he went to the demonstration in Calais because he wasn't aware that PEGIDA would be there and PEGIDA is an organization of the "extreme-right", even "fascist" and he is not a racist or xenophobic, bla bla bla... He just wanted to look at the situation in Calais to see if there wasn't a permanent solution to the problem, bla bla bla...
Below, an audio of his statements to RTL, preceded by statement from his lawyer who sounds as befuddled as the general. (See RTL via François Desouche.)
In short, he has been bought by the thought police. Some on Twitter pointed out that in the past the general had worked for socialist governments, implying that his basic philosophy was socialist, not nationalist.
As always, I need more information, but right now I am thoroughly disgusted. The audio does not say much more than what I have provided. I used the label Ethics/Morals because I feel it applies. He did a moral thing, a patriotic thing, and then he reneged. This to me is immoral. Is he afraid for his life? No. He is afraid of being called racist.
We here in the USA take free speech for granted. Exercising it may have its consequences, but one of them isn't being thrown into prison. (Yes, I'm certain someone will cite instances where it looks that way, but there are differences between the US and France.)
ReplyDeleteWell, technically, it's a State of Emergency, which justifies suppressing demonstrations. And given the Paris attacks, that's not on its face completely unreasonable. But for whatever reason, they're using it to suppress opposition to the collaborationist status quo. I think we'll see the same here. To some degree we already have. You tweet "Islam sucks" and delete it 30 seconds later. But too late, your career is over. Don't say it's not really censorship because it's not technically government censorship. The effect is the same.
ReplyDeleteWow. France is real nice place. Make a speech, get roughed up and stuck in a psychiatric(?) ward of a hospital. We can only imagine what they did to the poor old man.
ReplyDeleteI would have expected more from a Foreign Legion General, but who knows...what kind of files and private information they have about him. Real saints are needed to endure in this fight.
ReplyDelete