On October 25, 2017, the highest French administrative court, the Council of State (Conseil d'État), ordered the
removal of a Roman Catholic cross from the top of a monument dedicated to Pope John Paul II in a public square in Ploërmel, Britanny. According to the France's highest administrative court, this cross was said to violate the secular nature of the State. Not the statue of the ex-pope John Paul II by itself; just the cross above it.
Social media, in France and abroad -- especially in Poland where John Paul II was born -- flew into an immediate uproar: How could the government of a country considered the "eldest daughter of the Catholic church" ask for the removal of a Catholic cross in a tiny village that nobody even knew about before this incident?
The
Council of State is an independent legal body that has jurisdiction over disputes concerning civil liberties, administrative police, taxes, public contracts, the civil service, public health, competition rules, environmental law and secularism, to name just a few of its missions. The Council of State is also -- as its name implies -- the main advisor of every branch of government. Each time a minister or a prime minister has a difficult political decision to make, he sends the case to the Council of State. Generally, the Council of State's advice becomes the law.
The immense respect due to the Council of State seems to have caused even the keenest observers to miss the fact that, on all questions dedicated to immigration and Islam, the Council of State has become an Islamo-leftist body dedicated to encouraging Muslim immigration and protecting the expansion of Islam and Islamism in France.
On all questions dedicated to immigration and Islam, France's Council of State (Conseil d'État) has become an Islamo-leftist body, dedicated to encouraging Muslim immigration and protecting the expansion of Islam and Islamism in France. (Image source: Lino Bento/Flickr)
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A few examples include:
- 1978. The right to migrate and work in France without an employment contract. The Council of State cancelled the government's decision to require an employment contract for a foreigner to migrate and work in France.
- 1978. The right to family reunification. Against the will of the government, which wanted to adapt migratory movements to a slower growth of the economy, the Council of State ruled that non-French immigrants have the "right to a family life", meaning that the wives and children of migrants workers are authorized to come, live and work in France as if they were French citizens. From that date, "family reunification" became an open door to migrants from North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.
- 1980. The right to polygamy. A foreign citizen is allowed to migrate in France with as many wives as he is married to in his country of origin. In 1993, a previous law had prevented second wives from obtaining visas.
- 1985. The right to illegal immigration. The government wanted to expel foreign workers immediately after the cancellation of their work permit. Due to the Council of State, deportation was delayed by 24 hours, enough time to escape and become a permanent illegal immigrant.
- 1989. Islamic veil in school is not "incompatible" with secularism. Since 18th century, state public schools were a tool of the state to build an education system away from the influence of the Catholic church. In 1989, with the authorization for schoolgirls to wear the Islamic veil, the Council of State introduced the right for a religion to influence a secularist education system. After 15 years of heated controversy, a 2004 law reversed that ruling and again prohibited the Islamic veil in the public secondary-school system, but not at universities.
- 2004. Authorization of Al Manar, Hezbollah's virulently anti-Semitic television channel, to broadcast in France. After strong protests by leaders of the Jewish community, however, the government passed a law that made it obligatory for the Council of State to prohibit the Islamist channel.
- 2010. The Council of State strongly opposed the government's decision legally to ban the burqa in the public space. A law banning the burqa was eventually passed.
- 2011. Public money is allowed for building mosques after the Council of State bypassed the secularist law from 1905.
- 2013. The Council of State gives the right to veiled mothers to be part of public school trips. Before that, school trips were considered an extension of the school. Consequently, the 2004 law prohibiting Islamic veil at school was applied against veiled mothers. In 2012, however, that law was reversed; now, veiled mothers are allowed to accompany pupils on school trips.
- 2013. The Council of State opposed the dismissal of a veiled employee in a daycare nursery, Baby Loup. The Baby Loup veil controversy, which lasted five years, mobilized national and international media, politicians, and a large part of the judicial system. The question was: Does a female employee have the right to wear an Islamic headscarf, even if company rules prohibit it? Eventually, the employee was dismissed and Baby Loup, which was located in a Muslim suburb, moved elsewhere.
- 2016. The Council of State allowed burkinis, the full-covering swimsuit for women. The ruling affects seaside resorts such as Nice, and places where the burkini does not create public disorder. In August 2016, burkinis started appearing on French beaches. In Nice, the capital of the Côte d'Azur, a few weeks after an Islamist terrorist murdered 82 people on July 14, four policemen delivered a warning to a burkini-clad woman lying on a beach. Pictures in the Daily Mail of policemen surrounding "poor and isolated Muslim woman," were published throughout the world. The Council of State ruled that any municipal prohibition of the burkini was prohibited -- unless the burkini was creating public disorder.
- 2016. More money for "refugees". The Council of State ruled that the State had to give more money to help tens of thousands of "refugees" to find a place to sleep while their files were being examined by immigration officials, contrary to other applicants.
- 2017. A government-funded mega-mosque in Paris. The Council of State helped the mayor of Paris legally build a giant mosque and donate it as a gift to an Islamic association.
- 2017. Islamic veil in nursing schools. The Council of State authorized the Islamic veil in nurses' training institutions even if internal rules prohibited exhibiting conspicuous religious signs.
- 2017. Public showers and toilets for migrants. The Council of State ruled that the government has an obligation to provide illegal immigrants with public showers and public toilets in Calais, where thousands of young men from Africa and the Middle East try every day illegally to cross the Channel to England. Notably, this ruling is based on Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which says this obligation is only for prisoners of war. Does the Council of State consider the French State as a jailer of migrants? There is no mention whatsoever in the ruling of considerations of public health.
Although the list above is not exhaustive, the rulings of the Council of State in favor of Islam, Islamism and unlimited, unvetted Muslim migration is systematic.
The question is: Why? Many French elites seem to be followers of a globalist ideology of no borders, no rules -- only the "human rights" of migrants from other nations vs. the rights of the citizens of France.
Perhaps many elites feel guilty after French State actively collaborated with Nazis, especially against Jews, during World War II, so that now they are trying, instead, to help Muslims -- whose culture and goals could hardly be farther from that of the Jews. Nevertheless, many seem to think of Muslims as "the Jews" of 21st century.
Perhaps many among the elites secretly do not like their country.
Or perhaps many elites are looking for "redemption" after France colonized parts of Africa and Northern Africa. They are forgetting, however, that it was Muslims who colonized the Middle East, the Christian Byzantine Empire, North Africa, Greece, much of Eastern Europe and Asia, Northern Cyprus and Spain.
Maybe it is a mix of all these guilts. What is certain is that after the collaboration of the French State with the Nazis, the judges of the Council of State are collaborating with yet another totalitarian ideology: political Islam.
Yves Mamou, author and journalist, based in France, worked for two decades as a journalist for Le Monde. He is finishing a book about "Collaborators and Useful Idiots of Islamism in France," to be published in 2018.
