The New Leviathan Blog

Ethnicity: right-thinking limitations on the right of expression French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen was found guilty Wednesday by the Paris Court of Appeal of provoking discrimination, hatred or racial violence for comments made in April 2004 about Muslims in France. At first instance, he had escaped any conviction, the Paris criminal court having "cancelled the proceedings" against him. On Wednesday, the 11th chamber of the Court of Appeal sentenced the p...Read More >>

 NGO: the wheat and the chaff The European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, Louis Michel, today suggested the creation, by the NGOs themselves, of a “high authority” responsible for setting and monitoring their intervention rules in order to avoid any deviation as with Zoé's Ark in Chad. “NGOs would have every interest in building a sort of deontological order, of high authority, which would establish (…) the rules of intervention...Read More >>

Return Europe to the Europeans There was, in reality, no institutional crisis opened by the double Franco-Dutch “no” in 2005. The EU has bodies, it has a budget until 2013, it can function. The only real crisis arose from the contradiction between the fierce desire of politicians to build a European state and the scathing denial that the people had inflicted on this desire. This so-called crisis was felt only by the political class, and had value only for them. The agreem...Read More >>

State, Community, and Filial Piety  Authorities in the Changyuan region in central China are considering granting social promotions to civil servants based on criteria favoring parental love, the Xinhua news agency announced on Saturday. Half a thousand family members, friends, colleagues and neighbors will be specially questioned by investigators who will be interested in the behavior of all ci...Read More >>

France confronted with the contemporary world  It is curious that the French were so passionate about such an election that they participated massively. During this electoral campaign which ended in street incidents and the return of the rain, the candidates were flat, with rare exceptions, the intellectual level of the discussions left something to be desired (as evidenced for example by the comments made on the genetics and on May 1968…),...Read More >>

The death of little Renaud The 9 defendants prosecuted before the Liège criminal court to answer for the drowning of little Renaud De Boeck were acquitted on Tuesday. Judge Lhoest found in his judgment that no wrongful behavior was attributable to the various defendants. (…) In her judgment, Judge Loest considered that, if negligence or wrongful behavior was observed in the organization and management of the swimming pool, they could not directly engage the respo...Read More >>

France: the excesses of the tax system The implementation of the withholding tax on income will take time and meets with "little enthusiasm", according to a new report on the issue submitted Tuesday to the Minister of the Economy Thierry Breton, for whom this reform nevertheless goes “in the direction of history”. A major promoter of withholding tax, which consists of having household taxes collected in real time directly by companies or pension funds, and no longer by th...Read More >>

The international decline of social capital Distrust of the political and economic "elite" is growing, revealed an opinion poll carried out by the Gallup Institute from November to December among 55,000 people from sixty countries. This result reveals a sharp deterioration in humanity's confidence in its future: the same survey published a year earlier gave the advantage to optimists (35 pc) over pessimists (30 pc). The greatest pessimists are the Greeks, Portuguese and...Read More >>

9/11 and conspiracy theories Why do doubts surround the official investigations into the events of 9/11? For one thing, several major questions in the past have only revealed partial truths. Beyond this, major historic events always provide scope for speculation. President John F. Kennedy, assassinated by a lone gunman? Impossible! There must be more to it. The 9/11 attacks on the United States? Allegedly perpetrated by a bunch of Arabs with box cutters and ru...Read More >>

Blair rediscovers civic engagement The Government is to recruit 100 people to help ministers to shape policies on the public services for the next decade, ministers will announce today. The people, to be selected by market-research organizations as a cross-section representative of the population, will be asked to put themselves in the shoes of the Government's decision makers and advise on thr...Read More >>