France's Jacques Chirac, under pressure to respond to exploding religious violence, has come up with the novel approach of blaming the victims for the assaults:

Despite protests from Muslim leaders, France must outlaw Islamic head coverings, Jewish skullcaps and other obvious religious signs in schools and regulate them in the workplace, President Jacques Chirac announced Wednesday. Such action (news - web sites), the French president said in a televised national address, is needed to reaffirm France's secular foundations. "It is not negotiable," he asserted.

Islamic head scarves, Jewish yarmulkes or outsized Christian crosses "have no place" in public schools, Chirac said, and called on parliament, where his conservative government has a majority, to pass a law banning them ahead of the school year that starts in September 2004.

So rather than doing something to stop the thugs that beat, rob, and rape people based on their religion, Chirac and France have decided to surrender to them instead and make criminals out of their victims. This, according to Chirac, represents a "core value" of France, which explains a hell of a lot about June 1940 and Iraq.

Chirac said a law also is needed to stop patients from refusing treatment by doctors of the opposite sex. Doctors say there have been cases of Muslim women or their husbands rebuffing male doctors.

Understand what Chirac is saying -- the state should force you to see a doctor you don't want to touch you. And if you select another doctor because of their gender, you're a criminal.

It's incredible, and it's the logical end result of political correctness. First, you start by defining personal choices and expression as somehow dangerous, evil, or discriminatory, and over time, you build enough momentum that people begin to ask government to protect citizens from their own choices. Government passes laws that bars these choices or expressions in the name of public safety. Society becomes less free, government eats up more resources in order to enforce the new laws, and entire new classes of criminals are created.

So much for Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.

Addendum: How can we trust France as an ally in the war against Islamofascist terrorism when France can't stand up to Muslim extremists in their own country? Is this the kind of leadership from which Howard Dean feels we need permission to pursue national security goals?

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