[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6280]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              LAST CURTAIN CALL FOR FREE SPEECH IN FRANCE

  (Mr. POE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. POE. Madam Speaker, the curtain has dropped on the stage of free 
speech in Paris, France for actress Brigitte Bardot. The birthplace of 
enlightenment has now become home to conformity and political 
correctness, and rigid speech control.
  In France, if speech is offensive, a person can be fined and 
imprisoned. That's what French prosecutors are trying to do to Brigitte 
Bardot, claiming she incited racial hatred toward the Muslim community.
  Bardot wrote comments in a letter to Nicolas Sarkozy that offended 
Muslims. Bardot, an animal rights activist, denounced a Muslim festival 
that including slaughtering sheep by saying she was ``fed up with being 
led by this population which is destroying us, and destroying France.''
  Now the French speech control police claim it's a crime to speak ill 
of Muslims. So much for freedom of speech in progressive France.
  Speech control is a throwback to the Dark Ages when no one could say 
anything bad about the king. Gone is the citizen Voltaire's philosophy 
of ``I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend it to the 
death for you to say it.''
  But today French citizens that speak their mind may face the modern 
day Bastille if they offend Muslims or hurt their feelings. It looks 
like the last curtain call for actress Brigitte Bardot and free speech 
in France.
  And that's just the way it is.

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