tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/french-law-39947/articlesFrench law – The Conversation2023-07-12T20:04:17Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2004552023-07-12T20:04:17Z2023-07-12T20:04:17ZThe French Revolution executed royals and nobles, yes – but most people killed were commoners<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532596/original/file-20230619-27-5n6nw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C15%2C3493%2C2098&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/V0041212/full/full/0/default.jpg">Wellcome Collection</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For a lot of people, mention of the French Revolution conjures up images of wealthy nobles being led to the guillotine. Thanks to countless movies, books and half-remembered history lessons, many have been left with the impression the revolution was chiefly about chopping off the heads of kings, queens, dukes and other cashed-up aristocrats.</p>
<p>But as we approach what’s known in English as Bastille Day and in French as <em>Quatorze Juillet</em> – a date commemorating events of July 14 in 1789 that came to symbolise the French Revolution – it’s worth correcting this common misconception.</p>
<p>In fact, most people executed during the French Revolution – and particularly in its perceived bloodiest era, the nine-month “<a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Reign_of_Terror/">Reign of Terror</a>” between autumn 1793 and summer 1794 – were commoners.</p>
<p>As historian Donald Greer <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674282445">wrote</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] more carters than princes were executed, more day labourers than dukes and marquises, three or four times as many servants than parliamentarians. The Terror swept French society from base to comb; its victims form a complete cross section of the social order of the Ancien régime.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-bastille-day-and-why-is-it-celebrated-163812">What is Bastille Day and why is it celebrated?</a>
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<h2>The ‘national razor’</h2>
<p>The guillotine was first put to use on April 15 1792 when a common thief called <a href="https://www.lhistoire.fr/%C3%A9ph%C3%A9m%C3%A9ride/25-avril-1792-la-guillotine-tombe-pour-la-premi%C3%A8re-fois">Pelletier</a> was executed. Initially seen as an instrument of <a href="https://www.history.com/news/8-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-guillotine">equality</a>, however, the guillotine soon acquired a grim reputation for its list of famous victims.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530054/original/file-20230605-19-crv4bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530054/original/file-20230605-19-crv4bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530054/original/file-20230605-19-crv4bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530054/original/file-20230605-19-crv4bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530054/original/file-20230605-19-crv4bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530054/original/file-20230605-19-crv4bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530054/original/file-20230605-19-crv4bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Miniature guillotine, French revolution era, Musée Carnavalet.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Les musées de la ville de Paris</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Among those who died under the “national razor” (the guillotine’s nickname) were King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, many revolutionary leaders such as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Georges-Danton">Georges Danton</a>, <a href="https://www.historytoday.com/miscellanies/french-revolutions-angel-death">Louis de Saint-Just</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Maximilien-Robespierre">Maximilien Robespierre</a>. Scientist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Antoine-Lavoisier">Antoine Lavoisier,</a> pre-romantic poet <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Andre-Marie-de-Chenier">André Chénier</a>, feminist <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/01/feminist-olympe-de-gouges-pantheon">Olympe de Gouges</a> and <a href="https://histoire-image.org/etudes/couple-tourmente-revolutionnaire">legendary lovers</a> Camille and Lucie Desmoulins were among its victims.</p>
<p>But it wasn’t just “celebrities” executed at the guillotine.</p>
<p>While reliable figures on the definitive number of people guillotined during the Revolution are hard to find, historians commonly project <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/aad/3585">between 15,000 and 17,000</a> people were guillotined across France.</p>
<p>The bulk of it occurred during the the Reign of Terror.</p>
<p>When the decision was made to centralise all (legal) executions in Paris, 1,376 people were guillotined over <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Revolutionary-Tribunal-French-history">just 47 days</a>, between June 10 and July 27 1794. That’s about 30 a day.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530055/original/file-20230605-29-wofosl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530055/original/file-20230605-29-wofosl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530055/original/file-20230605-29-wofosl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530055/original/file-20230605-29-wofosl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530055/original/file-20230605-29-wofosl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530055/original/file-20230605-29-wofosl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530055/original/file-20230605-29-wofosl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530055/original/file-20230605-29-wofosl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The bulk of the executions occurred during the The Reign of Terror.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bibliothèque nationale de France</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The guillotine wasn’t the only method</h2>
<p>However, the guillotine represents just one way people were executed.</p>
<p>Historians estimate around <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015002601550&view=1up&seq=9">20,000</a> men and women were summarily killed – either shot, stabbed or <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Drownings_at_Nantes/">drowned</a> – during the Terror across France.</p>
<p>They also estimate that in just under five days, <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/obl4he/frenchrevolution/18_the_massacres.html">1,500 people</a> died at the hands of Parisian mobs during the 1792 September massacres.</p>
<p>More broadly, around <a href="https://www.aphg.fr/Sur-la-guerre-de-Vendee-et-le-concept-de-genocide">170,000 civilians</a> died in the civil <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Wars-of-the-Vendee">Wars of the Vendée</a>, while more than <a href="https://www.napoleon.org/en/history-of-the-two-empires/articles/bullet-point-6-napoleon-responsible-deaths-millions-soldiers/">700,000 French soldiers</a> lost their lives across the 1792-1815 period.</p>
<p>The vast <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015002601550&view=1up&seq=9">majority</a> of these people killed were ordinary French men and women, not members of the elite.</p>
<p>Overall, Greer <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674282445">estimates</a> 8.5% of the Terror’s victims belonged to the nobility, 6.5% to the clergy, and 85% to the Third Estate (meaning non-clerics and non-nobles). Women represented 9% of the total (but 20% and 14% of the noble and clerical categories, respectively).</p>
<p>Priests who had <a href="https://www.historytoday.com/archive/french-revolution-and-catholic-church">refused</a> to take the oath of loyalty to the Revolution, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/emigre">émigrés</a> who had fled the country, hoarders and profiteers who made the <a href="https://alphahistory.com/frenchrevolution/law-of-the-maximum/">price of bread</a> much dearer, or political <a href="https://alphahistory.com/frenchrevolution/girondins-and-montagnards/">opponents</a> of the moment, all were deemed “<a href="https://www.marxists.org/history/france/revolution/robespierre/1794/enemies.htm">enemies of the Revolution</a>”.</p>
<h2>Why was so much blood shed during the Reign of Terror?</h2>
<p>The paranoia of the regime in 1793–94 was the result of various factors. </p>
<p>France fought at its borders against a <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/War_of_the_First_Coalition/">coalition</a> led by Europe’s monarchs to nip the revolution in the bud before it could threaten their thrones. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, civil war ravaged the west and south of France, <a href="https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9780719082153/">conspiracy rumours</a> circulated across the country, and political infighting intensified in Paris between <a href="https://revolution.chnm.org/items/show/444">opposing factions</a>.</p>
<p>All these factors led to a series of laws voted up in late 1793 that enabled the expedited judgement of thousands of people suspected of counterrevolutionary beliefs. </p>
<p>The measures contained in the infamous “<a href="https://revolution.chnm.org/d/417/">Law of Suspects</a>” were, however, relaxed in the summer of 1794 and completely abolished in October 1795.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532598/original/file-20230619-19-4a5amn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Queen Marie Antoinette led to her execution on a horse-cart on the 16th of October 1793." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532598/original/file-20230619-19-4a5amn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532598/original/file-20230619-19-4a5amn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532598/original/file-20230619-19-4a5amn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532598/original/file-20230619-19-4a5amn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532598/original/file-20230619-19-4a5amn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532598/original/file-20230619-19-4a5amn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532598/original/file-20230619-19-4a5amn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The fate of Queen Marie-Antoinette and its many depictions in pop culture has influenced how many people think of the Revolution.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/V0041870/full/full/0/default.jpg">Aquatint with engraving by C. Silanio after Aloisin, 1793/Wellcome Collection</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How the focus came to be on beheaded nobility</h2>
<p>For many people, however, mention of this period of French history leads to the vision of a bloodthirsty Revolution indiscriminately sending to their death thousands of nobles. </p>
<p>This is largely influenced by the fate of Queen Marie-Antoinette and its many depictions in <a href="https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/marie-antoinette-most-hated-queen-of-france-pop-culture-icon">pop culture</a>.</p>
<p>British <a href="https://www.brh.org.uk/site/articles/guillotine-knitting-terror/">counter-revolutionary propaganda</a> in the 1790s and 1800s also helped popularise the idea that aristocrats were martyrs and the main victims of revolution executioners.</p>
<p>This representation was mostly forged via the abundant publication in the 19th century of memoirs and diaries of <a href="https://parcoursrevolution.paris.fr/en/points-of-interest/79-picpus-a-commemorative-site-of-the-terror">survivors and relatives</a> of victims, usually from the social and economic elite fiercely opposed to the Revolution and its legacy.</p>
<h2>A broader legacy</h2>
<p>Beyond the guillotine and the Reign of Terror, the legacies of the revolution run far deeper. </p>
<p>The revolution abolished entrenched privileges based on birth, imposed equality before the law and opened the door to emerging forms of democratic involvement for everyday citizens.</p>
<p>The Revolution ushered in a time of reforms in France, across Europe and indeed across the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200455/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A series of laws voted up in late 1793 enabled the expedited judgement of thousands of people suspected of counterrevolutionary beliefs.Claire Rioult, PhD candidate in Early Modern History, Monash UniversityRomain Fathi, Senior Lecturer, History, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2027722023-03-30T09:26:03Z2023-03-30T09:26:03ZFrance protests: Macron’s isolation at the top will only fuel more conflict<p>In France these days, there is little common ground between the Élysée Palace and civil society. Despite President Emmanuel Macron’s occasional rhetoric to the contrary, power appears to be exercised from the top down, with violence erupting and spreading, overshadowing meaning and content.</p>
<p>Shaken by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-frances-gilets-jaunes-protesters-are-so-angry-108100">“Gilets Jaunes” movement</a> from 2018 to the start of 2019, a series of all-out protests over the cost of living, France is currently experiencing one of the most serious episodes of civil resistance since the <a href="https://theconversation.com/pension-reform-in-france-macron-and-demonstrators-resume-epic-tussle-begun-over-30-years-ago-198354">1995 strikes against pension reform</a>. Tuesday 28 March was the 10th day of strikes against Macron’s retirement overhaul, which would extend the minimum pension age from 62 to 64 years. While participation dropped by comparison to Thursday 23 March, what had begun as a rejection of pension reform has now morphed into a general cry against what many see as the country’s democratic shortcomings. The spark was the <a href="https://theconversation.com/french-governments-long-record-of-bypassing-parliament-a-brief-history-of-article-49-3-202185">government’s use of the controversial “49.3” measure</a>, allowing it to bypass parliament and push through the controversial reform bill. </p>
<p>In parallel, <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/protesters-clash-with-police-over-water-reservoirs-in-france/">more than 25,000 pro-environment protesters</a> have gathered in Western France over the past days to call on the government to stop the construction of giant water reservoirs. Aimed at securing water for the agricultural industry ahead of possible droughts this summer, this type of infrastructure has aroused concerns over the confiscation by one sector of an increasingly scarce resource in the era of climate change. Clashes with some 3,000 police forces have left 47 police officers and 200 demonstrators injured. At the time of writing, <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2023/03/29/manifestants-de-sainte-soline-dans-le-coma-deux-enquetes-en-cours-a-rennes_6167395_3224.html">two protesters are in a coma</a>, with one between life and death.</p>
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<p>These events have increasingly shifted the conversation from meaning and content to clashes between police and subversive forces. As if it were possible to <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2023/03/27/megabassines-gendarmes-et-manifestants-se-rejettent-la-responsabilite-des-violents-affrontements-a-sainte-soline_6167107_3244.html">attribute the blame</a> for the rise of violence to one or the other, and to settle the affair by denouncing one arm of the <a href="https://www.coe.int/fr/web/commissioner/-/manifestations-en-france-les-libert%C3%A9s-d-expression-et-de-r%C3%A9union-doivent-%C3%AAtre-prot%C3%A9g%C3%A9es-contre-toute-forme-de-violence">riot control police</a> or <a href="https://www.francetvinfo.fr/faits-divers/police/violences-policieres/police-un-enregistrement-audio-accablant-pour-les-policiers-de-la-brav-m_5732423.html">the other</a>, the anarchists or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_bloc">black block groups</a>.</p>
<p>Violence is always a possibility in a democracy, but it begins to fester when problems are not dealt with politically. To avoid this, the <a href="https://www.fmsh.fr/projets/panel-international-sur-la-sortie-de-la-violence-0">International Panel on Exiting Violence</a> at the <a href="https://www.fmsh.fr/">Foundation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme</a> has advised for mediating bodies to get involved.</p>
<h2>The decline of institutions and mediation</h2>
<p>The current situation in France calls for two types of complementary analysis. On the one hand, it is necessary to examine the processes that, over time, have weakened the players likely to ensure the political treatment of social problems. On the other, recent events demand that we look at the collapse of the institutions and mediating bodies that could have helped resolve political tensions in a peaceful and constructive manner. </p>
<p>The decline of French civil society’s capacity to mediate with power goes back to <a href="http://ubmp-bupb.org/documents/mediation-sociale-esprit-critique.pdf">the mid-1970s</a>. At the time, society was structured by the country’s little-examined Republican system of government and repeated conflicts between workers and employers. Liberalism or neo-liberalism had not yet affect the Republican model of public service and large nationalised companies. In May 1968 a new figure arrived, the student, and deindustrialisation led to changes in the economy, cultural shifts, and the weakening of trade unions.</p>
<p>In the 21st century, the <a href="https://www.francetvinfo.fr/societe/laicite-le-modele-francais-attaque-mais-aussi-copie_4214301.html">idea and secularism</a> of France’s Republic have largely driven the national conversation, against a backdrop of rising extremist currents, particularly Islamist extremism. </p>
<h2>Rallying in a fragmented landscape</h2>
<p>As a result, the trade unions and NGOs that have long structured French political life are now increasingly struggling to exist locally and rally workers. A telling example took place on 2 June 2020: despite the Covid-19 lockdown and in defiance of police orders, <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2020/06/03/environ-20-000-manifestants-a-paris-lors-d-un-rassemblement-interdit-contre-les-violences-policieres_6041560_3224.html">some 20,000 people</a> congregated to demand the truth about 24-year-old Adama Traoré, who died in a police station in the Paris region four years earlier. However, it was not the long-established NGOs <a href="https://sos-racisme.org">SOS Racisme</a> or the human rights focused <a href="https://www.ldh-france.org">Ligue des droits de l'Homme</a> that organised the protests, but a <a href="https://twitter.com/laveritepradama">network led by Traoré’s sister</a>.</p>
<p>While trade unions were able to come together and collectively call for the withdrawal of the pension reform, the reality is that they’re dependent on the radicalism of the base. In recent years, unions have often failed to lead the protest agenda – for example, when workers for France’s <a href="https://www.ouest-france.fr/leditiondusoir/2022-12-21/quel-est-ce-collectif-de-controleurs-a-l-origine-de-la-greve-a-la-sncf-pour-le-week-end-de-noel-81770c64-0a0b-4615-9bd9-bb84979682cd">national railway company</a> organised their own strike in December 2022, without the assistance of trade unions. </p>
<h2>Power from the top down</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, President Macron has consistently governed from the top down since taking office in 2017, allowing only a <a href="https://www.lexpress.fr/idees-et-debats/michel-wieviorka-alors-monsieur-macron-heureux_2171965.html">few mediating players</a>.</p>
<p>On social issues, he does not take into account the <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-macrons-move-to-force-through-pension-reform-all-eyes-are-now-on-frances-trade-unions-201713">trade unions</a>, including reformists such as the CFDT – an attitude that does not date only from the debate on pension reform. He confirmed this to me personally when, at a <a href="https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/video-et-podcast-le-debat-d-emmanuel-macron-avec-des-intellectuels-en-integrale-2958000">meeting in March 2019</a> with academics to reflect on the “Gilets Jaunes” crisis, I asked him why he did not talk to the CFDT. Macron answered that the intermediary bodies that merited his attention were local and regional representatives, not trade unions. Time and again, he has criticised <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2023/02/10/face-aux-difficultes-emmanuel-macron-reactive-sa-critique-des-rentes-et-des-corporatismes_6161240_823448.html">“corporatism”</a> – a political ideology whereby professional bodies seek to exclusively defend their interests – referring to it as “the French disease, the thing that reappeared the quickest following the 1789 Revolution”. </p>
<p>This propensity to dismiss mediation can be noted in other areas as well. In June, the government moved to phase out <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/france/20220602-diplomacy-is-for-pros-not-improvisers-french-diplomats-strike-over-reforms-budget-cuts">two historic bodies of French diplomacy</a>, ambassadors and foreign-affairs advisers. Instead, a new body of state administrators would be created, with senior civil servants no longer be attached to a specific administration. This prompted the first walkout in the foreign ministry in 20 years. Former foreign-affairs minister Dominique de Villepin and European Commission Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, opposed the reforms, and experts called it a <a href="https://www.lgdj.fr/la-fin-des-diplomates-9782493270283.html">“worrying development”</a>, in vain. </p>
<p>Macron has also been accused of having a casual attitude toward local or regional elected representatives by not inviting the <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2023/03/13/new-cold-cut-between-macron-and-the-mayors_6165239_823448.html">mayors of France</a> at a working meeting on decentralisation on 13 March 2023. And he has blurred distinctions between <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-civitas-europa-2017-2-page-161.htm">the left and the classic right</a>, the effects of which we have just observed on the occasion of the parliamentary debate on pensions. France’s traditional conservative party, Les Républicains, is moribund, or almost. </p>
<h2>Understanding “Jupiterean” rule</h2>
<p>Many have branded Macron’s style of governance as “Jupiterean”. Is it a consequence of the president’s personality, or even – as the former interior minister <a href="https://www.francetvinfo.fr/politique/gouvernement-d-edouard-philippe/video-gerard-collomb-regrette-le-manque-d-humilite-de-l-executif_2927719.html">Gérard Collomb</a> once called it – “hubris”? </p>
<p>By eliminating mediating players between himself and the country’s citizens, Macron risks rolling out the red carpet to the far right. These questions are always risky, but today there is a wealth of <a href="https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/le-traitre-et-le-neant-quatre-choses-a-retenir-du-livre-de-davet-et-lhomme-sur-emmanuel-macron-2229294">journalistic investigations and testimonies</a> that document this creation of an institutional, political and social vacuum. If this owes much to the head of state’s perception of his own role, the fact is that the institutions of the Fifth Republic facilitate it. This has given rise to calls for a new constitution and a <a href="https://theconversation.com/debat-sortir-de-la-v-republique-une-fausse-bonne-idee-175162">Sixth Republic</a>. </p>
<p>We may also ask ourselves whether social, political or cultural players are doing everything in their power to move in the direction of debate and negotiation. The answer is “yes” if we consider how the country’s joint union body (“intersyndicale”) has opposed the government’s pension reform by tapping both into its member unions’ defensive radicalism and pro-negotiation reformism. “No”, if we look to the “Gilets Jaunes” who now swell the ranks of the pension-reform protests after having been left disillusioned by Macron’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/10/macron-great-debate-france-turning-point-or-puffed-up-nonsense">“Great Debate”</a> – a two-month listening tour of citizen’s demands by local and national authorities. Rather than a negotiation, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahiers_de_dol%C3%A9ances">thousands of grievances</a> collected resulted in another series of top-down proposals by the president, which <a href="https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/provence-alpes-cote-d-azur/grand-debat-national-propositions-emmanuel-macron-1660421.html">many regarded as disconnected</a> from the initial demands.</p>
<p>Could these trends be reversed? At the very least, it would require a profound reform of France’s institutions and a renewal of the political class – both of which seem to be out of reach for now.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202772/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michel Wieviorka ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>In the midst of the pension reform crisis, the constant weakening of institutions and mediation bodies raises questions about Emmanuel Macron’s exercise of power.Michel Wieviorka, Sociologue, membre Centre d'analyse et d'intervention sociologiques (CADIS, EHSS-CNRS), Auteurs historiques The Conversation FranceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1205582019-08-07T13:38:51Z2019-08-07T13:38:51ZFrench cannabis legalization debate ignores race, religion and the mass incarceration of Muslims<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287107/original/file-20190806-84210-1dsw0i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Evidence suggests that Muslim men in France have been disproportionately arrested and jailed for cannabis-related crimes since the drug became illegal in 1970.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/francisco_osorio/4977990504/in/photolist-8zTv9u-B1k938-6afVLk-87j3TU-8pdjy4-hP7vgs-8TfWUQ-RTuk8L-286TveU-M4roSU-27PfhL8-29c9WnD-SthGRk-26rpDLS-286Nae3-Sh5Y3t-26rsHMb-M4r8jQ-Srk5bE-286V31w-4KqDVQ-6afVDi-6afVyR-7gvLPB-E1RSo-59cKgy-7CsArq-7gzA71-7Cszo9-7gzBJU-8VeEE6-StLf8R-21inHSo-dDKSHJ-Rr8diz-StnAiF-AtWitz-25uMaQt-QBavfz-2crXZ5w-225FvMS-Sh5ZXR-7kj7sT-RecthX-Sh61da-SBqZUA-SBrz7C-StnCrP-B33Fs7-27Per9T">Francisco Osorio/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last summer in France, dozens of “CBD cafés” suddenly opened across the country.</p>
<p>Exploiting a legal loophole originally created for hemp farmers, these pop-up businesses sold queuing customers oils, drinks and salves infused with cannabidiol, a cannabis compound <a href="https://theconversation.com/cbd-rising-star-or-popular-fad-110146">that is a faddish if unproven “cure”</a> for insomnia, anxiety and more. The French government reacted quickly and by mid-June had <a href="http://www.drogues.gouv.fr/actualites/cannabidiol-cbd-point-legislation">officially prohibited the sale of CBD</a>. The CBD cafés vanished within a month. </p>
<p>But France’s brief experiment with cannabidiol seems to have started a movement to legalize cannabis, which has been illegal since <a href="https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000000321402&categorieLien=id">1970</a>. </p>
<p>On June 19, dozens of French economists, physicians and politicians published an open letter in the popular news magazine <a href="https://www.nouvelobs.com/societe/20190619.OBS14590/l-appel-de-70-medecins-elus-economistes-pourquoi-nous-voulons-legaliser-le-cannabis.html">L’Obs</a>, denouncing the “bankruptcy” of cannabis prohibition and imploring the nation to “Légalisons-Le!” Soon after, an economic advisory council to the French prime minister released a <a href="https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jo_pdf.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000000321402">report</a> criticizing France’s drug war as a costly “French failure” and calling for cannabis legalization on financial grounds. </p>
<p>Then, in July, France’s drug safety agency <a href="https://ansm.sante.fr/S-informer/Actualite/Cannabis-a-visee-therapeutique-en-France-l-ANSM-souscrit-au-cadre-de-la-phase-experimentale-de-mise-a-disposition-propose-par-le-Comite-d-experts-Point-d-information">approved</a> the launch of medical cannabis trials in France — something physicians and activists have pushed for since 2013. </p>
<p>France’s drug policy debate largely echoes similar conversations that have lead a <a href="https://theconversation.com/marijuana-expands-into-3-more-states-but-nationwide-legalization-still-unlikely-106512">dozen U.S. states</a> to legalize and regulate cannabis since 2014, but for one difference: France has all but ignored the <a href="https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/cory-booker-calls-marijuana-justice-biden-says-drug-criminals-shouldnt-be">link</a> between <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/legal-marijuana-made-big-promises-racial-equity-fell-short-n952376">race</a>, cannabis and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/11/nyregion/marijuana-legalization-african-americans.html">mass incarceration</a>.</p>
<h2>France’s hidden war on drugs</h2>
<p>Evidence suggests that cannabis prohibition over the past 50 years has disproportionately punished France’s Muslim minority. </p>
<p>About one-fifth of French prisoners were convicted for drug offenses, according to the <a href="http://www.justice.gouv.fr/art_pix/Stat_Annuaire_ministere-justice_2017_chapitre8.pdf">French Ministry of Justice</a> – a rate comparable to that of the <a href="https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2019.html">United States</a>. Nearly all of them are men. </p>
<p>There is no demographic breakdown of this population, because the French credo of “absolute equality” among citizens has made it <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/how-french-law-makes-minorities-invisible-a7416656.html">illegal since 1978 to collect</a> statistics based on race, ethnicity or religion. But sociologist <a href="http://cadis.ehess.fr/index.php?1142">Farhad Khosrokhavar</a>, who studies France’s prison system, has found that roughly half of the 69,000 people incarcerated today in France are Muslims of Arab descent.</p>
<p>Muslims make up just 9% of France’s 67 million people.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287106/original/file-20190806-84244-16wo80g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287106/original/file-20190806-84244-16wo80g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287106/original/file-20190806-84244-16wo80g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287106/original/file-20190806-84244-16wo80g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287106/original/file-20190806-84244-16wo80g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287106/original/file-20190806-84244-16wo80g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287106/original/file-20190806-84244-16wo80g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/success?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdownload.shutterstock.com%2Fgatekeeper%2FW3siZSI6MTU2NTE1MjUxNywiYyI6Il9waG90b19zZXNzaW9uX2lkIiwiZGMiOiJpZGxfMTQwMjg3NjI2OCIsImsiOiJwaG90by8xNDAyODc2MjY4L2h1Z2UuanBnIiwibSI6MSwiZCI6InNodXR0ZXJzdG9jay1tZWRpYSJ9LCJYZElldkdqWkk0V1MwWFNabTdlOGwyZ2NndUUiXQ%2Fshutterstock_1402876268.jpg&pi=33421636&m=1402876268&src=GxC2BHBfNf7nnlBX4w5Kzg-1-25">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to a <a href="http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/15/rap-info/i0595.asp">January 2018 study</a> commissioned by the French National Assembly, of the 117,421 arrests for drugs in France in 2010, 86% involved cannabis. Cannabis arrests are rising quickly, too. The same study reported that number of people arrested annually for “simple use” of cannabis in France increased 10-fold between 2000 and 2015, from 14,501 to 139,683.</p>
<p>Taken together, this and <a href="https://www.ofdt.fr/BDD/publications/docs/DCC2019.pdf">other data</a> suggests that up to 1 in 6 prisoners in France today may be an Arab Muslim man who used, possessed or sold cannabis. </p>
<h2>Hashish assassins</h2>
<p>The disproportionate impact of French drug laws on Muslim men is unsurprising considering that the French have long associated Muslims with cannabis – specifically hashish, a cannabis resin.</p>
<p>As I argue in my <a href="https://digital.library.temple.edu/digital/collection/p245801coll10/id/490292/">doctoral dissertation</a> and forthcoming book on the history of hashish in France, the 19th-century French believed this mild drug caused insanity, violence and criminality among Muslim North Africans.</p>
<p>Writing in the early 1800s, the famed French scholar <a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5656689h/f85.item.r=Sacy">Antoine-Isaac Silvestre de Sacy</a> popularized the idea that the word “assassin” derived from the Arabic word “hashish” and that both originated with a Muslim sect called the Assassins of Alamut, who operated during the Crusades. </p>
<p>First described in the 1300 Italian travelogue “<a href="https://www.wdl.org/en/item/14300/">The Travels of Marco Polo</a>,” the Assassins of Alamut were rumored to use an “intoxicating potion” to dupe devotees in Iraq and Syria into becoming assassins. Sacy believed the potion was made from hashish, citing contemporary Arabic references to the sect as the “al-Hashishiyya,” or “hashish-eaters.” </p>
<p>These assassins, Sacy argued, “were specifically raised to kill” by their leader, known as the Old Man of the Mountain. They were fed hashish to ensure “absolute resignation to the will of their leader.” </p>
<p>Though largely a fiction, Sacy’s contentions about cannabis-eating Muslim assassins <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/SHAD30010050">gained traction</a> in France, particularly in medicine. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287108/original/file-20190806-84195-1mfz8rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287108/original/file-20190806-84195-1mfz8rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287108/original/file-20190806-84195-1mfz8rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287108/original/file-20190806-84195-1mfz8rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287108/original/file-20190806-84195-1mfz8rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287108/original/file-20190806-84195-1mfz8rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=701&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287108/original/file-20190806-84195-1mfz8rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=701&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287108/original/file-20190806-84195-1mfz8rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=701&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hashish.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_medical_hashish(2).jpg">Mjpresson/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Dozens of mid 19th-century doctors cited Sacy’s work in their research, my research uncovered. They believed that Western pharmaceutical science could “tame” hashish – this dangerous and exotic intoxicant from the Orient – for use by physicians to treat such fearsome diseases as insanity, the plague and cholera. </p>
<p>Medical hashish, primarily in the form of tincture, <a href="https://digital.library.temple.edu/digital/collection/p245801coll10/id/490272">flourished</a> in France during the 1830s and 1840s. </p>
<p>But the French soon grew disillusioned with their wonder drug. Cannabis, we now know, eases the symptoms of some diseases – but it cannot cure cholera.</p>
<p>As failed treatments mounted and many of the medical philosophies that underpinned the use of hashish became obsolete in France by the late 19th century, its use as medicine largely ended. In <a href="https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000000845281&categorieLien=id">1953</a>, France made medicinal hashish illegal. </p>
<h2>Colonial reefer madness</h2>
<p>The link between hashish and violent Muslims, however, was ingrained in the national consciousness. And it influenced French public policy for decades.</p>
<p>Officials and physicians in French colonial Algeria, viewing hashish use as a cause of <a href="http://jubilotheque.upmc.fr/ead.html?id=CS_000020_020#!%7B%22content%22:%5B%22CS_000020_020_toc298%22,false,%22%22%5D%7D">insanity and violent criminality</a>, filled psychiatric hospitals across Algeria with local Muslims supposedly suffering “folie haschischique” – basically, “<a href="https://theconversation.com/re-criminalizing-cannabis-is-worse-than-1930s-reefer-madness-89821">reefer madness</a>.”</p>
<p>Such thinking also helped justify the creation of the <a href="https://www.editions-zones.fr/livres/de-l-indigenat/">Code de l’Indigènat</a> in 1875, a French law that institutionalized racism and apartheid in French North Africa by officially designating Muslims as subjects rather than citizens. </p>
<p>In the name of promoting “colonial order,” France established separate and unequal legal codes that promoted the segregation, <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/civilisations/1717?lang=fr">forced labor</a> and civil rights restrictions of Muslims and other Africans.</p>
<p>The stigmatizing association between Muslims, hashish and criminality persisted after the end of the <a href="https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199668311.001.0001/acprof-9780199668311-chapter-5">French Empire</a> in 1968. It followed North Africans who emigrated to France, who were believed to <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/french-historical-studies/article-abstract/36/3/479/9749/Colonial-Techniques-in-the-Imperial-Capital-The?redirectedFrom=fulltext">prone to violence</a> and criminality and as such subject to government surveillance, interrogations and excessive police force in France.</p>
<p>French parliamentarians seeking to criminalize cannabis in the late 1960s embraced these discriminatory views. </p>
<p>They described the nation’s growing drug problem as a “<a href="http://archives.assemblee-nationale.fr/4/cri/1969-1970-ordinaire1/015.pdf">foreign plague</a>” spread by Arab drug traffickers. One French National Assembly member even cited Sacy, reminding fellow lawmakers that cannabis had once inspired a cult of Muslim murderers called the “Hachichins.” </p>
<p>French lawmakers today probably would not use such discredited research or stigmatizing language to connect Muslims to cannabis. But the number of Muslims imprisoned for drug-related crimes suggests that this historic racism is alive and well in France. </p>
<p>If France moves to regulate legal cannabis, many doctors, pot smokers and libertarian economists will surely rejoice. But it may be French Muslims who benefit the most.</p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120558/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David A. Guba Jr. does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Muslims make up 9% of France’s population and half of all its prisoners – many convicted on drug charges. But social justice isn’t part of the country’s growing debate on legalization.David A. Guba Jr., History Faculty, Bard CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/791972017-06-22T20:05:23Z2017-06-22T20:05:23ZShould ‘pro-ana’ websites be criminalised in Australia?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174653/original/file-20170620-24868-a5sy3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In Australia, there is little regulation of pro-ana material.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Anorexia nervosa is a mental illness characterised by a distorted body image, an extremely low body weight, and a <a href="https://www.eatingdisorders.org.au/eating-disorders/anorexia-nervosa">fear of gaining weight</a>. While anorexia affects all people, it is significantly more prevalent among women.
Even though it is relatively rare, its effects are devastating. </p>
<p>Anorexia is <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23625628">notoriously difficult to treat</a>. Across all mental illnesses, it has <a href="http://www.tc.columbia.edu/publications/gsjp/gsjp-volumes-archive/36307_6Johnson.pdf">the highest rate of mortality</a>, so research in this area is crucial. </p>
<p>It is not possible to determine a single cause of anorexia. Nevertheless, risk factors associated with the disease are well known. These include genetics, psychological predisposition, and social or cultural factors.</p>
<p>Increasingly, our social and cultural interactions take place online. It is, therefore, not surprising that online interactions intersect with mental illnesses generally, and anorexia specifically. This is particularly when taking into account that the average person who suffers from anorexia tends to be relatively young.</p>
<p>“Pro-ana” websites endorse anorexia as a positive choice, as opposed to a mental illness. Other variants include “pro-mia” websites, which endorse bulimia. These sites predominantly target women. </p>
<p>They promote a very thin body as the type that women must have. They give advice about how to become anorexic, how to hide an eating disorder from others and how to diet. The websites contain images of extremely thin women, which are sometimes altered to make the women appear thinner.</p>
<p>These websites have a long history. In 2001, Time Magazine noted the existence of <a href="http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,169660,00.html">400 such sites</a>. Efforts to eradicate these sites are just as old. AOL and Yahoo <a href="https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00780295/document">tried to ban pro-ana material that same year</a>. </p>
<p>These attempts have not been successful. Rather, the “survival” of such networks has required adaptation.</p>
<p>In practice, this involves these networks “<a href="https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00780295/document">turning inwards</a>”, as “subgroups of ana-mia bloggers will exchange messages, links and images among themselves and exclude other information sources”. Present estimates suggest there may be millions of pro-ana websites. </p>
<p>Like other online interactions, pro-ana websites have become integrated with social media. </p>
<h2>The present legal framework</h2>
<p>In Australia, there is little regulation of pro-ana material. There are general criminal offences that relate to <a href="https://www.slp.wa.gov.au/statutes/swans.nsf/%28DownloadFiles%29/Criminal+Code.pdf/$file/Criminal+Code.pdf">causing bodily harm</a>. This includes causing a person to have a disease or disorder. It follows that anorexia, while a mental illness, might nevertheless constitute bodily harm.</p>
<p>However, it is not likely that these offences will criminalise the publication of pro-ana material. The causes of anorexia are complex and multifaceted. Criminal prosecution usually requires proof that an action caused a particular outcome. Where many complex factors contribute to an outcome, it is difficult to prove causation in a criminal court.</p>
<p>Some jurisdictions have offences of “<a href="https://www.slp.wa.gov.au/statutes/swans.nsf/%28DownloadFiles%29/Criminal+Code.pdf/$file/Criminal+Code.pdf">hastening death</a>”. These provisions criminalise making a “<a href="https://jade.io/j/?a=outline&id=10782">substantial contribution</a>” to a death. Where it can be shown that pro-ana material contributed to death, by accelerating the progression of anorexia for example, criminal liability may follow. However, prosecution in such a case remains very difficult.</p>
<h2>The French legislation</h2>
<p>France has been an international leader in <a href="http://researchonline.nd.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1011&context=undalr">laws that relate to body image</a>. In 2015, the French government modified its Public Health Code to include an article that states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[c]ausing a person to seek excessive leanness by encouraging prolonged food restrictions which result in exposing the person to life-threatening danger or in directly compromising their health, is punishable by one year in prison and a fine of €10,000.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The French MPs who proposed the law, Maud Olivier and Catherine Coutelle, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3023026/France-cracks-pro-anorexia-websites-encourage-young-women-weight-low-possible.html">stated that</a> “certain sites known as pro-ana can push people into a vicious circle of anorexia and authorities cannot do anything about it”.</p>
<p>Other countries have also <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/30/should-pro-ana-sites-be-criminalized.html">proposed similar bans</a>. In Australia, former federal MP Anna Burke has advocated following France’s lead and <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/call-to-ban-anorexia-websites/2008/04/16/1208025283081.html">banning such websites in Australia</a>.</p>
<h2>Issues with criminalisation</h2>
<p>Pro-ana websites are commonly interactive. The line between a consumer and a producer of social media is blurry. Laws to prohibit pro-ana material would likely also capture the behaviour of visitors to these sites who interact with them. </p>
<p>A considerable proportion of women who seek out pro-ana websites report suffering from an eating disorder. Visitors to these websites commonly report that they are seeking support in relation to those disorders, often after traditional therapies have been unsuccessful. </p>
<p>Similarly, most publishers of pro-ana websites are women who themselves suffer from the illness. If creating pro-ana websites is criminalised, then it could make it more difficult for the creators to seek the help that they need to recover. </p>
<p>Much of the content of pro-ana websites is shocking. Telling readers to “stop eating until they take you to the hospital” is disturbing. This line might be hyperbole. It might be evidence of the disordered thinking typical of anorexia. In either case it evokes a strong reaction.</p>
<p>Yet, similar material is found elsewhere in the public space. The common pro-ana motto, “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”, is attributed to <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/kate-moss-in-quotes-nothing-tastes-as-good-as-skinny-feels-and-other-career-defining-statements-by-9061975.html">supermodel Kate Moss</a>. That line, and variations on it, are used in <a href="http://melindatankardreist.com/2012/04/nothing-tastes-as-bad-as-lorna-jane-co-opting-pro-anorexia-slogan-for-ad-campaign/">marketing material by clothing retailers</a>. </p>
<p>Images used by pro-ana websites are most often taken from other sources. They include photos from fashion and women’s magazines, celebrities and well-known models. These images – shocking in the context of pro-ana websites – are ubiquitous in the public space.</p>
<p>Public comment advocating extreme thinness in women is also common. Radio shock-jock Kyle Sandilands used his nationally syndicated show to tell a woman: <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3700555/Overweight-Kyle-Sandilands-says-likes-women-starving-look-fat-shames-Adele.html">“I like the starving look … 60kgs is pushing it.”</a> </p>
<p>Internationally syndicated celebrity MD Dr Oz’s show is broadcast on free-to-air TV in Australia. It featured Camille Hugh’s book, The Thigh Gap Hack. That book promised women “the shortcut to slimmer, feminine thighs every woman secretly desires” by techniques such as the trademarked “hunger training”. This technique encourages women to skip meals and instead “listen” to their body for signals of “true” hunger. </p>
<p>Proposals to criminalise pro-ana websites would make it an offence to collect and collate images, slogans and “tips” that are commonly used to market to women. These laws would criminalise this behaviour when done by women in a pro-ana context, but not when done to women. This seems deeply problematic.</p>
<h2>Alternatives to criminalisation</h2>
<p>The alternative to criminalisation is to use online platforms to deliver health information. For example, searching “pro-ana” on social media site tumblr returns the following page:</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174641/original/file-20170620-10641-njuusd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174641/original/file-20170620-10641-njuusd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=634&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174641/original/file-20170620-10641-njuusd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=634&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174641/original/file-20170620-10641-njuusd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=634&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174641/original/file-20170620-10641-njuusd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174641/original/file-20170620-10641-njuusd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174641/original/file-20170620-10641-njuusd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Social media website tumblr offers support to users who search common pro-ana terms.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.tumblr.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24132789">Research on internet search habits</a> found that explicit reference to a celebrity’s eating disorder in traditional media reports decreased the rate at which people searched for material relating to anorexia. This suggests that alternative messaging, rather than criminalisation, may have merit. </p>
<p>Another possible alternative is to add some sort of warning on these pages about the dangerous content and the harm that may come from viewing them. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>If you, or anyone you know, is suffering from an eating disorder, you can <a href="https://thebutterflyfoundation.org.au/">contact the Butterfly Foundation</a> for assistance by calling 1800 334 673.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79197/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tomas Fitzgerald has received funding from the WA Bar Association. He is a member of WA Labor.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marilyn Bromberg has received funding from the Telethon-Perth Children's Hospital Research Fund, as part of a research team. She volunteers as a lawyer for the Fremantle Community Legal Centre and as a judge for the mock trials of high schools students, organised by the Law Society of Western Australia. </span></em></p>Criminalising websites that celebrate extreme, unhealthy thinness is deeply problematic.Tomas Fitzgerald, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Notre Dame AustraliaMarilyn Bromberg, Senior Lecturer in Law, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/627162016-07-22T08:20:50Z2016-07-22T08:20:50ZFrench kissing to lesbian orgies: the origins of the myth of the debauched French court<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131411/original/image-20160721-32606-boc34a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Passion in Paris</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/imagineitall/15538807762/">Eleazar/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Snog, pash, knutschen: there are terms in many different cultures for what we in English call “French kissing”, or kissing with tongues. But why do we associate this kind of intimate kissing with the French? Indeed, why do the French have a reputation (at least in Anglo cultures) for being more sexually daring and uninhibited?</p>
<p>Anyone who’s watched the BBC2 costume drama Versailles (or, like me, struggled merely to get through the trailer) <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/may/27/antonia-fraser-versailles-bbc-sex-scandal-true">will have been informed</a> that the celebrated court of the Sun King was a place of non-stop sex, intrigue, glamour, and more sex. Success at the French court, it would appear, required an appetite for ambition matched only in size by an appetite for sexual acts considered outrageous for the time. But were French courtiers any more sexually audacious than anyone else? If not, then where does this stereotype of the French court as debauched and dangerous come from? </p>
<p>Probably the most infamous figure of kinky courtly conniving is the French queen Marie Antoinette. Best known for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake">apocryphal comment</a> “Let them eat cake”, Louis XVI’s consort had her character relentlessly assassinated by bloodthirsty revolutionary critics, who claimed in countless contemporaneous libels, engravings and songs that she (as well as betraying the country to its enemy Austria, her birthplace) organised orgies at Versailles, enjoyed lesbian encounters with her ladies-in-waiting, and even committed incest with her own son. </p>
<p>In fact, Marie Antoinette suffered so many accusations that Stanford University’s <a href="http://frda.stanford.edu/en/catalog/pn211cs9735">French Revolution Digital Archive</a> has a whole section devoted to attacks and libels on her private life. <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Forbidden-Bestsellers-Pre-Revolutionary-France/dp/0002558351">Some historians argue</a> that these attacks contributed to a “pornographic desacralisation of monarchy” that led directly to the executions of the king and queen. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131413/original/image-20160721-32639-o6nrym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131413/original/image-20160721-32639-o6nrym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131413/original/image-20160721-32639-o6nrym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131413/original/image-20160721-32639-o6nrym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131413/original/image-20160721-32639-o6nrym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131413/original/image-20160721-32639-o6nrym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131413/original/image-20160721-32639-o6nrym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kirsten Dunst as Marie Antoinette in the 2006 film.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/arsenic_and_old_lace/4787439000/">Mary Alice/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, such accusations against French courtly women actually came 200 years earlier. We find all of the same motifs of sexual deviance being used in the 16th century to attack the ladies-in-waiting of the French queen mother Catherine de Medici, de facto ruler of France during the Wars of Religion. As the kingdom descended into civil war between the Catholics and Huguenots, Catherine tried to steer a middle ground. But it backfired: each attempt to mollify one party provoked the other, and all sides attacked her inability to achieve peace. <a href="https://archive.org/stream/discoursmerveill00esti#page/n1/mode/2up">She was portrayed</a> as an ambitious, untrustworthy, Machiavellian schemer (unfortunately for her, Machiavelli dedicated his treatise, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince">The Prince</a>, to her father Lorenzo II de Medici). </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131397/original/image-20160721-32619-1lwmr40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131397/original/image-20160721-32619-1lwmr40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131397/original/image-20160721-32619-1lwmr40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131397/original/image-20160721-32619-1lwmr40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131397/original/image-20160721-32619-1lwmr40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=935&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131397/original/image-20160721-32619-1lwmr40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=935&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131397/original/image-20160721-32619-1lwmr40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=935&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Catherine de Medici: not quite the poster girl for a raunchy French court.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The obvious next step was to accuse her of sexual deviance. However, since the untimely death of her husband King Henri II in 1559, Catherine permanently adopted severe black mourning dress, which made it difficult to portray her as a stereotypical “lusty widow”. Instead, critics targeted her ladies-in-waiting, accusing Catherine of running a harem made up of young beautiful women whom she could use to seduce influential noblemen. This <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Scandal-and-Reputation-at-the-Court-of-Catherine-de-Medici/McIlvenna/p/book/9781472428219">myth of the “flying squadron”</a> – Catherine’s legendary crack team of sexual pawns – is, of course, nothing more than a heterosexual male fantasy that reduces her tireless negotiations for peace to a tired notion of powerful women using “sex as a weapon”. </p>
<p>Such ideas were in fact as old as literature itself: the Renaissance era, which saw the “rebirth” of the ideals and writings of Antiquity, also revived the misogynist works of writers like Juvenal, whose Satire 6 portrayed wives as so lust-crazed that <a href="http://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/ballad/21787/image">cuckoldry</a> – being cheated on by one’s wife – was inevitable for all married men.</p>
<h2>Foreign imports?</h2>
<p>The irony is that the French of the early modern period would not have identified themselves as sexually voracious. Instead they would have pointed the finger at the Italians, who were widely believed to be the importers, via Catherine’s Medici family, of all manner of depraved sexual practices and appetites. </p>
<p>Sodomy was believed by the French to originate in Italy, and while <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/may/17/syphilis-sex-fear-borgias">syphilis</a> was known in many lands as the “French pox”, in France it was believed to have been contracted in Italy by soldiers fighting in the Italian wars. Ronsard, France’s most celebrated poet of the Renaissance, wrote <a href="https://blogs.mediapart.fr/victorayoli/blog/150613/ouiquinde-erotique-avec-cette-fine-lame-de-ronsard">obscene poems</a> portraying Catherine’s son, King Henri III, as a pederastic sodomite, engaging in homosexual relations with boys. The poet claimed that this penchant was due to the king’s mother’s Florentine origins. So while Florence was the birthplace of the Renaissance, it also lends its name to the French term for tongue kissing, the “baiser florentin”. </p>
<p>In 1913 the poet Apollinaire wrote about the bitter flavour of love’s kisses:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Amour vos baisers florentins</p>
<p>Avaient une saveur amère</p>
<p>Qui a rebuté nos destins </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Translated as: Love, your Florentine kisses/ Left a bitter taste/ Which has undermined our fates. </p>
<p>So if the French thought it was the Italians who were the voracious lovers then what are we to make of shows like Versailles? The truth is, of course, that no one nation or culture can lay claim to any greater proclivity to outrageous sexual practices than any other, although the French appear to have borne the brunt of popular misconception. </p>
<p>Each country’s culture perpetuates myths about its closest rivals that often have no basis in reality and which puzzle those from elsewhere (I remember my bemusement at being informed by English friends of the “fact” that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuIJqF8av6I">Germans are more likely to monopolise sunbeds</a> on Mediterranean holidays – no other culture shares this belief, by the way). How we engage in sexual activity is a private, individual choice, and nothing about someone’s appearance, accent or origins today will be a reliable guide to what they really get up to in the boudoir.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62716/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Una McIlvenna does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The ‘French kiss’ didn’t come from France and nor did the ‘French pox’, so does the reputation of France as raunchy stand up to scrutiny?Una McIlvenna, Lecturer in Early Modern Literature, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.