France’s constitutional court on Friday ruled local politicians can be barred from office immediately if convicted of a crime, leaving the door open for far-right leader Marine Le Pen to potentially be barred from the 2027 presidential race in an embezzlement trial concluding on Monday.
I like this, I’m in favor of an aesthetically liberal state that is in fact not liberal because it is openly hostile to illiberal ideas. But before you agree with me, bear in mind that most illiberal ideas arise from religion, so the state needs to be hostile to religion, like France. Although not being French I do not know the extent of laicité. In my model I think that would mean that no one who openly practices any religion could hold any legislative office. And culturally I would wage soft war against Islam, sorry but it’s just not compatible. It was designed as a religion and a political and legal system, so it cannot be reformed unless a complete breakaway from the Quran happens and I don’t see that happening.
How is your comment related to the article? This trial isn’t about the National Rally’s ideas (which are indeed illiberal, fundamentally racist and plainly disgusting). It’s about them embezzling millions of euros from the European Parliament, during more than a decade, by having many of their members be “fake” MEP assistants who got paid for a job that they didn’t actually do. WTF does this have to do with religion or illiberalism.
Indeed you do not. Laïcité, among other things, guarantees the right to believe in (or not believe in) and practice (or not practice) a religion. What you’re proposing is religious discrimination, not laïcité.
Good thing you’re not in any kind of political office then, because that would be an authoritarian state masquerading as a democracy.
Democracy has never, not once in the history of democracy, meant that every one gets to participate. That’s the idea of it, but it’s not the reality of it. The concept of citizens is there to explicitly denominate those who can and can’t participate in it.
K.