The French Secular Mission threatens Google and a former employee to take them to the “repressive jurisdiction”
[Update: the MLF is suing me for libel at a special hearing, an emergency procedure meant to issue an injunction requiring TOTALremoval of my articles and more than 10,000 eurosin damages. I have to find a lawyer againand present my whole case in drastic times, and if I am condemned, it could mean prisonbecause I do not have that kind of money. The MLF being somewhat the French Ministry of Foreign Affair's wing, this is nothing but an attempt of State Censorhip. As soon as I can, I will continue the story of the events.]
By Sayed Hasan
Translated from French by Jenny Bright
Formal notices from the MLF sent to Google and myself are annexed.
On 19 September 2015, I published the first part of an article entitled “The French Secular Mafia’s Carpetbaggers”, where I give a detailed account of a case that has opposed me to the French Secular Mission (or French Lay Mission – MLF) since 2013, and for which I took them to the Labour Court of Paris. I denounced the mafia methods of this unscrupulous institution more greedy for gain than a dispenser of any kind of instruction or education worthy of the name.
Anxious to maintain its ethereal and false reputation, the French Secular Mission today intimidates Internet hosts and threatens me with retaliatory measures in an attempt to censor any publication of the case. An excellent reason to recall the facts and outdo them by digging deeper into the history, role and authentic values of the French Secular Mission while awaiting the follow-up of the story and events.
Sayed Hasan / French Secular Mission: Summary of the Case
I was recruited in Paris in November 2012 by Frederic TUMPICH, Headmaster of the MISR Language Schools – acting on the behalf of the French Secular Mission – to work as a Professor of French at this school of the MLF network located in Egypt. From the time I took office, I was confronted with conditions of unimaginable chaos. Teachers were treated like rubbish by the administration, despised, injured, threatened and even assaulted by pupils left unpunished, in order to please wealthy parents who pay huge fees, and who were pampered, along with their offspring, by the vilest demagogy. “Clientelism and child-kings” were the ruling words, a survival kit replacing any educational project whatsoever. I had the greatest difficulty in taking my classes in hand, and only my determination, my youth and my knowledge of the language and Arab culture have allowed me not to join the procession of all the teachers who have resigned – to not call them deserters.
I then confronted the administration protesting against undue deductions and false statements about my wages, by coming to the aid of a colleague threatened with assault by his students – he was actually assaulted a few days after I was formally forbidden to attend his lessons, and exercised his right to withdraw for a week – and taking directly the attachment of pupils’ parents to protect me against the hostility of the management. The latter considered these actions as an unacceptable interference and a dangerous precedent that broke with the submissive attitude of the staff, and they decided to neutralise me and make an example of me in order to recall the entire educational community to their better selves. In late March 2013, I was then assaulted by security guards in front of my 11-years-old pupils, excluded manu militari without written notice for lack of cause, defamed with children and parents, and even threatened with forced repatriation by a representative of the French Embassy (Paul PETIT, Cultural Attaché) if I took any action to assert my Rights, on the grounds that this could “damage the image of France.”
The MLF is indeed “Partner of the French Ministries of Education [which delivers French diplomas] and Foreign Affairs” and its alleged aim is ‘to disseminate the French language and culture worldwide through a teaching of quality, respectful of freedom of thought and of cultural diversity.’ As such, it is part of the educational and cultural policy developed by diplomatic posts around the world.[1]” And the French section of the MISR Language Schools is one of the most renowned institutions of Egypt, a showcase of excellence “à la française…” But behind the omertà, the reality is quite different: the instruction and the lavish education are disastrous and corrupting for both the staff and for the students. A SGEN-CFDT (Teacher’s Union) newsletter in 2008 had already mentioned the unacceptable conditions in this school, denouncing an atmosphere of lawlessness, the chronic lack of tenured staff, and questionable accreditation procedures: in fact, competent and conscientious teachers are bullied, sacked and “come and go”, while less qualified staff are “at the mercy of the Egyptian management [2]”. In addition to many edifying internal documents and reports, I brought samples including ratings which literally revolutionized the arithmetic [3], all designed to give a false appearance of success. The MLF, a complete “sham” in short, in the words of a colleague in her report written at the end of the 2012-2013 school year [4].
Having refused to bow to the pressure, threats and bribery attempting to impose silence on me, I faced in court slanderous complaints with the Egyptian judiciary: charges of verbal and physical attacks against students and staff, defamation, etc., a measure aiming to neutralise me and retroactively justify my exclusion. I was subjected to a forceful arrest that left me bruised for several days, a detention in a one square meter cell, and I was referred to the prosecutor. But this grotesque complaint was dismissed in record time, to such extent the injustice of which I was victim was evident and supported by many documents and testimonies of parents, pupils, and to a lesser extent – the threats of the administration were very effective – staff.
After many episodes that I will report in the 2nd and 3rd parts of the story, I had to leave Egypt in September 2013 for lack of a means of subsistence. Because of the ostracism of the services of the French Embassy that prevented me from finding a job in Egypt (Paul PETIT put these threats into action), I had been reduced, for months, to a state of complete destitution, in the heart of a bloody coup, and all this could have cost me my head, both literally and figuratively. A French teacher, Eric Lang, died in a Cairo police station at that time in suspicious circumstances (with a silence just as suspicious from the French diplomatic authorities), and before his identity could be revealed, relatives informed of the case thought it was me. It could well have been the case.
Throughout the case, the MLF, including through its Director General Jean-Christophe DEBERRE and its President Yves AUBIN DE LA MESSUZIERE, fully endorsed the actions of their representative, Frédéric TUMPICH, ignoring my requests and “substantiating a version of facts that they knew to be entirely false” to elected representatives of French Expatriates who intervened in my favour – Alain MARSAUD,MP, and Joëlle GARRIAUD-MAYLAM,Senator. My lawyer then had established that “there isaround this place a true culture of impunity and that the aggression, like the attitude of the administration, was based on the conviction that [I would] be ground by the machine, preferring to leave Egypt quickly while asking for [my] account.[...] This establishment counts on impunity in thinking that if there is a dispute with an employee, it will be treated by the Egyptian court, and with all relative efficiency and a very low impact in France”. He advocated conducting an action “to weaken the whole system, which, ignoring the law, ultimately functions as a mafia system, in the opaque sense, and favouring special interests.”
Determined to take such action, I took the French Lay Mission, my employer, to the Labour Court, and the procedure is ongoing. While the MLF denies its status as employer, it defines itself as such both in its Employment contracts and in its Staff Charter where it is explicitly specified that staff are accountable for their actions “to the French Lay Mission, which is their employer”, which gives a guarantee of security to teachers recruited in France, and sent recklessly to countries where the most basic rights can be trampled with impunity. But when they try to protect themselves, they are crushed by the organisations that are supposed to protect them.
These facts are actually very harmful to France, its image and to French nationals abroad. They should be protected from such actions, especially when they are recruited in France to work in a French institution under the supervision of two ministries, and then completely abandoned. Moreover, the children who are placed in these institutions by their parents, confident in the excellent reputation of France, are in my opinion the main victims of this situation. Their potential is squandered by the extreme conditions in these institutions of the French Secular Mission. This situation does not allow the transmission of an instruction and a decent education to children who are, by their social status, the future of their Nations, which is therefore compromised.
To denounce this “MLF sham” and to help inform parents and protect pupils and staff of these institutions, I undertook to publish this affair online, in several languages (French,English,Arabic). I also republished on my blog a Petition by parents of pupils of the Grand Lycée Franco-Libanais, an establishment of the MLF in Lebanon, which denounced similar processes (cf. Embezzlement and neo-colonialism: the French Secular Mafia in Lebanon). These articles have circulated on several French and English websites, and my actions are continuing.
Reaction of the French Secular Mission
On October 5, 2015, the MLF sent to Google France by registered mail with return receipt (“as a precaution measure”) a formal notice (see Appendix) ordering the removal of my article “The French Secular Mafia’s Carpetbaggers[5]” from its Blogger platform on the pretext that it carries “extremely serious accusations against [the MLF]” and would allegedly be “defamatory in that it publicly compares them to ‘the mafia’[6]”. “Its sole purpose”, in the words of the MLF, “is to attempt to interfere in a case currently pending before the Council of Paris industrial tribunal, entered by the author of this ‘article’ who claims, wrongly, to be an employee of the MLF.” This content is denounced as a “manifestly illegal and harmful to the interests of [the MLF] within the meaning of Article 6-I of the law 2004-575 of 21 June 2004 on confidence in the digital economy.” If Google did not comply with that order “without delay”, the MLF would be forced to “undertake [against Google] any judicial proceedings for the same purpose.”
Of course, Google has not acceded to this unfounded and abusive request, which constitutes only of an attempt at intimidation pretending to substitute itself to a verdict of the Court of Justice, the only instance that may order the withdrawal of such an article. Determined to impose this censorship despite the inadmissibility of Google – and probably other hosts – the MLF therefore sent me this terse jargon-filled ultimatum on October 14, 2015, also by registered letter (“as a precaution measure”, yet again):
"Sir,
Please find below a copy of the formal notice sent to Google and relativ to your defamatory blog against our client.
I specify that your lawyer was made the recipient of the aforementioned letter.
If the incriminated article was to be maintained online, the MLF has asked us to take you to the repressive jurisdiction.
Please accept, Sir, the assurance of my highest consideration."
So after all the events that took place in Egypt and in France since March 2013, and during which the threats, violence, slander, criminal complaint and ostracism meant to make me give up my rights have failed miserably, the MLF still believes it can intimidate me in what remains, a priori, a state of law, while even the Egyptian Court dismissed the defamation charges that were brought against me. Where beatings and other relentless attacks against my physical and moral integrity have been unsuccessful, the French “repressive jurisdiction” – to which I took the MLF myself – would be likely to succeed? It is true that in France, it is not as easy to thrash recalcitrant employees and other “troublemakers” or to dismiss them without reason, which must be regrettable to the MLF, which has no recourse other than legal means. But in view of the facts, it is difficult to see this as anything other than arrogance, the condescension of the alleged dominant faced with the presumed dominated (institution vs. individual, etc.), who believes that, regardless of the facts, a mere threat of use – clearly illegitimate or even illegal [7]– to the judicial authority will force the illiterate indigenous to submit slavishly, praising heaven he got away so easily.
The fact that the French Secular Mission believe they can give such unfounded and threatening directives to Google – or, in this case, to myself – Is but a pretty pathetic bluff, an effect of this arrogance, this colonial self-satisfaction that has characterized it since its birth in 1902, as the “cultural” armed wing of French imperialism and colonialism that then imposed its yoke all over the world, of which the managing of my case as well as its recent actions in Lebanon are the telltale scars. A brief look at the history of the MLF – there will be time to complete it later – Is enough to give an eloquent overview of its values.
French secular Mafia: reality and marketing
Secular Mission and French colonialism
Pierre Deschamps, founder of the French Secular Mission, was exalted to mark the centenary of the MLF as “an enlightened mind, imbued with a great humanist ideal [8]” in the book The French Secular Mission through its History, 1902-2002, published by French Secular Mission Editions. After the “pacification” of Madagascar, Pierre Deschamps was commissioned by General Gallieni to organize an education system fully serving the “colonial work of France [9]”. And according to the apologetic brochure of the MLF, filled with his role of “missionary”, Pierre Deschamps took up the “challenge ... to live and work in a completely new environment, to travel alone, in filanzane (sort of sedan chair, able to move around), over long distances, having contacts only with the natives [10].” He then put this experience to use to found the MLF and spread the “civilizing mission” of France for all “inferior races”, in the words of Jules Ferry [11].
In filanzane from Madagascar to the Congo: "The white man is not reluctant to bear his burden, in the words of Kipling; he works with zeal for the elevation of the coloured peoples." (Pierre Deschamps [12])
Throughout this hagiography, tears of emotion would be spilled in admiration for the lauded “selflessness” and “apostolate” of secular pioneers, presented as benefactors in the example of Savorgnan de Brazzaand not agents of conquering imperialism, with all that that implies of condescension, violence and greed. In many respects, this self-congratulatory work of the MLF is an enthusiastic hymn to French colonialism. We would almost be persuaded that it did not consist of massacres, looting and plunder of Third World resources for the benefit of special interestsbut of a beneficial and civilizing work placing the interests of indigenous people before those of the mother country and with full respect for their customs.
The “selflessness ideal” of the Secular missionaries
From its beginning, the MLF was obviously nothing more than a tool for control and domination to “train” the indigenous elites, turn them into Westernised and docile relays in the service of colonial interests. The ideal of “civilizing greatness” was merely a pretext intended to “sell” colonisation to a French public whose blood and taxes had to be shed prior to the conquest and development of new territories without any compensation [13], dividends subsequently being captured by a narrow minority of large businesses in industry and banking. Jules Ferry himself resorted, to convince the audience that he truly served, namely economic interests, to a lexicon of cold, hard cash[14], and it is on the field of authentic humanism that Jules Vallès or Jean Jaurès fought him [15].Future managers of the French Secular Mission, who fully participated in this colonial project, certainly were not fooled: the “pacification” of Madagascar (and Tonkin), birth certificate of the MLF, was notably advocated by Eugene Etienne, major figure of French colonialism, the man of the industrial interests, who became, predictably, Presidentof the MLF for 1903-1905, a time in which he was able to work his “selfless humanism [16]”. We find this spirit throughout its history, before, during and after decolonisation, to the point that one wonders why people did not drive out these French State schools outside the territory after independence, the MLF constituting an instrument of neo-colonialism to date [17].
Pupils from Grade 1 and Grade 2 of Alexandria making allegiance to the MLF by forming its acronym, prostrate in a humiliating manner before the “White Master” (1931). Lesson well learned!
Such an expulsion took place in Egypt and Syria in 1956: after the Franco-British-Israeli aggression at Suez and following the severance of diplomatic relations, French schools were “nationalised” by the state, and French staff excluded. The MLF General Assembly of 1957 largely evoked these facts. Its President, Emile Bollaert, lamented the “unfairness that events have brought us”, claiming that civilization and the very interests of local people demanded the reopening of establishments of the MLF [18].He recalled that “France, for two hundred years, has never confined itself to the mere prospect of its commercial or economic interests: it has, I think, sufficiently shown the world the disinterested ideal that animates it so that we can at least respect its vocation for teaching... We never separated the Service of France from the Service of Humanity, of Freedom of thought and of Peace [19]”. Remarks of a remarkable impudence during the French colonial wars of Suez, Indochina and Algeria.
From Algeria to Cameroon, the “Service of Humanity, of Freedom of thought and of Peace”
Nevertheless, the MLF was not worried too much about the cooling of relations between these countries and France, persuaded that business would resume soon. Not so much because “relations of a cultural nature are the most difficult to destroy and easiest to reconnect between people who understand and who respect each other [20]” simple commercial sales pitch defending the image of the MLF. Nor because “Egypt knows she cannot think of eliminating the French culture, the best vehicle between the Mediterranean countries [21]”, pure colonial arrogance denying the history and identity of these countries. But because of the certainty that France would not allow to see its influence wane with these countries, nor abandon “such profitable investments [22]” substituted neo-colonialism for colonialism. As for the strong anti-French sentiment of Arab populations, nothing to worry about on this account for executives of the MLF who said: “[it] must not be forgotten that political issues are questions that, at the time, impress many crowds, but we must not forget that the Eastern countries are countries where the phenomenon of the mirage still exists and that which stirred the passion of a crowd is soon forgotten.” This was the conclusion of these discussions, which fully express the condescension of the MLF towards the Arab peoples, the MLF convincing itself that “our teachers will resume their beautiful apostolate they have carried on so many years in this wonderful country” (Egypt). And it is clear that events proved them right, as the MLF schools have resumed service and have even spread, and as the French imperialist presence in Africa and the Middle East remains strong.
Cultural colonisation: the French Secular Mission and the “mirage” of Arab-Muslim civilization
But the peoples of the Third World will not always be run by puppets in the service of the West, who will indefinitely allow the French Secular Mission and its agents to violate and trample their sovereignty and their interests (by ignoring local law as in Lebanon, or by threatening to kidnap French citizens on their territory as in Egypt) and squandering the capabilities of their youth (by providing them with a shoddy and corrupt instruction and education sold at exorbitant prices). Already in 2012, Qatar expelled the MLF for embezzlement – reported in the French press as a medieval censorship, a version of the facts as grotesque as it is scandalous [23]–, and hopefully this is just the beginning.
Similarly, it is not to say that the French “repressive jurisdiction” will indefinitely allow the French Secular Mission, which annually brew tens of millions of euros in troubled waters without social compensation, to smear the image of France and to trample the labour laws and the rights of its nationals in France and abroad. The truth will be known and justice will be done.
Response to the MLF
In conclusion, the MLF never having responded to my requests via email and registered mail, it is out of the question for me to exchange with them. The incriminated article is supported by multiple and consistent physical evidences, references galore and representing only a sample of the existing documents in my possession, just like this article that can be added to the file. There is a clear public interest to report the facts in question. I do not fear a libel suit from them. If, after being nonsuited in Egypt, these Gentlemen want to be dismissed in France and thus give even greater visibility to the case, then so be it. Since I am currently studying The Dreyfus Affair and J'accuse with my pupils, I content myself to take up the words of Emile Zola for them:
"By carrying these accusations, I am aware that I put myself within the scope of Articles 30 and 31 of the Press Law of 29 July 1881, which punishes defamation. And it is voluntarily that I expose myself. (…)
Let them dare to bring me to the Assize Court so that the investigation is held in broad daylight!
I await."
A word to the wise is enough.
Sayed Hasan
Appendix: Formal notices of the MLF
Transcripts:
MLF Letter to Google:
Case: MLF / L.
N / Ref.: 13.00735 / DD / PG
Sent as a registered letter (as a precaution measure)
To : GOOGLE France,
8 rue de Londres,
75 009 Paris
Paris, October 5, 2015
Subject: Notification of illicit content (Act No. 2004-575 of 21 June 2004 on confidence in the digital economy)
Gentlemen,
I am writing in my capacity as advisor to the French Secular Mission (MLF), 1901-law association, founded in 1902 and officially recognized as beneficial to the public at large in 1907.
The aim of the MLF is to spread the French language and culture across the world, particularly by the means of an education that is secular and cross-cultural in nature.
It appears that Google owns the platform “Blogger”, designed, as its name suggests, for the publication of “blogs” on the Internet. In this capacity, you are responsible for website www.blogspot.fr
On this site was published on September 24, 2015 by Mr. L. an article entitled “The French Secular Mafia’s soup merchants [Carpetbaggers].” This article is accessible at the following URL:
This article not only carries extremely serious accusations against my client but is also defamatory in that he makes a public comparison to “the mafia”.
Its only aim is to attempt to interfere in a case currently pending before the Labour Court of Paris, entered by the author of this “article” who claims, wrongly, to be an employee of the MLF.
On this point, the Labour Court of Paris will arbitrate.
Regarding the aforementioned article published on the blog of Mr. L., it is clear that its content is manifestly illegal and harmful to the interests of my client within the meaning of Article 6-I of the law 2004-575 of 21 June 2004 on confidence in the digital economy.
Therefore, I hereby give notice to withdraw without delay this article from the website www.blogspot.fr
Otherwise, I will be forced to undertake against you any judicial proceedings for the same purpose.
I invite you to send a copy of this notice to that of my colleagues usually in charge of your interests.
Please accept, Sirs, the assurances of my highest consideration.
Dominique ***
MLF Letter to myself:
To : Mr L.
***
Paris, October 14, 2015
Case: MLF / L.
N / Ref.: 13.00735 / DD / PG / FA
Sent as a registered letter (as a precaution measure)
Sir,
Please find below a copy of the formal notice sent to Google and relative to your defamatory blog against our client.
I specify that your lawyer was made the recipient of the aforementioned letter.
If the article in question was to be maintained online, the MLF has asked us to take you to the “repressive jurisdiction”.
Please accept, Sir, the assurance of my highest consideration.
François ***
[1] http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/enjeux-internationaux/cooperation-educative-enseignement/politique-scolaire/article/le-reseau-de-la-mission-laique
[2] MISR Language Schools, a “real novel” already told in 2008 in the bulletin n° 88 of the Teacher’s Union SGEN-CFDT who denounced in particular “an excessive turnover of tenured staff assigned to these schools. (...) The staff have worked for months after the beginning of the school year without a contract because ‘they were being negotiated’ with the Egyptian management. The problem is that the staff didn’t know what was exactly the subject of negotiations... The teaching team of the first degree, a dozen people including eight staff with local contracts in rather precarious situation, is in addition at the mercy of the Egyptian management (...). The workload of teachers is so important that they have the feeling to bear the whole school alone. (...) All these factors weigh. And the colleagues no longer have the same hours, the general climate deteriorates and the atmosphere in the team is not looking good. Visit of the area inspector in primary section and uninspiring conclusion: the school almost missed accreditation by a hair. Grounds invoked: lack of school project and of staff worthy of the French system. So get to work! But the staff are already at work, even more than before! (...) Thus, despite the reluctance of the inspection to this evolution (not taking into account the biological rhythm of children and Arabization considered excessive), pupils and teachers saw their work schedules stretch... but nottheir wages! The Sgen-CFDT was surprised, given the current situation, that the accreditation has not been subjected to a more detailed framework with requirement to include a social dimension because the teaching staff, especially those with local contracts, endure misery at Misr. As for the tenured staff, they come and go... At Misr Language School, life is not rose every day…” Downloadable online: etranger.sgen-cfdt.org/spip/IMG/pdf/88Printemps2008.pdf
[3] Here are some (most brilliant!) grades & average grades of his 8th-A Grade pupils in French, for the second trimester 2012-2013: pupil N*** got three grades: 15/20, 02/20, 15/20, which makes her an average of... 16/20! Pupil A*** got two grades, 01/20 and 11.5/20, which makes him an average of... 14/20! Pupil J *** got three grades, 13.5/20, 06/20, 15.5/20, which makes her an average of... 18/20! Pupil M*** got three grades, 16.5/20, 01/20, 00/20, which makes him an average of... 13/20! Pupil L*** got two grades, 05/20, 07.5/20, which makes her an average of... 14/20! Pupil H*** has three notes 05/20, 08/20, 15,5/20, which makes her an average of... 18/20! Pupil R*** has three notes, 16.5/20, 12/20, 15.2/20 (sic), which makes her a record average of... 19/20! Etc., etc. - See more at: http://sayed7asan.blogspot.fr/2015/09/the-french-secular-mafias-carpetbaggers.html#sthash.S5tx6Xyt.dpuf
[4] Here is its conclusion: “I do not know the local law, but there is such corruption and Egyptian institutions such as the justice are in such a disintegration that employers can act with complete impunity. The MLF [French Secular Mission] (despite its rhetoric about its values and ethics) and the French administration in the person of the cultural cooperation attaché [Paul PETIT], by their lack of reaction endorse somehow the actions of all those accredited schools. This attaché had come to the school when our colleague of Algerian background was denied entry into the school, he kindly advised our colleague to renounce asserting his rights under penalty of finding himself in a plane with a one-way ticket. When our colleague told him about the many dysfunctions of the school he told him that he knew but that it was even worse in other schools in Cairo as Balzac… (also accredited). In short, everyone knows but does not say anything because ‘it's political’... it is the price to pay for the Francophonie!!! (...) I was outraged when I saw written on the banner at the entrance of the establishment ‘French School’ while from my point of view it is a complete sham. I can certify that no cadre of the French National Education has come to this school in order to accredit the 12th grade during the school year 2012-2013 and yet the 12th grade has been accredited.”
[5] Note that the link in the letter did not refer to the detailed French version of my story, but to the Arabic synthesis thereof, which is a superfluous encouragement to translate it integrally.
[6] Would there be a confusion, voluntary or not, between the proper noun introduced by the definite article “the”, which would specifically designates the Italian Mafia, and the common name that can be used for any organization with villainous processes? Note at least the spelling mistake (“relative” for “relative”: in the French version, the masculine is used instead of the feminine), and that “soup merchants” (translated by “Carpetbaggers”, and meaning “caring for profit only and not for education”) which is equally a serious accusation, has not been identified.
[7] Article 6-I of the law 2004-575 of June 21, 2004 for confidence in the digital economy evoked by the MLF on the grounds that it would violate this article actually defines illegal content that the hosts are required to withdraw under certain conditions, but on the one hand, the content in question falls within the charge of defamation and is not concerned, and secondly, these very conditions are not met. Indeed, the notifying party must attach to his application for withdrawal “a copy of the correspondence sent to the author or publisher of the contentious information or activities requesting their interruption, withdrawal or modification, or the justification that the author or publisher cannot be contacted”, which has not been the case, the formal notice addressed to me being sent after the one that was sent to Google. Moreover, the MLF may even be liable to prosecution for false denunciation, as stated in paragraph 4: “The fact, for anyone, to present to the persons referred to in 2 a content or activity as illegal in order to obtain the withdrawal or to cease the broadcast, when she knows that this information is inaccurate, is punishable by a sentence of one year of imprisonment and a fine of 15,000 euros.”
[8] André Thévenin, La Mission laïque française à travers son histoire, 1902-2002, Editions Mission laïque française, September 2002, p. 10.
[9] “When Deschamps took over the organization and supervision of education in Madagascar, he knew what he was charged with was an integral part of the colonial work of France.” Id., P. 11.
[11] Here are the “ideas of civilization of the utmost importance” of the colonial project defended by Jules Ferry: “You will always cite as an example, as a type of colonial policy that you like and you dream of, the expedition of M. de Brazza. That's very good, gentlemen: I know perfectly well that M. de Brazza was able to accomplish so far his civilizing work without resorting to force; he is an apostle; he pays with his person, he walks towards a goal set very high and very far; he conquered on these populations of equatorial Africa a personal influence like no other; but who can say that one day, in the communities that he built, which have been enshrined in the European group and are now the domain of France, who can say that at some point, the black populations, sometimes corrupt, perverted by adventurers, for other travellers, by other less scrupulous explorers, less paternal less enamoured of persuasion than our illustrious Brazza; who can say that at one time, black people will not attack our outposts? What will you do then? You will do what all civilized people would do and you will not be the less civilized for it: you will resist by force, and you will be obliged to impose, for your safety, your protectorate against these rebellious tribes. Gentlemen, we must speak louder and more truthfully! We must say openly that indeed the superior races have a right in relation to the inferior races [...] There is for the superior races a right because there is a duty for them. They have a duty to civilize the inferior races [...] Today, I argue that the European nations have performed with breadth, with greatness and honesty this higher duty to civilization.” Jules Ferry, Speech of July 28, 1885.
[12] Pierre Deschamps, under the masonic pseudonym of Ben Hiram, The Education of colored peoples by the Whites considered from the masonic point of view, Lyon, Paul DERAIN, 1956, p. 6.
[13] “In general we can say that in Algeria, as in our other colonial territories, the administration has abusively followed the methods of the monopolised economy, under which concessions and orders for state, distributed and paid sometimes too broadly, without public necessity, exclusively enriched, at the expense of the whole society, a privileged minority of people close to the circles of power.” Emmanuel Beau Lomenie, 1954. “It soon became apparent that individuals could enrich themselves in the colonies even though they were not at all profitable for the State. Colonial policy was undoubtedly for a small number of individuals a huge deal and for the mass a myth.” Henri Brunschwig,Myths and realities of French colonial imperialism, 1871-1914, Armand Colin, Paris, 1960, p. 185. See in particular the Henri Guillemin conference The West devours the world, when these remarks were made as a conclusion.
[14] “Colonies are, for the rich countries, a capital investment of the most advantageous sort. [...] For the old and rich countries, colonisation is one of the best affairs in which they can engage. […] Oh, yes! For the capitalists! [...] The colonial question is for countries doomed by the very nature of their industry, as ours, to a large exportation, the very question of avenue for products. [...] Suffices that the colonial link remains between the mother country that produces and the colonies that it has founded, so that economic predominance will accompany and submit, in some way, to political predominance.” Ibid. See also: “Colonialpolicy is the daughter of industrial policy.[...] Europe can be considered as a trading house that sees for a number of years a decrease in its turnover. European consumption is saturated, it is necessary to raise up from other parts of the globe new layers of consumers, to avoid the risk of exposing modern society to bankruptcy and preparing for the dawn of the twentieth century a social liquidation by way of cataclysm, of which we cannot calculate the consequences. [...] Social peace is, in the industrial age of humanity, a question of avenue for products. [...] [Gone] then the age of modest annexations and small strokes, of bourgeois and parsimonious conquests. Today, it is whole continents that are annexed, it is vastness that we share, especially this vast black continent, full of fierce mysteries and vague hopes, that the papacy divided three centuries ago with a stroke of a pen and the sign of the cross between the Catholic crowns of Spain and Portugal, and on which the diplomacy of today traces with feverish activity that which is called, in modern jargon, ‘limitation of spheres of respective interests’." Jules Ferry, in Tonkin and the mother country: testimonies and documents, Victor Havard Publisher, Paris, 1890, pp."
[15] Jean Jaurès described colonisation for what it was, and predicted the collection of a “sad harvest” of the oppressed peoples' following the “seeds of anger, pain and hatred” of the French settlers: “It would seem that the inhabitants of the settlements are a kind of innumerable and inferior cattle that the white races can exploit, decimate, enslave. This is a barbaric prejudice, a prejudice of ignorance, savagery and rapine. These peoples are composed of men and that should be enough; but they are composed of men who think, who work, who exchange and who are not resigned to forever suffer the violence of a Europe that was abusing their apparent weakness. Today it is from Africa, Congo, Morocco, that every day arrives damning stories about the actions of our soldiers turned veritable rogue mercenaries: sadistic killings, village burnings, permanent pillage, desecration of graves...[...] Do not worry, I am no more blind to it than is Mr. President of the Council [Clemenceau], who wrote not so long ago, speaking of China: “We killed, massacred, raped, pillaged with ease in a defenceless country; the history of this frenzy of murder and rapine will never be known, Europeans having too many reasons for keeping silent” [...] We must in any case hope, gentlemen, that our soldiers are striving every day by their highly generousways, when they pacify the peoples of Africa, to correct what your master Tocqueville said in 1847: “We have made Muslim society much more miserable, messier, more ignorant and more barbaric than it was before it knew us.” [...] [You think they are] fanatics? Well this, Gentlemen, I do not understand: when a French man tells you he would be ready to defend, to the last drop of his blood, the integrity of his country, you praise it. You even claim that men who would not die for their country would be the worst of cowards! But when these men are Africans who see the invasion of what for us is France, but what for them is foreign, who see armed men come and shells raining; when they defend themselves and defend their country, you dishonour them with the name of ‘fanatics’! These men that you insult, Gentlemen, are just as patriotic as you are. And as determined as you to defend their country and their civilization. Once again, it is the ignorance of prejudice that leads you. It is to you, to France, to the whole of thinking France, that should be taught about this Arab civilization you are ignorant of and despise, what this admirable and ancient civilization is. To which European countries, I do mean the European countries, come and show the ugly face of invasion and repression... This Muslim world that you misunderstand so much, gentlemen, since several decades, has become conscious of its unity and dignity.” See http://blogs.mediapart.fr/blog/jerome-pellissier/070115/quand-jaures-parlait-des-fanatiques-de-lislam
[16] Let us note that unlike Ferry, Eugene Etienne was not bound by the pretexts of civilization or greatness and proclaimed the true objectives of colonial policy in full: “The idea of motherland is based on the idea of duty, when in fact the foundation of the colonial idea is and can only be the properly understood interest that drives a nation to freely leave its borders to spread voluntarily outside of them. Thus, it is clear that the sole criterion to apply to any colonial enterprise is its degree of utility, it is the sum of benefits and profits to be derived for the mother country. This utilitarian character of colonial expansion seems to me to be without doubt. If I had not had the deep feeling, the intimate conviction that after the period of conquest would open, with equal magnitude and equal success, the period of development, the economic use of these territories, I say here with complete frankness, I would have considered it a patriotic duty to not engage my country in enterprises where it would have received only platonic satisfactions, even an ephemeral glory, but no certain and sustainable profit.” Eugene Etienne, The colonisation companies, Maritime and Colonial Bookstore, Paris, 1897, pp.13-14.
[17] According to Pierre Deschamps, the founder of the MLF, education was indeed a tool of control and domination of indigenous peoples, and even the main one of them, and that is notably because it was not understood well enough that the process of decolonisation was now at work. He saw the institutions of the French Secular Mission as a way to perpetuate this domination. This is what he retrospectively declared in 1956: “So, while through its military strength, the power of its industry and commerce, Europe dominated the world from the material point of view, it also pursued its spiritual conquest in the spread of beliefs, ideas, by the spread of its discoveries in science; it had come to lead the universal evolution. As much as its soldiers and traders, also its missionaries, its teachers, its scientists are among the factors of its supremacy. But this supremacy is in the process of being lost by Europe. [...] It seems to me – perhaps this is due to professional myopia – that among all these causes [advanced to explain this European decline], the main perhaps that would explain all the others, is of a pedagogical nature. [...] And that is why I think there is a cause and effect – I do not exclude anything else – between the education that was provided to them and the crisis of the world situation, or, as they say, the ‘decline of the West’', which is especially apparent when seen from their point of view. Error and pedagogical failure that resulted in a decline all down the line, a political, social, and human decline: the ‘rising tide of coloured peoples’ stopped the white tide and caused its reflux. [...] These schools [are] to the Whites a conscious way of forming, from the spiritual point of view, a major work, a kind of ‘reduction to unity’ of human society. Where are we in this endeavour, started long ago and still continued with a never-fading ardour? It is disturbing to observe that, not only, the efforts of Whites seem to have resulted in a relative failure, given the energy they deployed, but that the people they have raised in the hope of making disciples of them, or at least friends, the people which they proposed to increase the human value of, currently have only one thought that they proclaim forcefully: to drive them away. [...] But we must also hope that the mission of Europe is not complete. [...] Europe [should] review its pedagogical concepts: a different method should govern cultural relations between peoples. It already appears that, from this point of view, they turned to a formula close to the one which, fifty years ago, was proposed by the French Secular Mission [...] if there is still time, if Whites can still direct the course of history. Let us fear, indeed, that the previously submitted peoples become emancipated, and strengthened by what we taught them, give themselves an education of their own, more in line with their aspirations.” Pierre Deschamps, The Education of coloured peoples by Whites considered from the Masonic perspective, op. cit., pp. 6-10, 43.
[18] “In the Middle East, perhaps less than elsewhere, we have no right to abandon the cultural task of civilization, that we have started and that gives our Nation its true face. Can France lose the thousands of pupils attending its schools? We do not think so and we believe that our partners themselves do not think so.” MLF Newsletter No. 23, August 1957, pp. 4-5.
[21] Ibid. Indeed, it is well known that beyond the “French culture”, peoples and nations of the Middle East have no common references worthy of the name: their history, their culture and age-old traditions, Arabism and Islamic identity, etc., are null and void in the eyes of these Gentlemen.
[22] “We are aware that every cultural organization poses formidable financial problems; we hope that France will finally soon create for French cultural expansion its rightful place, especially as these are profitable investments.” Id., P. 8.
[23] The French press has extensively repeated this version of events, ignoring the reports of the Arab press, particularly in Qatar and Lebanon. See in particular this comment from a pupil’s parent from the aforementioned article in the Nouvel Observateur[spelling and punctuation corrected]
"Dearest Sarah [Halifa-Legrand, author of the article]
I am a mother of the Lycée Voltaire and I'm sorry to tell you that you have been manipulated, or else you have done your work badly.
1- The State of Qatar has never interfered in the Lycée Franco-Qatari Voltaire program except to ask that the history of Qatar be taught (a legitimate request, it seems to me), and that the study of Arabic for students which it is the mother tongue (40% Qatari) complies with the Qatar National Education program (how far can we push colonialism?).
2- The history manual was withdrawn voluntarily by the former headmaster, Jean Pierre Brosse, 2 YEARS ago, not this year, because he was intimidated by two Egyptian mothers and not by the Qatari authorities.
3- The headmaster who replaced him in 2011-2012, Franck Choinard, reintroduced without conditions or external intervention the manual without protest from anyone.
4- The dispute between Qatari partners and the French Secular Mission is purely FINANCIAL: the Secular Mission used the funds from the Lycée Franco-Qatari Voltaire to finance, without the knowledge of their local partners, 3 high schools, one in Iraq and 2 in Afghanistan (two audits, one French, the other Qatari confirm these facts).
5- Besides, the Qataris have asked the French Secular Mission to leave the facility after this serious misconduct. This took place in June 2012. The start of the school year 2012-2013 occurred without the Secular Mission, whose logo was removed.”
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