The "very special movement", scil., riots, put France to flame but short-lived shame. The immigrant, black, Arabic, and Muslim residents put themselves outside the law because they felt they were never within its compass to begin with. What has excluded French minorities from the good life of France, Dom, France's mannequin premier, has described as "their difficulties". To any sensible observer the difficulty is French racism.

Today's sign of French normalcy: Flagrant and flaunted racism.

French racism is historically and culturally rooted. France was a big player in the slave trade. She profited by it, abolished it, reinstated it, profited some more, and re-abolished it. French world power was built on colonialism, a two-system colonialism free of notional Republican values, a colonialism for profit*. Following WWII, historical reality forced France to relinquish what she lacked the strength and political vision and will to hold.

Alas, neither harsh reality nor Christmastide can chasten some brazen Frenchies into giving up their superior colonial attitudes over those they deem not-the-right-kind-of-French.

MUSLIM "COUSCOUS" VS. "RACIST SOUP" IN FRANCE

Le Secours Islamique (Islamic Relief) group in France is planning to distribute plates of delicious Moroccan couscous (hard-wheat semolina) as Christmas cheer among the poor and displaced in France irrespective of their religion or ethnicity in response to what is known as "racist soup" served by an extreme-right group for Christians only.

Dominique Lescure, head of the small ultra-nationalist Soulidarieta (solidarity) group, distributes every Wednesday free hot soup containing pork – which Muslims and Jews do not eat -- for the poor in front of the main church in Nice, southeastern France.

When he launched his soup kitchen in early December under the motto "Ours before the Others [Lu nouostre davant lou autre]," Lescure said in a statement he wanted to help “our least fortunate blood brothers ... in this hour when the black tide of demographic submersion and free-market impoverisation is rising."

"I don't see why I should not be able to put pork, which has always played a major role in my country's cuisine, into a traditional soup that I want to distribute, admittedly, to my compatriots and European homeless people," Reuters quoted him as saying.

A recipe for la soupe au cochon can be found here, compliments of Solidarité Des Français ("SDF"/Aidons les nôtres avant les autres!). It fails to list its most important ingredient, racial hate.

In truth, French racism is flagrant but not so shamelessly flaunted as here. It is usually masked by a government paternalism, the sort of thing that has warehoused minorities for decades and provided them subsistence living and no hope. France is a screwed up place and the French are maddeningly self-excusing, but goodness is not unknown, and the secular state has not wholly stripped the French character of the Christian enjoinment to love one's neighbor.

WORKING POOR QUEUE FOR FOOD ON PARIS STREETS

PARIS December 26, 2005 (Telegraph) - Les Restos du Coeur - restaurants of the heart - movement is in its 21st year. But in what the charity calls a disturbing new development, the usual clientele of down-and-outs living rough are now joined by low-paid workers who are supposedly part of France's active economy.

Increasingly, the people waiting for free meals are in part-time or lowly jobs with barely enough to pay for roofs over their heads, single mothers deserted by their husbands or students struggling to make ends meet.

"It can happen to almost anyone these days, and it can happen overnight," said Valérie Kergoat, 30, a nurse helping among the tables. "Suddenly you lose your job or your marriage breaks up and you find yourself out of a home and in trouble."

In two hours at République, just a few Metro stops from the glitz of the Champs Elysées, Miss Kergoat and her colleagues dispense 600 four-course suppers - soup, cereal, an airline-style pasta dish and dessert - to the needy.

The evidence of the eyes suggests that there are more and more beggars in every city and town. And statistics support claims that the problem is getting worse. This winter, Restos du Coeur expects to break its own record, set last year, of 67 million meals served to 630,000 people at nearly 2,000 locations throughout France.

[Several hat tips: Andy, Hervé, Carine and all who clued us]

The holidays are a good time to reflect on your blessings and to do a little something yourself for the needy and not shunt compassion to the government and soup kitchens.

* There is a Haitian claim being pursued in the courts for French restitution to the tune of $21,685,135,571.48, at 5 percent annual interest.

"France is getting off easy," [Dr. Francis St. Hubert, a member of the Haitian government’s National Commission for Restitution of the Debt and Compensation for Independence,] told a U.S. newspaper. If Haiti charged 7.5 percent interest on the money, "France would owe $4 trillion today [Roughly 2.3x France's GDP] and much more tomorrow. The French can debate whether they want to pay as long as they like," he said, "but at 5 percent interest, it will cost them $34 per second."

PFFT (What is this?): La France normale 3 | Yummy French soup 0 | Rayonnement français 0/4