French Hope!

There is hope for Mr Burlington.

I am withdrawing all my bad thoughts about French justice: I exiled myself 5 years ago because I felt that Paris was becoming too constricted and conservative; however, once in a while, I experience a rush of emotion for my land and for my countrymen.

If Paris can seem slightly stuck up and static compared to London in terms of fashion and art, the revolutionary spirit is always in the air: we French are blunt, we are 'fanfarons' (boasters?), we are always 'en train de raler' (complaining? these are such French traits of character that any attempt of finding a British alternative will be lost in translation), we are touchy and always engaging in political and philosophical disputes as if our lives depended upon it. Ballsy, proud and bloody annoying sometimes. We have been raised with the concepts of 'liberté, égalité, fraternité': they are principles dear to every Frenchman, and they are principles we will always stand for, as a people and as individuals.

France is, after all, the country that first came up with the idea of the modern man, the democratic man, the man who, to paraphrase Pasternak, is 'unthinkable' without these two ideals: 'free personality' and 'life regarded as sacrifice'. The idea is that as an individual, you have the power to make a change, you have the possibility to interact with others, and as your life gets interwoven with others, you have the chance to make a difference. There is no group truth, there are only individual quests, and individual impacts on Life: searching for the truth is a life sacrifice, it is a sacrifice to life itself.

This is a concept I find incredibly inspiring, and that the French -I believe- hold close to their heart.

At any point, the French government are now taking Mr Burlington under their wing: as it turns out, he does not face 12 years if he gets extradited to the US, but 25 years in jail.

For the offence Mr Burlington committed he would have had to serve 6 months in France: when noticing the discrepancy, French justice thought there had been a mistake in his file, some kind of typo mistake explaining the harshness of the American government.

No such thing, American Justice is unforgiving.

Seeing as he was not involved with a criminal organization, seeing as his criminal record was otherwise spotless, France decided to make a case out of it and fight to keep him as a political refugee, all the more considering he is from Italian extraction and had applied for Italian citizenship. He would have to serve a short sentence in France, but he would not be taken away his whole life like in the US.

So there it goes, for the first time in years, I feel patriotic, and I want to say: Vive La France!

French Champagnista V