Emmanuelle Ménard is the wife of Robert Ménard, the Islam-critical mayor of Béziers in the south of France whose videos have appeared in this space a number of times. Mme. Ménard recently gained a name for herself after being elected to the national legislature with the backing of the Front National and other right-wing parties.

Below is a speech given recently by Mme. Ménard on the crackdown on free expression in France.

Many thanks to Oz-Rita for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Video transcript:

00:20 Thank you,

00:24 Mr. President,

00:28 Mme Attorney General (Minister for Justice).

00:32 If several articles of this law of confidence

00:36 merit questioning, I wonder about their relevance,

00:40 even their legitimacy. It’s of course

00:44 the first article of the ordinary law that would it come back to,

00:48 since the non-registered have not had the floor this morning.

00:53 This first article, and I’m weighing my words, [is] a veritable

00:57 attack, a real crime, a veritable

01:01 infringement on the freedom of expression.

01:05 This law consists, no more, no less,

01:09 of criminalising opinions that don’t seem to please you, but which are

01:13 opinions nonetheless. Threatening with

01:17 ineligibility anyone who is found guilty of defamation, insult,

01:21 or discrimination — it is the right not to think like

01:25 you that you are besmirching and trampling.

01:29 You yield to the era of time, take the easy way,

01:33 and indulge in a certain amount of groveling, too.

01:37 You yield control to the media, to the “what-will-they-say”. You submit

01:41 to these pseudo-‘human rights’ associations, you turn into

01:45 a real guard dog for the police

01:49 of thought. In the middle of summer, while France is

01:54 on holiday, you extend yet a little more the reign of this

01:58 political correctness which already causes devastation. Who will now dare

02:02 to make a value judgment about such customs,

02:06 such behaviours, beliefs,

02:10 or cultures? Who will dare to confront the

02:14 agreed group-think on what is acceptable to challenge,

02:18 what is tolerable to contest? Of course

02:22 freedom of expression must have limits.

02:26 Of course, we agree, we ALL agree

02:30 to condemn racism, anti-Semitism

02:34 or homophobia. But could wishing to contain

02:38 mass immigration be reducible to racism?

02:43 Could concern about national identity

02:47 be a proof of xenophobia? Would questioning

02:51 gender theory be sexism or

02:55 homophobia? You invoke republican values,

02:59 but today it’s used all over the place to justify anything.

03:03 What do you want? To force everyone to love the Islamic headscarf?

03:07 The burkini? Marriage for all?

03:11 With, as a bonus, the obligation to smile at the migrants?

03:15 What do you want? Imprisonment in the Bastille for ‘evil thoughts’?

03:19 Excommunication, banishment from

03:24 the democratic space? I admit

03:28 I have had enough of all these backroom observatories,

03:32 — commissions — high authorities, that are supposed to return us to

03:36 the right path. I have had enough of these lesson-donors,

03:40 always more donors of lessons, always more moralising.

03:44 I have had enough of those who want to take me

03:48 by the hand and whisper in my ear not only

03:52 what I have to say, but what I have to think.

03:56 I warn you… I allow myself to

04:00 warn you: you are voting for a law that is demagogic,

04:04 Liberticidal. You will exclude from the debate

04:08 and the field of simple lawfulness, ideas and

04:12 discourses which simply contradict the

04:17 dominant ideology, the ideology of the moment.

04:21 You will allow the reign of a climate of intimidation, a new

04:25 McCarthyism, a kind of mental hygiene; you

04:29 will encourage a hunt for ‘bad ideas’, for ‘bad thoughts’.

04:33 I dare not imagine that this is what you want.

04:37 We will have to beware of words, simple words,

04:41 everyday words, everybody’s words. One will have to be cunning,

04:45 make oneself understood with half-words, using allusion.

04:49 We must be permanently on our guard, lie, and lie to ourselves.

04:53 You know it, reality is hard, unpleasant,

04:57 depressing at times, but it is here, taking us by the collar,

05:01 forcing us to see it and describe it for what it is.

05:05 You cannot want that. I have the naivety

05:10 to think that this ‘modernity’ which you never cease to claim as your own,

05:14 is precisely the right to question all these beliefs,

05:18 the right to express opinions, even disturbing, even shocking ones,

05:22 the right to criticise, even at the risk of blaspheming. SO:

05:26 must I call you “Ladies and Gentlemen the Censors”?