There was no trial at all. The authorities choose not to prosecute the case, apparently thinking that it wasn’t serious enough, and the “assaulters” just had a judge (I believe) briefly telling them it’s not nice (and more importantly illegal) to beat up a school friend and that this could have led to a prosecution. That’s roughly the meaning of “rappel a la loi”.
Quibble: I didn’t use the word “racism.” More to the point, as a matter of definition, I believe that if a group of people attacked a girl because of her race, that would be considered racism in this country.
do you have evidence that the Camus students were not Arabs? I had assumed that they were. If the father of the beaten girl made a racist comment, and if one or more Jewish girl did, too, I disapprove of what they said. Of course, that doesn’t excuse the vicious beating that these particular girls were given, especially since these were not the girls who made the racist comment, and the father’s comment was made after his daughter was assaulted.
I apologize for an unintended slight. I have mostly described the assailants as “Camus students.”
Me, too. Also, media other than the Proche Orient. Since 20 reporters were present at the hearing, there must have been other articles.
I agree. ISTM that the problem in France is that some of their Arab or Mehgreb or Muslim residents have been inflamed to do physical attacks on the Jews. My complaint about the greater community is that they have not been doing enough to deter these attacks. As I said earlier, I am glad to read that French government policy has apparantly changed to more activity in this area.
It’s not an equal battle. A few Jews engaged in verbal epithets. The Camus students not only used epithets that made one of the girls blush, they also used physical violence. I am sure the Camus school authorities didn’t approve of the verbal or physical attacks by their students. However, I find it easy to believe that they may have done too little to prevent them and that they may have done too little afterward to deal with them. I don’t consider them anti-semites. Ostrich-like behavior is all too common, especially when it’s someone else’s problem.
clairobscur, I’m glad you showed up. Thanks for your authoritative clarifications. What do you know about the Proche Orient? Is that a Jewish newspaper? It certainly sounds pro-Jewish, as tomndebb observed.
Eva Luna, it’s true that the judge ruled that the suit was baseless and that it accused the school administrators of antisemitic motives. However, the facts presented in the newspaper don’t support that POV (although other facts may.) I wish we had more detail, so we cold verify whether the suit really was as the judge said. If I understood the translation, the fine against the parents will be appealled. It will be interesting to see if it’s reversed on appeal.
From the translations provided, it seems that the parents were frustrated by their lack of recourse. Look at from the Guittel’s parents’ POV. Their daughter was attacked and hurt fairly seriously. She had done nothing to provoke the attack. (Obviously looking directly at one of the Camus girls doesn’t justifiy 17 or 18 of them jumping on her, punching, kicking, and hitting her with their bags.) The authorities chose not to prosecute. The school pooh-poohed the matter. What were the parents to do to protect their daughter from future attacks?
iampunha, you have my greatest sympathy for the attacks you suffered in school. I definitely believe that schools should protect gay students from being singled out and attacked.
Actually I had at least one quite impassioned thread on this subject quite a while ago, as clairobscur can testify. (BTW clairobscur I again apologize for those posts in which I crossed the line into offensiveness.)
clairobscur: thanks for your clarification on French law.
december: I agree that it is not a good thing that the fight did get nasty with serious injuries. Insofar this is not something to take too lightly. On the other hand, I do not see a specific antisemitic motive at work. The girls from Camus attacked the girls from Beit Rivka because they had themselves been subjected to racist slurs. If they had found the ones who had in act insulted them, they’d have taken it out on those girls instead of on the Beit Rivka girls. The remarks of the girls themselves seem to support that.
Furthermore it seems to me as there may be some cultural differences at work here. I’ll try to give some background as I understand it from my Dutch viewpoint (and reading about French actuality).
One thing is that in France it is not antisemitism only that is rising. The right wing party of Le Pen has grown to alarming proportions. This is indicative of a significant part of the people in France bearing ill will to people of ‘color’, so much so that the Lonely Planet cautions non-white people when traveling to southern France (area around Marseille). (For the record, I’m not saying The Netherlands is much better than France). Therefore girls of color will naturally be much more sensitive of being called ‘noir’ (which is not exactly the same as nigger or black, but certainly is not a compliment when being called out in the street). That makes their reaction to me understandable (which is not to say that it is justified).
Furthermore school brawls are common, just like I imagine everywhere. They may on occasion turn a bit nasty. In schools in less wealthy neighbourhoods even more so. However, in Europe there is to my knowledge nothing even close to Columbine-like occurences. Schools are not expected to provide a completely fail-safe environment. Some risks are unavoidable. While fighting is certainly not condoned, it is considered (if my childhood-experience is representative) to be something that is to a certain extent part of childhood. Certainly nothing to start a lawsuit about. When children are angry, they fight. Adults of course shouldn’t do that. But we were dealing with children here. The remark about being stared at, supports that: it is a childs reaction to get angry and physical.
As clairobscur mentioned, the school as an organization may be held liable (out of a concept comparable to the ‘duty of care’ in U.S. law). Courts are however, as far as I know, not too likely to stretch the concept too far. The principal as a private person is even less likely to be personally liable.
What surprises me when I read about U.S. tort law, is that on the one hand you are not liable for anything you didn’t start, even if you could easily help, while on the other hand if there is some duty of care you have to go to extreme lengths. Maybe the outcome might have been different under U.S. law, but it certainly is not surprising under French law as I understand it.
That said, the injuries of the girl are serious and I’m surprised that the parents (or their insurance company) did not institute civil charges for damages to the girls who attacked her, or their insurance. But maybe the respective insurance companies were related and settled out of court.
Furthermore there appears to be some disagreement on who did what at what point. Significant is that the surveillants allegedly did not intervene. If anyone should have done something, it was the adults present. If they couldn’t prevent it properly, how can you say the principal herself could? The facts in the paper are presented rather one-sided, which makes it difficult to give a fair opinion on the case. While it is made to look as if the principal was a bit detached on the situation, I find it to stretch things if it is found antisemitic that she described a man as being dressed like an orthodox jew. How else should she describe him? Remarks such as these make me distrust the merits of their case. But maybe (given the reputation the PC-movement has over here) it might be different in the US.
To summarize: in an American context all this might look rather different, but over here it is not something to be very disturbed about. That one girl decided to go to Israel would probably not be the result of the attack by Moroccan/Algerian girls, but rather of a general estimate of the current climate in France (or Europe, if you prefer). She’d have much more to fear from right-wing supporters than from those girls.
Not under french law. The civil parties are present (at least if they so choose) in all criminal trials. And the damages are awarded during the same criminal proceeding. There’s never two different procedings for the same case (in order to avoid two courts contradicting each other…like in court a finding the defendant not guilty and the other one nevertheless awarding damages to the victim…and also it would contradict the principle according to which you can’t be tried twice for the same crime).
By the way “non assistance to a person in danger” is what is usually known in the US as the “good samaritan law”. For instance, if you witness a crime or an accident and fail to help the victim or call the police/emergency services, you can be prosecuted (and it’s a relatively serious crime…IIRC the maximal sentence is something like 7 years in jail).
But there are quite stringent conditions. Not taking the measures needed to prevent a possible fight, or not acting efficiently enough to stop it (as as wrote above, in this case, they should have sued the school in an administrative court, not the principal as a person) definitely don’t fall under this law (and if it did, the adults actually present during the fight, like the “education advisor” or the “surveillants” would have been even more guilty of this supposed crime. The job or official position of the defendant is usually totally irrelevant for this crime). That’s certainly the reason why the victim’s lawyer was convinced he would loose the case.
But obviously the parents had a grudge (rightly or wrongly) with the principal and vice-principal and weren’t interested in suing the school/state (and they didn’t sue the assaulters or their parents, either), but wanted these two people to be sentenced. And they found a way to (try to) do so by filling an irrelevant suit for “non assistance to a person in danger”.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by TTT *
I believe you are thinking of negre.
Collounsbury: actually I’m not really sure. The article said ‘noir’. As you undoubtedly know, it is very hard to estimate the degree of offensiveness of a slur in a language other then your own. My translation from French to English was approximate to give an idea of the offensiveness. From the context and what I’ve gathered from reading novels and news, calling out after someone ‘noir’ is definitely meant to hurt, even if the person in question has dark skin. It isn’t even appropriate in fact, if the girls were Moroccan/Algerian.
clairobscur: thanks again for the clarification. Now the description in the article makes much more sense. While I can understand the reasoning, I do not know of any other legal system combining civil and criminal law in this manner as a matter of course.
With respect to ‘samaritan law’, I did refer to that earlier. I’ve been given to understand that while a conviction (if we are talking criminal law) is possible on this basis, it very rarely happens. In The Netherlands you’d need to have a very serious crime (i.e. something close to murder or major robbery) happening while you’d be able to intervene without getting into much trouble. A school brawl isn’t even close to that.
For civil law liability the requirements might be less stringent. That is one reason why I’m surprised that civil and criminal law are covered in the same trial. Even then, AFAIK in French law an active duty of care is rare too, except if there is a prior general duty of care (which, as we already established, wasn’t present in this case for the principal as a private person).
Once again, Collounsbury’s got it right (though to be precise, it’s nègre).
As an aside, I found that when I was living in Paris, some people found the term “Noir” to be offensive, while others did not (blacks and whites alike). I don’t know if it’s similar to the offense some folks here in the States take with the distinction between “blacks” and “African-Americans” (which for obvious reasons would not apply abroad), but I found it rather peculiar.
As to the OP, I think this is a perfect example of what happens when one does not gather all the facts before forming an opinion. Especially when one does not comprehend the language.
Noir is not offensive * per se * in the regions I have lived in, but like ‘black’ in Engish certainly someone can use it offensively.
Leander got me with the accent, what can I say, coding laziness:^)
As for appropriateness for Moroccans and Algerians, why not? Some are “noir” by any standard, others look just like me, etc.
Depends.
In any case, as Leander noted, the OP illustrates what raving ignorance and disregard for facts gets us to.
An intresting an informative debate. 
Well, there were certainly other racial insults mentioned in the articles besides “noir.” Even with my sadly minimal knowledge of French slang, I gathered that.
[hijack] Hmmm, now I think I know where the Russian “negr” comes from; it’s usually applied to Central Asians and Caucasians, but isn’t generally used as an insult, more like “black” would be used in American English. If you want the equivalent of “nigger” in Russian, you say “chorny” (masc. sing.), which literally means “black.”
Too much editing; “negr” is actually applied to people who would be called “black” in American English, while “chorny” is the perjorative for Caucasians and Central Asians.
Since we’re on this subject: I did give the translation of ‘noir’ some thought but since I wasn’t doing this for money and wanted to have it over with, settled for ‘black/nigger’ to show my hesitation here. If that was wrong, I apologize. I did not mean to make it look worse than it was.
I may have been influenced by the use in Dutch. In Dutch the term ‘black’ (zwartje, actually ‘little black’) long ago was used for anyone (esp. younger person) with dark/black hair, hence even Caucasians could be ‘black’. That was not pejorative at all. But since immigration took off, ‘zwarte’ (black one) is not considered a proper term of designation, but more pejorative. ‘neger’ is not negative per se, meaning ‘negroid person’, and I’ve always understood ‘nègre’ to be used the same.
‘Noir’ then seems to me (but since I’m not Caucasian, I may be overly sensitive to this) to unduly pay attention to skin color. Especially in a context where that is not relevant (i.e. when needlessly calling after someone at the street), that is offensive to my mind. If it is used to designate a particular person, that is rather different and then there is no objection.
In this case it was clearly used to call after the girls who were simply passing by. In the context of current-day touchy ‘racial’ relationships in France, I can not see how that can be anything but offensive. A slur is not only a question of factual correctness but also of intent. Calling after Moroccan/Algerian girls it is definitely meant to hurt. In Europe I have never noticed ‘noir’/black or whatever to be a commendation of a person. At most it is a neutral description. That ‘white’ people find everyone else to be ‘black’ (including Arab/Berber etc. people) is part of what makes this offensive.
For the record, I don’t find any of your comments to be anything like that. As far as I can tell we’re having a civilized discussion about the offensiveness of ‘black’/‘noir’ and I’m grateful for your views.
:thinks:
OMG, we are in the Pit. We must not discuss but instead must be offensive. Quick, let me use some good swear words.
:thinks more:
Mmm, lemme get back to you when I’ve thought of some. 
as for the ‘certainly in the US’ aspect - My son has attended inner city schools. Fighting happens. Sometimes, even injuries. I can’t recall a single case where the school itself was held responsible for attacks committed by specific students against others.
the only way I could see the school being held responsible (a la Colembine) is if the assaulting student(s) had a history of threats, assaults, escalation etc; or the assaulted student{s} had a history of being picked on.
IOW, some specific reason to believe that some specific person(s) would hurt other specific person{s}
Hey Collounsbury, I thought you were going to confine yourself to your Mutual Masturbation thread over in GD. Well, since you have climbed up to the Pit, perhaps you can answer some of the questions posited in this thread:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=174405&perpage=50&pagenumber=1
Start with Weirddaves questions. Run along now, there’s a good lad.
Actually this slur is unheard of. The “with your ass behind” part doesn’t make any more sense in the french version of the text, and I never heard or read this “insult”. They were probably creative (or perhaps it’s something which recently appeared in some sub-culture).
Nope. “noir” is perfectly OK and isn’t derogatory in itself. “Black” is the correct translation. The equivalent of nigger is “negre” in french. Of course, in this case, it was nevertheless intended as an insult. Context is everything.
A lot of sub-saharian african people are muslims. There’s no reason to assume the girls weren’t indeed blacks.
Then, you should sue the person for whatever other non-criminal responsability he had. Either he’s found guilty of the crime or he is not. In the latter case, it would make no sense to have him pay damages for a crime a court established he didn’t commit.
In this case, despite the fact she hadn’t been found guilty of “non assistance a personne en danger”, hence they can’t expect her to pay damages on this basis, they still can sue the principal for…err…actually, I can’t find a reason why they could sue her (as opposed to the school, once again)…It probably explain why they choose the criminal angle.
I wasn’t even aware that there could be two different proceedings in other countries until I heard about the O.J. Simpson case in the US. To me, it doesn’t make any sense at all. According to the US legal system, he didn’t kill his wife but nevertheless had to indemnize her family. To be honest, it seems really ludicrous to me. I can’t get this logic.
I never heard about this paper before reading this thread. I don’t even know if it’s an actual paper of if it only exists online. I didn’t read the content thoroughly, and all I can say at first glance is that a large part of it is related to the Jews and Israel. It’s “published” by an association based in Paris and their goal is to inform reliably people about middle-east issues, according to them.
You probably read too much old texts. “negre” used to be the word generally used (including by anthropologists, etc…) for blak people or “negroid person”…say before WWII…But “negre” has been considered as a racial slur for a very long time, now, and is definitely very offensive. The only exception I can think of is the derived word “negritude” which refers to the prideful expression of an african cultural heritage. But it’s only used concerning litterature, and extremely rarely (like 95% of french people wouldn’t know what it refers to).
If it helps, please note that there are different standards of proof in criminal and civil cases in the US. In a criminal case, the prosecution has to prove the defendant guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt” – a very high standard of proof. On the other hand, in a civil case, the plaintiff only need prove the defendant’s culpability “by a preponderance of the evidence,” e.g., he only need establish that it is more likely than not that the defendant committed a culpable act.
Thus, both OJ verdicts make sense: the prosecution could not meet the very high burden of proof required for conviction, but the plaintiffs in the civil case could very easily meet the lower burden of proof needed for civil liability.
It may also help if you realize that the criminal jury did not decide OJ “did not kill his wife” – they only decided that there was not enough evidence to say that he did so beyond a reasonable doubt.
(Of course, I think the sonofabitch should be in jail, but that’s just my personal take.)
Oh, and as to why there are two proceedings: it’s because they serve two different functions. A criminal case is about society exacting punishment for a crime against it as a whole. Yes, there is one victim, but the rationale for criminal proceedings is that criminal activity is a wrong against society as a whole. On the other hand, the civil case is about the victim being recompensed for her injury.
I understand that intellectually. But the whole thing still seems very inconsistent to me. Either society decide you’re to blame, then you’ll be sentenced and you’ll pay damages, either it decides you’re blameless and then you don’t have to pay anything. To me, acustomed to a different legal system, it’s the same thing that the person being tried twice for the same crime and the two courts making contradictory rulings about the case. One of them necessarily has to be in the wrong, and it seems to me that the legal system has to make an unequivocal decision on each case. Or else, it’s very confusing. Because in the end, for american courts…did Mr Simpson murder his wife or not??
I disagree. It’s one and the same, since Mr Simpson is innocent until proven guilty. By stating he wasn’t guilty, the jury necessarily stated he was innocent and didn’t kill his wife.
I understand that too. But the french system logic is that the accused is either fully innocent or fully guilty. There are criminal courts and civil courts in France, of course. But in criminal courts the civil part of the case is included in the criminal proceedings (which means also that the lawyers of the victim or of his relatives are present during the trial, along with the prosecutor and the defendant’s lawyers).
Even if there were two different proceedings like in the US, since under french law a court can’t contradict the previous rulings of another one, the civil court would have to take the findings of the criminal court as a given, hence would have to dismiss the case out of hand if the person was previously found innocent. Hence the only duty of the civil court would be to decide upon the amount of the damages when the defendant has already been found guilty of the crime by a criminal court.
It most certainly is not the same. A jury is not asked to find a defendant “innocent,” they are asked to find him “not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” They may well think him guilty, but have enough of a small, lingering doubt about the case that they cannot convict. **
This is the case in the US as well (SDMB litigators, correct me if I’m wrong, since I don’t deal with this area of the law with any frequency).
If OJ had been found guilty, then the only issue in the civil trial would be the amount of damages; OJ would be collaterally estopped from re-contesting the factual question of whether he killed his wife. This is because the standard of proof for criminal conviction is so much higher than that for civil matters – if he killed his wife beyond a reasonable doubt, then he certainly killed her by a preponderance of the evidence.
However, OJ cannot use his acquittal as collateral estoppel on that same factual question for precisely the same standard of proof disparity. It’s entirely possible that the criminal jury thought him more likely guilty than not guilty (e.g., the preponderance standard), but had enough lingering doubts that they could not convict on the reasonable doubt standard. Thus, the acquittal cannot definitivley answer the question “is it more likely than not that OJ killed his wife,” and thus cannot be used in the civil trial.
Hope that helps.