Paris, November 28, 2025, by S.G. Kazolias.

Marianne, the symbol of Liberty and the French Republic

Nearly half the Muslims in France, 15 and older, believe Islamic Sharia Law should be applied in the countries where they live, according to a study published in November by the French polling institute, IFOP.1  This adhesion to rigorous Islam is higher among those aged 15 to 24, that is to say, youth born in France of recent Muslim migration and holding French citizenship. The French model of integration does not work.2

Paris, Oct. 8, 2025. By Socrates George Kazolias

France is in crisis. But France is not alone. The French (possibly the British too) will probably go to the polls within a year. The chaos may grow violent when, as predicted, the hard right anti-immigrant and EU sceptics come to power. After Marx’s The Civil War in France, the new version of the book could well be written from the other side of the aisle this time.

Socrates George Kazolias, August 6, 2025

A Gaza Palestinian student has been deported from France to Qatar for allegedly sharing online antisemitic, even pro-Hitler, posts. Her treatment underlines the double standards in France when it comes to dealing with hate speech, racism and ‘terrorism.’

Paris, April 4, 2023, by Socrates George Kazolias

On March 28, the French National Assembly enacted a law recognizing the 1931-1932 famine that hit the Soviet Union as a “Genocide” against the Ukrainians through a “planned famine” known as “Holodomor.”  The law means anybody who denies it was a genocide against the Ukrainians, or excuses it in any form, now faces up to one year in prison and €45,000 in fines.

Similar legislation had been voted on the genocides of the Jews by the Nazis in 1990 and of the Armenians by the Turks in 2001.

Qualifying the Soviet famine as a genocide against Ukraine is very problematic on several fronts and guts the word “Genocide” of its true meaning. Jewish Frenchmen and Armenian descendants who support the anti-negationism law, known as ‘Loi Gayssot,’ should be outraged. Or has the definition of “Genocide” changed? More on the famine below but first the law itself.

By Socrates George Kazolias–Paris, March 14, 2023:

The New York Times has used anonymous sources to discredit Seymour Hersh for using anonymous sources when he blamed the US for blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines. The question is who has a better track record: Hersh or the Gray Lady of WMD fame? (1) I have come under criticism for my previous article insisting that the press fulfill its role of filtering the spin, or even worse, I am accused of encouraging the censorship of those in power.

“If his lips are moving you know he is fibbing.”
photo Wikimedia Commons

Separating fact from fiction and sifting through the fluff to bring out the important, is the very definition of journalism. That journalists have lost their honor and professionalism may be true, but it is none-the-less their job. They are not paid to just hold an open microphone for spin-doctors.

Paris, Jan. 23, 2023—By Socrates George Kazolias

The Paris 2024 Olympic Games are on track (and field) to start in a little over 18 months and they promise to be a ‘Games of Firsts and Superlatives.’ The first ‘first’ was at the closing ceremony in Japan in August 2021, with a limited number of spectators and a year later than originally scheduled, due to Covid.

Firsts of Firsts

Baden-Württemberg, Germany, by Socrates George Kazolias:

A small town in Germany imposed the toughest lockdown in Europe so far: a 24-hour a day curfew until August 31. It has nothing to do with Covid but everything Avian. All cats in the south-western town of Walldorf, County Rhein-Neckar, are to remain under house arrest, indoors, without exception.

The Murder Victim–Crested Lark

Houston, April 11, 2022. This is a response to a dear and sincere friend who believes Twitter, being a private company, has the right to censor whoever it wants based on its own rules; rules which you are “forced” to agree to when you sign up. It is a follow-up to a debate we have been having since I quit Twitter after they banned me for a second time.

The first time based on the simple denunciation by someone who didn’t like what I wrote (although it was factual), and the second time because of a tongue-in-cheek comment which algorithms and bots don’t understand but people do.