re: #58 ryannon

Liberty, Equality and Fraternity Dept.

Racist French minister fined

PARIS - A COURT convicted France’s Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux on Friday of making a racial insult about a young man of Arab origin.

The Paris court fined Mr Hortefeux 750 euros (S$1,276) and ordered him to pay 2,000 euros in damages for comments he made last September about a young activist of the ruling right-wing UMP party of President Nicolas Sarkozy.

‘When there’s one, it’s OK. It’s when there are a lot of them that there are problems,’ Mr Hortefeux, 52, said in a filmed encounter in September. He was apparently referring to a young man of Algerian parentage - one of France’s large community of north African origin - with whom he was getting ready to pose for a photo.

SNIP

It’s amazing how many causally racial remarks you’ll overhear in certain Western European countries, isn’t it?