Posted by
J-GOP on Monday, February 18, 2008 4:28:28 PM
After years of dealing with the pompous, anti-American statements made by far-left French leader Jacques Chirac, the pro-American moderate leader Nicolas Sarkozy is a breadth of fresh air. Here is a an article that appeared on the liberal leaning news source (ugh) Reuters:
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, facing a tide of criticism over his call for schoolchildren to "adopt" Jewish child victims of the Holocaust, hit back on Friday saying France had to raise children "with open eyes".
In a speech praising faith that also drew fire from secularists, Sarkozy told France's Jewish community on Wednesday that every 10-year-old schoolchild should be "entrusted with the memory of a French child victim of the Holocaust". The proposal unleashed a storm of protest from teachers, psychologists and his political foes who said it would unfairly burden children with the guilt of previous generations and some could be traumatized by identifying with a Holocaust victim.
More than 11,100 French Jewish children were deported from France to Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps in eastern Europe during the German World War Two occupation. "The emotional burden can have negative consequences for a child who is developing," Gilles Moindrot, general secretary of the Snuipp-FSU trade union which represents most primary school teachers, said in a statement. "One can not place on a child of 11 the responsibility for what happened back then." The EMDH children's rights group said: "No educational project should be constructed on death."
But Sarkozy, speaking in Perigueux in central France, brushed off the uproar."It is ignorance that produces abominable situations. It is not knowledge," he said in a speech. "Let us make our children, children with open eyes who are not complacent."
Vive la France!