A quote from The Sunday Telegraph, 3 February 2008

Husbands with multiple wives have been given the go-ahead to claim extra welfare benefits following a year-long Government review, […] Even though bigamy is a crime in Britain, the decision by ministers means that polygamous marriages can now be recognised formally by the state, so long as the weddings took place in countries where the arrangement is legal.

The mufti of the Paris mosque, Dalil Boubakeur, has dropped what amounts to a political and religious bomb. He proposes a moratorium on the French law of 1905 separating Church and State, because not enough mosques are being built in France.

Besides his position as mufti, he is the president of the CFCM (French Council of the Muslim Faith), an association officially established in 2003 thanks to the efforts of Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy.

A quote from Daniel Hannan, MEP, at his blog, 31 January 2008

For a few weeks, I have been blogging about the protest by a handful of MEPs [members of the European Parliament] against the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty in anticipation of formal ratification and despite the cancellation of the promised referendums. […] But even this was intolerable to the authorities. In plain violation of their own rules of procedure, they demanded — and, this morning, were disgracefully granted — the right arbitrarily to set aside the rules as they sought fit.

On February 4, 2008, in Versailles, the French Parliament, united in a Congress of both chambers (Senate and National Assembly) will meet to vote on reforming the French Constitution. Both chambers have already, individually, adopted the changes, but a final vote is needed. This is, in substance, a vote for (or against) the Treaty of Lisbon, which, if adopted, will mean the virtual end of French sovereignty.

History is never a matter of clear turning points – great events are usually preceded by other, smaller developments without which they would not have been possible – but the decision by the British politician, Paddy Ashdown, to withdraw from his appointment as United Nations super-envoy to Afghanistan is of great symbolic importance. It may turn out to be the moment at which the West’s fantasies about democratic nation-building came up against the buffers of reality.
 

If you doubt the significance of mankind’s involvement in climate change you also support slavery. No don’t laugh, that seems to be the suggestion of this piece of research “Parallels in reactionary argumentation in the US congressional debates on the abolition of slavery and the Kyoto Protocol” [pdf] from the University of Amsterdam.

A quote from The Local, 29 January 2008

Two Muslim mothers have won a court appeal against a municipal pool in Gothenburg that required them to take off their veils and body-covering clothing. The Court of Appeal for western Sweden found the City of Gothenburg guilty of ethnic discrimination and ordered the authorities to pay the women 20,000 kronor ($3,000) each in damages.

The fallout from Jacques Attali’s report continues to rain down. The report is a staggering array of 316 proposals to free up the French economy. One topic – education – has been the focus of much concern at the Catholic websites, since it is primarily Catholic parents who send their children to private schools. Generally speaking, there are two types of private schools – those that are “under government contract”, and those that are “hors contrat” (outside the contract). The latter are totally independent of government influence, and all expenses and instruction must be funded by the parents.

The outcome of the US presidential election will affect the lives of millions of people around the world. So it’s probably not surprising that many Europeans are resentful that only Americans will have a say in it. European media are saturated with election coverage that is heavily biased in favor of the Democrats. And, as in past elections, European elites are also demanding the right to help choose the next occupant of the White House. What follows is a brief survey of what some Europeans are saying about the American way of democracy.

By the end of this year, when Americans know who their 44th President is, Europeans will know who the first President of Europe will be.
 
In December, governments leaders of the 27 European Union member states convened in Lisbon to sign the EU Reform Treaty. This treaty of 76,250 words is a rewrite of the EU Constitutional Treaty, which was rejected in 2005 by referendums in major European countries. However, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the author of the reform treaty, pointed out: “The substance of the constitution is preserved. That is a fact.” This was confirmed by former French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing, the author of the constitution, who acknowledged: “The proposals in the original constitutional treaty are practically unchanged.”