Yes, pathetic criminal case (but distinction between areas of law different in France); No, bravo to Sarkozy: are you kidding me? The whole trial was a meeting place for all the French political leaders -good thing, will you say? Surely not when we are so close to the presidential elections and French nationalism is regaining power as an electoral theme (e.g. today's declarations by Socialist candidate Royal on wanting every French home to have a French flag [sic]) -and no, this is certainly not cynicism: during the march in memory of Ilan Halimi, the Jew who had been tortured and killed in a French suburb, none of those political leaders were present.

Well, his defiance of all forms of censorship has got Andre Glucksmann in his corner. I agree with you on Royal's neo-Gaullist bullshit, but isn't having a political grandstand in the service of a just cause fair enough if it does indeed advance that cause?

Tell more more about the "distinction between areas of law different in France"... 

Interestingly enough, Glucksmann's op-ed in which he declared his support for Sarkozy (here: http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3232,36-860988,0.html) starts with a De Gaulle quote... It seems neo-Gaullist bullshit and the concept of "providential man" (dangerously close to a love of dictature, wouldn't you say, especially after looking at Article 16 of the French 5th Republic's Constitution, aka "The Full Powers" -recently used after the (sub-)urban riots) works on all sides and still fully in the French political debate (maybe because De Gaulle was the last "great man" they could claim anyway?). I find it amusing that AG starts his piece by referring to De Gaulle before defending Sarkozy's vision of a different future... "Je vous ai compris" all over again? In any case; I myself saw "Sarko" as more of a progressist than his rivals although I must note that I had been more than slightly bothered by the fact that during his tenure as Interior minister, he had made it illegal for the health care system to treat "illegal immigrants" (i.e. the "sans-papiers" and the like), a move denounced at the time by Bernard Kouchner (very near and dear to my heart, and whom AG in the same op-ed would have best seen president) as a stupid move by the "good dr. Sarkozy"  -indeed, as tuberculosis was reimported into France at the time by those very illegal immigrants, refusing them care was an epidemiological insanity. Most influent on my thoughts on this "candidate", though, has been the reading of the most amusing and most worrying "comics-investigation" La Face Karchée de Sarkozy by P. Cohen et al. It does make him look at least as establishment, power-hungry and opinion-shifting as all the other presidential would-bes. And although he has always seemed close to the Jewish community, I am still waiting to hear anything about the Ilan Halimi case, which I realise I keep mentioning but which I find terribly important, which did happen under his ministry of the "Interior". While I am on this subject, I find that the book by Adrien Barrot, Si c'est un juif, has some interesting reflections but is integrally flawed by explaining out the antisemitism and more generally all French societal problems by the consciousless discarding of both psychoanalysis and communism. In a very Franc-French way, it seems the "philosopher" (same "title" as Glucksmann, somehow) has very carefully observed the world for the past decades, that is, Germany and France. Anyway, enough rambling on my part. Regarding the legal issue, I believe the suit was for defamation, which has to be criminal, as the two main options in France are criminal vs. civil (following good old Napoleon -another remarkable "providential man"). There is still a distinction between crimes and misdemeanors ("les délits"). But I'm not an expert here; I'll try to get someone else to contribute, although I've recently lost my French legal advice guy -he thought I was being a "communautariste" because I liked the fact that in the US you can actually say that you're a Jew -albeit a weak, "cultural", atheistic Jew like myself and, judging by one of your more recent posts, like you, which is why I hope you won't mind my posting a comment on Shabbos!