Controversy is brewing in France this week over a proposed amendment to the Constitution declaring regional languages to be part of France's patrimony. The amendment, which was proposed on May 22nd, was suppressed by the Senate on June 18th, two-thirds of whom agreed that it threatened the unity of French national identity, invoking legislature from 1539 and 1794 (God, I love France) as precedent.
The political analyst Arthur Goldhammer has an interesting take on his blog, encouraging the French to think less in terms of their "roots" and more in terms of their "branches."
Le Monde notes that "a language does not need to be legislated to exist. The 21 million French people who went to see '[Bienvenue chez les] Ch'tis' can best attest to this."
It'ch true it wach a really funny movie, hein?
Being a jaded lawyer, I find the use of precedent to be one of the few interesting parts of the job. When the Supreme Court heard the D.C. handgun case a few months ago, they spent a fair amount of time discussing the English Bill of Rights of 1689, since that's legitimate precedent for discussing what went into the US Bill 100 years later.
On a lighter note, I was looking at a bottle of Japanese soy sauce in a sushi restaurant the other day, and above the logo it said something like "Since 1644."
Posted by: Joe | June 21, 2008 at 08:20 PM