In a clip from French TV we posted a couple of weeks ago, Béziers Mayor Robert Ménard took issue with the “Borloo* Plan”, a government proposal for renewing the neighborhoods and suburbs where “youths” riot and murder and rape and otherwise engage in youthful hijinks. Mr. Ménard criticized the fact that the word “Islam” was not mentioned in the plan, even though the Religion of Peace is the real source of all the problems plaguing the banlieues.
The video below is made up of two parts. The first is an irritating animated propaganda clip promoting the Borloo Plan. In it the no-go slums ruled by violent and indolent migrants are obfuscated by the use of smarmy euphemisms and circumlocutions — which were difficult to translate, since English lacks the capability for baroque euphemism that the French language has so fastidiously refined.
The second part of the video is a brief reaction to the Borloo Plan by Marine Le Pen, the leader of the Front National.
Many thanks to Ava Lon for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Video transcript (timed from two separate original clips):
| 00:00 | On May 22nd the President of the Republic will be presenting his program for | |
| 00:04 | the sensitive neighborhoods, and the six millions of inhabitants of those districts. | |
| 00:08 | During the Grigny call [where citizens asked Macron to implement Borloo Plan] elected officials, | |
| 00:12 | the associations and the citizens raised the alarm about the situation of the | |
| 00:16 | priority neighborhoods. Emmanuel Macron then assigned Jean-Louis Borloo | |
| 00:21 | the task of making proposals. Presented on April 26th, this battle plan | |
| 00:25 | is the result of the teamwork of all those men and women | |
| 00:29 | concerned about the subject, who mobilized after the Grigny call and followed | |
| 00:33 | the States-General of the town on a “tour de France” of the local solutions. | |
| 00:37 | The plan presented by Jean-Louis Borloo | |
| 00:42 | is composed of nineteen measures in numerous fields in order to bring | |
| 00:46 | Republican law and order to all the slums. | |
| 00:50 | It’s an opportunity to relaunch urban renewal, act against | |
| 00:54 | illiteracy, invest in early childhood, | |
| 00:58 | cultural growth. It foresees the means | |
| 01:02 | to develop training and employment, to fight against discrimination, | |
| 01:07 | to act for security and justice, | |
| 01:11 | to create a court in order to guarantee equity among the sensitive zones, | |
| 01:15 | not only for the neighborhoods, but also for rural areas and [French territories] overseas. | |
| 01:19 | All those measures are all the more indispensable in that the suburbs are far from | |
| 01:23 | being the beneficiaries of preferential treatment. The opposite is true. | |
| 01:27 | The communes of the priority districts have thirty percent less financial capacity, | |
| 01:32 | while their tax rate is twice as high; at the same time their needs | |
| 01:36 | are thirty percent greater. Just like in the schools those sensitive towns where | |
| 01:40 | accept more children without financial compensation. | |
| 01:44 | Therefore, yes, those measures are just; they will need money, but not additional means; | |
| 01:48 | because the sums of money necessary to finance those measures already exist. | |
| 01:52 | Take two examples: every year thirty-two billion euros are | |
| 01:57 | collected for professional training. The Borloo Report proposes that | |
| 02:01 | out of this sum, only six hundred million euros be appropriated to finance | |
| 02:05 | more training for the youth of our neighborhoods. Another example: | |
| 02:09 | An extra 1.3 billion euros is forecast in 2018 for the National Office | |
| 02:13 | for Family Allocations. The report suggests giving three hundred million euros | |
| 02:18 | in order to finance an ambitious program of socialization and education | |
| 02:22 | for the youngest people in our sensitive areas. Those measures therefore don’t cause | |
| 02:26 | additional expense for the taxpayer. This battle plan | |
| 02:30 | is an investment in the future of our youth, and in finally reconstructing society | |
| 02:34 | and bringing the Republic back to all the neighborhoods. | |
| 02:38 | Mr. President, there’s no plan B, but the Borloo Plan. So do tell us | |
| 02:43 | straight to our face, will we together implement this good plan for the Republic? |
| 00:00 | Islamism: Marine Le Pen is denouncing the government putting their heads in the sand. | |
| 00:08 | We have the feeling that | |
| 00:12 | French government is using the strategy of | |
| 00:16 | the ostrich. They put their heads in the sand | |
| 00:20 | in order to not see the immensity of the danger that is | |
| 00:25 | not longer at our door, but inside | |
| 00:29 | the house. There isn’t a single instance, in the Borloo Plan, | |
| 00:33 | where the word “Islamist fundamentalism” appears. | |
| 00:37 | Not a single instance! Therefore the Borloo Plan is symbolic: | |
| 00:41 | symbolic of the incompetence, of the blindness, | |
| 00:46 | of the cowardice and of the dangerousness | |
| 00:50 | of our French elites in this domain | |
| 00:54 | over the last thirty years. |
| * | Jean-Louis Borloo (born 7 April 1951 in Paris) is a French politician and was the leader of the Union of Democrats and Independents, and French Minister for Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and Town and Country Planning (Regional Development) between 2007 and 2010. On 6 April 2014, he announced in a letter that he would resign from every mandate or responsibility, due to health reasons. [Wikipedia] |
What a star she is!