After 13 nights of street mayhem, France’s overmatched government has instituted 50-year-old get-tough laws designed to bring order to dozens of ravaged French cities. Even so, some in the land of wine and cheese are not happy and say officials have gone too far.
“The prime minister seems to be losing his cool,” the liberal Le Monde newspaper wrote. Turning to laws from France’s colonial period betray that the prime minister “does not have the nerves that a statesman needs.”
Do the laws authorize the gendarmes to shoot looters on sight? No, they merely institute a curfew at night. If that’s considered losing one’s cool, no wonder France is being overrun.
About Stan Guthrie
Stan Guthrie is an editor at large for Christianity Today magazine and for the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview. His latest book is God's Story in 66 Verses. He also is author of All that Jesus Asks: How His Questions Can Teach and Transform Us, Missions in the Third Millennium: 21 Key Trends for the 21st Century, and A Concise Guide to Bible Prophecy. He is co-author of The Sacrament of Evangelism. Besides authoring, writing, and editing books, Stan is a literary agent, bringing together good authors, good books, and good publishers.
Stan writes the monthly Priorities colum for BreakPoint.org. He has appeared on National Public Radio's Tell Me More, WGN's Milt Rosenberg program, and many Christian shows, including The Eric Metaxas Show and Moody Radio's New Day Florida. A licensed minister and an inspirational speaker, he served as moderator for the Christian Book Expo panel discussion, Does the God of Christianity Exist, and What Difference Does It Make?
