Father Fined 500 Euros for Spanking His Son by French Court

I'll try to translate.

The criminal court of Limoges has convicted Friday a father to 500 euros in fines plus probation for having given a spanking to his 9-year-old son, revealed [the newspaper] La Populaire. Beyond this penalty, the father of the boy must pay 150 euros to the mother, acting as the legal representative of the boy, for moral prejudice.

La Populaire says the mother and father are going through a difficult separation.

"For a long time my son does not say 'hello' to me, I asked him why and he said that he didn't feel like it. I said to him that he owed me respect, and yes, I gave him a spanking," said the father. According to the father, he's suffering due to the "current fashion [of parenting which forbids correcting children's behavior]."

For their part, the judges justified the decision by decarling: "This is violence! And still more, an act of humiliation for a child who, at 9 years old, finds his buttocks in the air for the assing,*" said the president, Estelle Lamotte-Genet. "Fortunately we aren't in a time anymore where parents and teachers inflict physical punishments. That is of a bygone age," added the assistant prosecutor, Jean-Paul Lescat.

The defense, unbowed, tried to explain this action in speaking of a complex family situation and a child of a particularly willful character. "This action would not have have been taken had my client seen it as humiliating for his son," said Me. Anne-Laure Catherinot.

There's a legal issue here, due to the parents divorcing (or separating), where a court would feel obligated to resolve a difference on the point; but they way the officers of the court speak, it sounds like they're saying spanking is a barbaric practice of a forgotten age, period, even if both parents agree to it.

Now if I understand French history and demographics (Caveat: I don't), Limoges, being in the west-middle of the country and in the Occitan, should be one of the more traditionalist and Catholic areas in the country. Well, it's not Paris, definitely.

And yet this is the sort of ruling coming out of there, demonstrating that the ruling class really feels no regard at all for the "bygone age" views of its citizens.

* This article caught my eye just because of the word "fessée." "Fesses" are buttocks, so I wondered if the French word for giving someone a spanking is "giving someone an assing." Well, apparently so. I left "assing" in there even though the right word is "spanking" because it sounds funny, I think.

For anyone who doesn't care about this article (and I don't really blame you), here's that sidebar item of Robert Gibbs calling ObamaCare's rollout "excruciatingly bad," and calling for the responsible parties to be fired.

Yeah... that's not going to happen, obviously. Fired people begin leaking about the incompetence of their boss who remains behind. And if there's one thing a Naked Emperor can't have, it's people beginning to write stories noting that he is unclothed.

And so the most incompetent administration in history rolls on, all its failures still in place.

posted by Ace at 07:09 PM

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