Freedom of Speech in France?

Nidra Poller has a disturbing report on reaction to French intellectual Alain Finkelkraut’s statements about the recent French “riots” (or whatever the Vicomte de Villepin wishes to call them).

PARIS — Add one more casualty to the victims of the November incidents in France: Alain Finkielkraut, 56-year-old professor, philosopher, author, and subtle commentator on current events. This humane intellectual has been dragged into something like a cross between a medieval disputation, the Moscow Trials, and an al Qaeda beheading scene, simply because he deviated from the accepted interpretation of the violence then raging in France … and said it in an Israeli newspaper.