French flag tribute to Pope sparks left-wing anger

CNN Netscape

PARIS, April 4 (Reuters) - As Catholics mourned the death of Pope John Paul, French leftwingers and a major teaching union criticised the government on Monday for ordering flags on public buildings to be lowered in a sign of respect.

Socialist senator Jean-Luc Melenchon and Yves Contassot, a senior Green party member on the Paris City Council, said the government had abused its powers in ordering the official tribute to the Pope, who died on Saturday.

The Unsa union said the government was guilty of double standards having ordered schools to take part in the tribute to a religious leader while having banned Muslim headscarves in state schools in a drive to keep schools firmly secular.

"Let the Christians pay tribute to the head of their church, it's a private matter," Contassot told France Inter radio.

I don't worry about flags and God's name on money or in the pledge.

I worry about Senate bills that are being proposed to allow Congress to trump the judiciary and voting machine fraud and media control.

I realize this is in France, but the principle is still the same.

I wish we did.

The Spanish who were very Catholic killed a lot of French people who were Protestant just because of Religion. The French took the blunt of the violence when Calvinism came about and the Protestant movement was in full swing. The Americas were quite involved in it all also. Both the French and Spanish were killing each other in America as well for both conquest and Religion. Our Pilgrims came to America because of the split in the church and the religious tyranny that was taking place throughout Europe. The French seemed to get the worst of it though. Whole villages were destroyed right down to the last infant. There is history to consider unless, like the Right-wing thinks, History is irrelevant.

Although Spain was the center of Catholic power, it was mainly French Catholics that were killing French Protestants.