Good news / Bonnes nouvelles

So often we hear how things change for the worse, or at least the changes we hear about are often the bad ones. Well, this morning when I went to the language school (Actilangue), I saw a good sign of change for the better. France, like many European countries, has a very Conservative party on the far right. In fact it's fascist. The party is the Front National, now led by Marine Le Pen (the daughter of the radical Jean-Marie Le Pen). She infamously stirred up religious and racial controversy with this quote:

"For those who want to talk a lot about World War II, if it's about occupation, then we could also talk about it (Muslim prayers in the streets), because that is occupation of territory. ...It is an occupation of sections of the territory, of districts in which religious laws apply. ... There are of course no tanks, there are no soldiers, but it is nevertheless an occupation and it weighs heavily on local residents."

Last year she had an office on the street corner below the school. A troubling show of social support for the movement in Nice. Although to give her justice, she has softened the image and platform of the party a bit, steering it away from nazi ideals.

With the multiple attacks in France and even in Belgium, I was wondering how xenophobia was playing out in France. Was it feeding into politically extreme movements? How would the French react socially and politically?

Two answers came to me this morning. The first was to discover the local Nice office was vacated. (See the picture below.) Admittedly, they could have just moved to a cheaper rental property, but I prefer to think that they didn't have enough support to maintain their presence here.

The second affirmation was found in an article in Le Monde entitled « La tolérance a gagné du terrain en France en 2015 » (Tolerance won a lot of ground in France in 2015). To read the article.
Studies indicate that contrary to what one would expect as a result of the attacks, as a whole the French prefer a multicultural society. In fact, they are remarkably more tolerant than they have been in recent history (since the 1980s when this topic began to be polled and studied more closely).

Isn't it ironic that the violent terrorist attacks have had the effect of deepening social tolerance and even as the article says, cultivating multicultural « indulgence »? I honestly haven't been able to fathom the terrorist perpetrators' motives, but this is definitely a promising and hopeful reaction.

Fennochio's Gelaterie: Around 100 unusual gelato flavors.

The world is a better place when there are many unique choices of flavors, n'est-ce pas?