euro|topics - Robert Redeker

22/11/2008

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Redeker, Robert

3 articles of this author have been cited in the European Press Review so far.

Le Figaro - France | 12/08/2008

Voting rights for foreigners?

Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero plans to give voting rights in local elections to migrants from countries outside the EU, a move that is also being debated in France. Philosopher Robert Redeker opposes these initiatives in Le Figaro: "Does it make sense, as the [French] Socialist Party envisages and as Zapatero's government plans in Spain, to give [immigrants] voting rights in local elections and to deny them for national ones? ... the difference between the citizen, a member of the political body and the simple taxpaying inhabitant is not only of a material, but also of a symbolic nature: citizenship. Because this is a symbol, it creates a far stronger connection than mere material living conditions. ... There is no strong argument in favour of voting rights for migrants. ... Introducing them would endanger the indivisibility of the republic, ... [and] render nationality obsolete."

Le Temps - Switzerland | 01/04/2008

Robert Redeker warns of the risks of conspiracy theories

French actress Marion Cotillard admitted to being a believer of conspiracy theories during a 2007 interview, notably concerning the September 11th terrorist attacks in the United States. French philosopher Robert Redeker criticises her statements. "The self-designated conspiracy theory leads to the stupefying position according to which reality, even in the details, is the object of a shady manipulation, and where the truth is masked from us. Conspiracy develops from the demented use of the principal of doubt. It takes the form of a belief that we can't believe anything that we are told and sets the disbelief of all established truth as the norm. ... Nothing is more dangerous that this state of mind. Here, we can make out the logic of holocaust denial. The popular success of this kind of reasoning, bringing us to hold the opposite of truth for truth as soon as the official version is established, leads us to worry. It's thus that holocaust deniers operate, these other falsifiers of history."

La Libre Belgique - Belgium | 24/05/2006

Iran's disturbing participation in football's World Cup

A group of French and Belgian academics and intellectuals contests Iran's participation in the football World Cup in Germany, asserting that "the Iranian theocracy is a tyranny that has no place in an athletic competition at the heart of democratic Europe." They are worried about "a retreat of a universal culture to the benefit of a populist football pseudo-culture. Isn't football a propitious vehicle for all sorts of hysterical religious outpourings given its own status as the tribal religion of postmodern times? ... Might not an Islamicism that is gaining strength throughout the world find in football a pulpit for imposing its propaganda on hundreds of millions of TV viewers? Will football be used to promote a Coran as seen through the eyes of antidemocratic and antisemitic proselytizers? Will Germany allow crazed hordes of fans to bay for the blood of the 'ungodly' or 'apostate' opponent?"