THE TELEGRAPH: Brice Hortefeux, France’s interior minister, has been fined €750 (£620) after being found guilty of making a racist remark to a young man of Arab origin during an informal political gathering last year.
Mr Hortefeux, appointed immigration minister when Nicolas Sarkozy took office in 2007 and promoted to the powerful Interior Ministry in a cabinet reshuffle last year, was captured on video joking with party activists while having his photograph taken alongside another party member of Arab origins.
In the video, taken last September, a woman says: “Amine is a Catholic. He eats pork and drinks alcohol.”
“Ah, well that won’t do at all. He doesn’t fit the prototype at all,” Mr Hortefeux is then heard saying to much laughter.
Another voice in the crowd says, “He is one of us ... he is our little Arab.”
Mr Hortefeux then replies, “We always need one. It’s when there are lots of them that there are problems.” >>> | Friday, June 04, 2010
