Penis-Chopper Commits Suicide

A 43-year-old French policeman from the town of Strasbourg in eastern France has committed suicide in jail. He was arrested after he chopped off the penis of his wife's lover. The father of five, who had been placed on a suicide watch, killed himself using a bed sheet and left a farewell letter, a prison spokesman said.

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According to prosecutors, the policeman went over to his wife's lover's house in the nearby town of Reichshoffen, knocked his 54-year-old rival senseless, dragged him into his garage and castrated him using a box cutter. He then told neighbors to call an ambulance and surrendered himself to fellow officers.

Charged with "a barbarous act of torture and mutilation" the man had faced a maximum of 30 years in jail. An initial psychiatric report concluded that he acted in cold blood, and recommended that he be detained in a psychiatric facility. He reportedly told the psychiatrist that he wanted "to punish his rival."

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The Nudists and the "Black List"

The René Oltra camp at Cap D’Adge in the Hérault is a resort for nudists. Located just a few miles from Montpellier in France. It is billed as  "One of the worlds best clothing-optional and naturism, naturist villages and resorts."

Cap d'Agde naturism resort is an enclosed self-contained village, where anyone who enjoys this lifestyle can enjoy vacations or holidays and everything including going to the bank, post office, restaurants, launderette or for a walk along the 3.5 mile beach, as nature intended.

This may sound like the closest thing to heaven on earth for nudists. There is however trouble in paradise. It appears that the nudist camp has been keeping a black list of undesirables, people who will be refused entry to its facilities. This was discovered when a client was refused entry to the camp and went to the authorities to complain about being discriminated against. The unidentified person contacted the Commission nationale de l'informatique et de la liberté (CNIL) which is France's data protection authority.

The CNIL sent inspectors to investigate the allegations and discovered that resort did in fact keep a list of people who were banned from their facilities. The list contained names of people who had been banned for various offenses including: non-payment of bills, making too much noise, lack of personal hygiene and the wearing of clothes etc...

Keeping a black list is not illegal but organizations who wish to exclude certain people from their facilities need the authorization of the CNIL. After concluding its investigation the CNIL gave the resort permission to keep its black list with the caveat that it informed potential and existing clients of the black list's existence. Also, anyone charged with an "objective" offence could be banned from the resort for up to three years.

Cap D’Adge has rules that it expects all of its patrons to abide by. Violations can lead to expulsion from the resort (and of course being placed on their black list). Some of the rules include:

• Access to the quarter is reserved for naturists or those working there.


• Total nudity is obligatory within the quarter and on the beach, as soon as climatic conditions permit.


• Photo shots and filming are strictly limited to members of the family.


• There are also several laws banning any sort of lewd or crude behavior in the naturist quarter.


• Teenagers are allowed to wear clothes, if they feel uncomfortable with the environment.

To find out more about Cap D'Agde, visit their website at: http://www.capdagdefrance.co.uk

Marriage Annulled: Wife not a Virgin

A Muslim couple's marriage was annulled by a French court on the grounds that the woman had lied and told her husband that she was a virgin. In its ruling, the court concluded the woman had misrepresented herself as a virgin and that, in this particular marriage, virginity was a prerequisite.

In its judgment, the tribunal said the 2006 marriage had been ended based on "an error in the essential qualities" of the bride, "who had presented herself as single and chaste."

The French daily newspaper Liberation made public the April closed-door trial in Lille, causing such an uproar that, against the wishes of both the man and woman involved, the case will be appealed. Critics of the court saw the decision as undermining decades of progress in women's rights by treating the case as a breach of contract. Marriage, they said, was reduced to the status of a commercial transaction in which women could be discarded by husbands claiming to have discovered hidden defects in them. France has a Muslim population of about 5 million, out of a country of 64 million, the largest of any Western European country, but has fought to maintain strong secular traditions in the face of changing demographics. Critics see the ruling as condoning the custom of requiring a woman to enter marriage as a virgin, and prove it with bloodstained sheets on her wedding night.

The court decision "is a real fatwa against the emancipation and liberty of women. We are returning to the past," said Urban Affairs Minister Fadela Amara, the daughter of immigrants from Muslim North Africa, using the Arabic term for a religious decree.

Justice Minister Rachida Dati, whose parents also were born in North Africa, initially shrugged off the ruling but the public clamor reached such a pitch that she asked the prosecutor's office this week to lodge an appeal. What began as a private matter "concerns all the citizens of our country and notably women," a statement from her ministry said.

The irony is that the unnamed couple involved, both the man and the woman, were satisfied with the court's ruling. Neither of them want the case to be appealed. The woman is a student in her 20's and the man is an engineer in his 30's.

The young woman's lawyer, Charles-Edouard Mauger, said she was distraught by the dragging out of the humiliating case and he quoted her as saying:

"I don't know who's trying to think in my place. I didn't ask for anything. ... I wasn't the one who asked for the media attention, for people to talk about it, and for this to last so long."

Xavier Labbee, the lawyer for the bridegroom in question, says it was not the young woman's virginity that was at issue.

"The question is not one of virginity. The question is one of lying," he said. "In the ruling, there is no word 'Muslim,' there is no word 'religion,' there is no word 'custom.' And if one speaks of virginity it is with the term 'a lie."

Although divorce was also an option, annulling the marriage is preferable because it wipes the slate clean for both parties. Divorced Muslim women are allowed to remarry, but they are expected to be forthcoming with their new husband about the previous marriage, and divorce can carry a cultural stigma for women.

Article 180 of the Civil Code states that when a couple enters into a marriage, if the "essential qualities" of a spouse are misrepresented, then "the other spouse can seek the nullity of the marriage." Past examples of marriages that were annulled include a husband found to be impotent and a wife who was a prostitute, according to attorney Xavier Labbee.

However, in a rare show of agreement, politicians on the left and right said the court's action does not reflect French values. "In a democratic and secular country, we cannot consider virginity as an essential quality of marriage," said an expert on French secularism, Jacqueline Costa-Lascoux.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon said an appeal must be lodged "so this ruling does not set a judicial precedent." The appeal was filed and three judges could hear the case sometime this month, said Eric Vaillant of the appeals court in Douai, near Lille.

Personal Opinion:

Maybe its just me, but I have difficulty seeing how a request to nullify a marriage becomes a national debate on French values and women's rights. Even the parties involved are content with the court's ruling and are against any further appeals. To me this is just a case of the government butting into the private lives of private citizens who would rather put an unfortunate situation behind them.