Why France is like Britney Spears

Britney Spears was the golden girl once upon a time. Like Rapunzel in her tower - a maiden, untouchable and untouched by mankind. Getting her bigbreak at age 11 on the Mickey Mouse show, Britney shortly managed to rocket to stardom combining sexuality with innocence.

When she appeared in her school uniform in her film clip debut, we were flabbergasted. When she followed this up with her red leather bodysuit-cum-camel-toe, we were left to pick up our tongues. Sure, there had been women as beautiful as this in the past. But how many of them were self-proclaimed virgins? With long term boyfriends? Who seemed to know everything about how to move their body in a sexual manner?

It became the hot topic. How could such a good looking girl also be so good? She was religious, she didn't drink, she didn't smoke, she didn't have sex. She managed to combine the pressures of being idol to girls across the world with having her relationship in the public spotlight without succumbing to the influences that fame brings.

Could it be the Britney was perfect?

France, in true form, engaged in traditional Gallic thumb-nosing at U.S. leadership when it presented the moral high ground as its case for not entering the war in Iraq. They argued international law. They argued principle. They argued innocent victims. They went as far as to use its veto on the UN Security Council to stop any resolution authorising war, ensuring that any adverse circumstance arising out of the war would rest squarely on the shoulders of the U.S whilst France would appear as beacons of light to the rest of the world. France became the moral crusaders, there to prevent a unipolar world dominated by US multinationals, oil and money, there to defend the lives of innocent victims and the principles of international law.

France claimed that the US had made the world a more dangerous place, all the while claiming immunity from terrorism to which the US had been subject. Their logic - if more countries behaved like France, terrorism would not exist in the first place. How utopian!!

Could it be that France was perfect?

Then the truth emerged.

Britney was no longer a virgin. She'd smoked cigarettes, drunk alcohol and even flirted with stronger, more illegal drugs. She broke up with her long term boyfriend and started being seen out with naughty boys. On a NewYears binge, she got drunk, went to Vegas, got married and then annulled the wedding. She snogged Madonna in a public effort to add momentum to both of their lagging careers. She became engaged to a dancer with a pregnant wife. And all the while, her career started to slow down as shewas seen to be desperately attention-seeking whilst being overtaken by younger, fresher and sluttier girls far more capable of handling the pressures of stardom.

We loved it. Britney wasn't perfect. It wasn't that she was doing stuff that we'd never done. It was that she put herself on a pedestal by saying that she would never succumb to the vices that we all enjoy. In falling off the pedestal, we were vindicated. When Britney proved that she was the white trash that we all knew she was, we all felt better for it.

Not to mention that prior to the war, France had 11 oil contracts withIraq. France was owed $3 billion for French aircraft, missiles and munitions. France was Iraq's biggest trading partner in Europe, at $1.5 billion annually. France handled all of the money collected for Iraq in the food for oil scheme run by the United Nations, worth $70 billion to France's Banque Paribas.

So why is it that the world has stood silent whilst France has legislated racism in schools? A non-targeted law with regard to religious articles in schools has clear targets - Islam and Judaism. Perhaps because it is a secular twist of the historical formula to religious conscription. Instead of actively engaging religious differences in society, France would prefer to sweep these issues under the carpet for schools. The effect of this law will be counter-intuitive, creating pockets of culture in a fragmented society, causing inevitable clashes of religion and culture through ignorance and lack of integration. Am I alone in thinking this?

No. Some radical Muslims in Iraq happen to agree with me, so much so that they have taken 2 French citizens hostage and threatened their execution if France doesn't change this law. The French have been caught with their noses in the air, having thought that they were immune to terrorist attack due to their objection to the war in the first place. Apparently, taking the moral high ground doesn't count for much when someone wants to enforce their way of life upon you and will go to extreme lengths to bend your behaviour to theirs.

Hmm. Maybe Britney isn't as perfect as we first thought.