France

[FR][DE][CH] Film Industries and Literary Publishers Come Up against Censorship

IRIS 1995-5:1/21

Ad van Loon

European Audiovisual Observatory

On 24 April 1995, following a Decision of the Minister of the Interior and Regional Planning, the work by Youssef Quaradhawi, entitled "What's lawful and unlawful in Islam", published in French and Arabic, is considered as a foreign written work of a nature likely to provoke public disorder. The sale, distribution and circulation of the work have been banned for the whole of the country. The reasons given were the distinctly anti-western tone of the book (published by éditions Al Qalam in Paris) as well as the arguments put forward that ran counter to fundamental Republican laws and values. Meanwhile, the Ministry of the Interior is preparing to pursue the request for an out-of-court settlement made by Dalil Boubakeur, the Rector of the Great Mosque of Paris. On 11 April 1995, the Regional Court of Paris ordered the International Catholic Bible Society to cease forthwith distribution of the Bible des communautés chrétiennes (Bible of the Christian Communities), that it has been publishing since May 1994. Through this decision the tribunal civil (civil court) laid down the limits to which a biblical text could be freely interpreted and commented upon. The vice-president of the court of Paris, Marie-Claude Domb, considered that the lifting of the imprimatur by a bishop may under no circumstances be considered as an incriminating factor by a secular court. The court also pointed out the extracts that were "likely to inflame anti-Semitism" and which therefore "constituted a manifestly unlawful nuisance". The same comments applied to the use of "folkloric" in the annotations made by the two priest-translators "God (...) cannot confine us within the folkloric obligations of circumcision and hat-wearing, nor shut himself up in the problems of our food and our prayer-times." The posters of Barry Levinson's film "Indecent Proposal" and Robert Altman's "Prêt-à-Porter" were banned in Aix-en-Provence, Arcachon and Versailles for the former and Lyons for the latter. The " Indecent Proposal " poster had already received unfavorable comment from the Commission for Classification of Cinematographic Works. A contract had been signed for the advertising and promotion of "Prêt-à-Porter" in France, between TCL and the film's distributor. Films are also being censored in planes for reasons that include competition, protection of minors and morality. American productions have a virtual monopoly on long-haul flights and Hollywood provides ready-dubbed films with any "daring" parts already cut out. Lufthansa does not show any film on the second World War ; Swissair shows all its films in English so it does not have to choose between the four official languages of the Confederation, while in France, exporters refuse to cover the expense of dubbing into English as the Air France market by itself is not profitable.