PARIS — An essayist popular among French nationalists and on the political far right killed himself near the altar of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame here on Tuesday afternoon, authorities said. The man, identified as Dominique Venner, 78, left a letter “addressed to investigators” in the cathedral before shooting himself in the head, Msgr. Patrick Jacquin, the rector, told France Info radio. Officials offered no details about the letter’s contents, but Mr. Venner published a blog post on Tuesday in which he denounced the passage of a “vile” new law opening marriage rights to same-sex couples and warned of an imminent takeover of France by “Islamists.”…. “New, spectacular and symbolic gestures will surely be needed to rattle the somnolent, shake anesthetized consciences and reawaken the memory of our origins,” Mr. Venner wrote. He added, “It is in deciding by oneself, in truly desiring one’s fate that one is triumphant over the void.”
The debate over same-sex marriage and gay rights may be hot and heavy in this country, but if you REALLY want to dial up the vitriol and bigotry, try going to France, where same-sex marriage was just legalized there. A small but vocal (and by no means nonviolent) minority has been pitching quite a fit, and they’ve been far meaner and more vitriolic than homophobes here in the U.S. Listen to them long enough and, if you went by their passion and wingnuttery, if they were speaking English you’d think you were listening to gun nuts in this country.
How silly and over the top has the French anti-gay minority become? Well, how about enough to begin committing suicide over the issue? A Right-wing nationalist writer shot himself in the head (in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, no less), evidently in what he thought was an effective protest strategy. Personally, I would have gone with self-immolation, but to each his own, eh?
What’s next? A Catholic priest taking a gasoline bath and setting himself on fire at the Arc d’ Triomphe?? So much for French civility and tolerance, eh? Something that most Americans don’t know about France is that it has one of the most racist and bigoted populations in Europe. There’s a truly dark and ugly side to one of the world’s most revered cultures.
What was truly pathetic about Dominique Venner’s suicide- besides it’s utter, senseless futility- was the callous reaction of those on the French Far Right like Marine Le Pen, who ‘hailed Mr. Venner’s suicide as an “eminently political” gesture meant to “wake up the people of France.”’ What’s next? Anti-gay nationalists blowing up buses or walking into a cafe wearing an explosive vest? If your blind hatred drives you to commit suicide as a means of political protest, don’t you think the world’s better off without you? From where I sit, I’d have to say without reservation that the world’s a better place without you around to pollute it.
Good riddance.
