Friday, September 30, 2016

"French court to rule whether citizens can smile in passport photos"

An unnamed senior civil servant launched legal proceedings against authorities after his initial passport application was rejected for smiling in a bid “to give the depressed nation a morale boost”, according to the Telegraph.

In a letter to the court shown to the AFP news agency, the man wrote: "Is it responsible for the authorities to reproach the French for smiling in a depressed France?" 

The country is regularly ranked the most pessimistic nation on Earth, but the complainant and his lawyer are determined to change public perceptions.

The man, who wishes to remain anonymous, lost his original court case as it was deemed he was grinning. The rules currently stipulate a person must have a neutral expression and a closed mouth for a passport photo. 

Romain Boulet, the man’s lawyer, responded by saying it was easy to “smile with one's mouth shut while keeping a neutral expression,” citing the Mona Lisa as an example.

His client simply had an “undertaker’s smile”, where the lips are only slightly upturned, he insisted.

A spokesman for France’s Interior Ministry hit back, maintaining the civil servant “doesn’t have a neutral expression because he's unquestionably smiling”. It is now up to the Paris Court of Appeals to decide whether the corners of people's mouths can be raised slightly.

Via Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/557f5g/french_court_to_rule_whether_citizens_can_smile/?st=ITQ0DNAM&sh=14d78ee6

4 comments:

Chip Ahoy said...

Along the lines of just stfu and do you jobs, I turned on the television and first channel was a woman with state government saying, "we need to be more active in teaching citizens about conflict resolution"

Clicked the channel and it was another woman in government saying, "We need to reach out to the community and teach people how to do more with their lives."

And I'm thinking, "Go away! Just go away!" Now government at different levels fancies themselves teachers. And this is what we pay for.

Amartel said...

The More You Know.
(Rainbow.)

Teachers with the authority to legislate and execute and judge. They create their own standards, insert them into the collective culture through their surrogates in academia and the entertainment industry (including the "news" organizations) and then insist, gently at first but with increasingly great sanctions, that we conform. Conform or be cast out! Submit!

And look at all the passive-aggressive phrasing going on in these excerpts.
-"We need to be more active" How active were we before? what does being "active" even mean? Why can't this lady just say what she means? I get nervous when people so obviously don't want you to know what they mean
-"teaching citizens about conflict resolution" Referring to people as "citizens": always off putting. Right up there with talking about "the masses." So are we dispatching teacher squads to confront people in the streets about how to resolve conflicts? What type of conflicts? Domestic disputes? Troubles with your kids or the neighbors? What to do when Black Lives Matters protestors are imported to your town?
"We need to reach out" Who's "We"? What does "reach out" entail and what will it cost?
-"Teach people how to do more with their lives" - Look, if people can't figure this out on their own, why do WE NEED to help them? Also, this sounds like she means "I'm shilling for more public money to indoctrinate morons" but she can't say it.

Methadras said...

US passport requirements also have this same rule.

Amartel said...

I read somewhere that smiling fucks with facial recognition technology. Don't know if that's true but just throwing it out there. Would be funny if it was true and became known then the cops would be able to immediately pick out suspects from the rest of RBF America.