THE French love a debat d'idees, so this week they watched with rapt attention as Charismatic Christians allied with the extreme right National Front tried to ban a film poster on the grounds that it violated France's "Christian values". The Paris tribunal yesterday came down on the side of secularism - and freedom of expression - when it allowed the offending poster to remain on view.
The poster for The People vs Larry Flynt shows actor Woody Harrelson in the position of Christ at the crucifixion - arms outstretched and one foot resting slightly on the other - against a woman's bikini-clad lower abdomen. Harrelson wears a loincloth fashioned from a US flag, just as the real life Larry Flynt, a publisher of pornographic magazines, used to do when he appeared in court on obscenity charges.
After the poster was banned in the US, the Czech-born director Milos Forman substituted a head-shot of Harrelson with a US flag as a gag over his mouth.
The French legal case was not about nudity or pornography - more explicit pictures can be seen in French advertisements - but about the sanctity of images. The implied comparison of a porn press baron to Christ on the cross, was "unbearable", Mgr Louis-Marie Bille, the president of the French conference of bishops, said. Although there is no cross in the picture, it is there in the mind of the public. "We are a Christian country," Ms Therese Gregogna, the acting government prosecutor said at the hearing. "One should not attack our roots, our upbringing, our morality."
Because her plea broke with the secular tradition of the French justice system, Le Monde said, it would go down in the annals of judicial history. The newspaper responded by citing article 2 of the French constitution - "France is an indivisible, secular, democratic Republic" - and the 1789 Universal Declaration of Human Rights which consecrated "free communication of thoughts and opinions".
The French regard Americans as naive and morally simplistic, a prejudice which will be strengthened by the fact that France has accepted an image that was censored in the US.
Two lawsuits were filed against the poster, one by three priests close to the Charismatic movement, the other by the General Alliance Against Racism and For French Identity (AGRIF), whose president is Mr Bernard Antony, a National Front member of the European parliament. The use of the words "against racism" in the name of a group stemming from the decidedly racist National Front is misleading in the logic of AGRlF, French people are the victims of racism on the part of immigrants and foreigners who are trying to wipe out "authentic" French culture.
Attempts to censor the poster reflect the true story recounted in the film. The "emperor of porn", Larry Flynt, was sentenced to 25 years in prison; in the film, Flynt plays the judge who sentenced him. Defended by a young lawyer who believed fanatically in the freedom of expression, Flynt took his case all the way to the US Supreme Court, where he won. But in 1978, Flynt was shot by a neo-fascist offended by his publication of sex photos of a mixed race couple. He has been a paraplegic ever since, in a gold-plated wheel chair.
His wife Althea, played by Courtney Love in the film, was a drug-abusing, bisexual striptease dancer who died of AIDS.
The lawsuits appear to have been counter-productive. When the film opened on Wednesday night, queues snaked around Paris buildings and packed cinemas had to turn away disappointed viewers.
Nuala Haughey adds: The poster for The People vs Larry Flynt with Woody Harrelson in a Christ-like pose will not be used in Ireland because the film censor, Mr Sheamus Smith, has said he would not approve it.
The Irish distributor has decided to use a poster of Harrelson and Love embracing to promote the film, which goes on general release in the State on April 11th.
