Pardon the French

Sometimes I back the right horses.

This year's Carpette Anglaise awards, more barbed bouquets than trophies and given to those considered to have done the gravest disservice to the French language, have gone where Salut! suggested they would.

For the main English Doormat prize, step forward the body of august French dignitaries that is France's Conseil Constitutionnel, or constitutional council.


The council's crime, in the eyes of the French language purists who make up l'Académie de la Carpette Anglaise, involved "numerous" breaches of Article 2 of the French constitution, which declares that the language of the Republic of France is indeed French.

Faut-il conseiller le Conseil?

Specifically this year, the council dismayed the judges by endorsing a London protocol agreement on patents that allows text in English or German to have legal effect in France.

This was one of the two co-defendants I tipped for victory. It would have more fun had the judges opted for my other choice - Philippe Baudillon, France 2's director general, for screening programmes called Top of the Pops and Dancing Show - but the Academy is made of more sombre stuff.

For the international prize, I am pleased to reveal the winner as my clear favourite Ernest-Antoine Seillière, president of the European Business Confederation (UNICE,) for delivering a Brussels speech in English.

This minor affront to the la Francophonie became a cause célèbre only because of Jacques Chirac's contrived tantrum, leading a silly little walk-out as M Seillière began his address.

Marc Favre d'Echallens, secretary of the Carpette Anglaise body representing four associations that defend French, brought me news of the results along with a reminder of the criteria.

In particular, to win the main prize, some member of the "French elite" must distinguish himself (or herself or itself) with great efforts to promote the domination of Anglo-American to the detriment of French.

I have yet to see a reaction from the recipients of these 2006 civic dishonours.

But nor have I seen much evidence that the French in general are about to drop anglicised words and expressions from everyday conversation or writings.

Perhaps ça ne roule pas cool after all.

End of the road?

There will be relief among many of my readers that this, barring some unforeseen development or need to reply, is intended as my last word on the Nathalie Gettliffe affair.

From the responses since I first raised the subject, it is clear that some agree the issue was worth airing, a few feel indignation that an outsider should express an opinion on any aspect of Canadian justice and at least one wants me to pipe down and Gett a Liffe.

Reports of the case, on both sides of the Atlantic, have sometimes been confused and confusing. Today, there is a fresh gloss on the 16-month sentence passed on Monday and initially reported as leaving Gettliffe with six months to serve for the abduction of the two children she had with her ex-husband, Scott Grant.

It could be little as four months, we now learn, if she behaves herself in jail, or two if she succeeds in a bid for parole.

All of which reinforces my view that a sentence providing for her immediate release would have been the appropriate one, preferably but not necessarily by means of a suspended term. It is a struggle to think of a rational reason for making her spend this many, that many more weeks inside.

Nathalie Gettliffe is no saint, nor even a model mother whose actions can easily be excused, even if no account of the hearing I have seen describes precisely why she acted as she did.

Nor does she deserve mercy solely because she has already paid heavily for her misdeeds. It is simply my case that there is not a single decent cause to be served by her continued imprisonment.

The interests of deterrence and retribution have been amply met by the detention of an intelligent but misguided woman of previous good character for eight months and throughout a difficult pregnancy.

Being made to give birth while a prisoner, wherever delivery actually takes place, would surely be a pretty stiff punishment for any woman.

But I am even more concerned about the impact on her children, all four of them.

Madam Justice Marvyn Keonigsberg said Gettliffe's vilification of her former husband was one of the most seriously troubling aspects of the case, causing him and their children "immeasurable, perhaps irretrievable harm".

In what way incarcerating her for another two, four or six months can possibly help heal that damage, and make the children happier and more settled with their father, is not clear.

Judge Koenigsberg faced, as she acknowledged and I recognised, a tough task in deciding the right sentence.

I respect her conclusions that Gettliffe deserved severe punishment for encouraging the children to hate their father and "brainwashing" them into believing him to be a brute who belonged to a religious cult.

The view that a more compassionate decision could have been reached is no less respectable.

While I hoped to avoid further comment, some of the reactions justifies this added thought. Certain aspects of the case - and in particular the about-turn made by Gettliffe in its closing stages - frankly baffle me.

Taken at face value, the outcome can be seen - as Le Figaro noted when summing up opinion in France, where she would almost certainly not have been jailed - as "harsh but not scandalous".

Despite criticism from a small number of readers, my very own tricoteuses, the fact is that I repeatedly distanced myself from the extravagant claims of some of Gettliffe's supporters. I expressed no view on her guilt or innocence or on Grant's religious activities, but reported what was being said on both sides, with much more restraint than I have seen elsewhere, including here.

However, I stand squarely by my reasons for raising the matter in the first place. I never believed the world would be a better or safer place because Nathalie Gettliffe was in prison, and still don't.

And I do believe that a mature and civilised democracy should find better ways - does possess better ways - of dealing with a pregnant woman, unconvicted but facing trial, than throwing her in jail.

Nathalie Gettliffe stays in jail

Nathalie Gettliffe was sentenced tonight to a term that means she will spend a further six months in jail.

The sentence was 16 months. I know little more about a decision that naturally disappoints me and confounds those confident Canadian voices that spoke of a likely release.

In particular, I do not know how the sentence squares with the "credit" scheme for time spent in custody awaiting trial.

It appears that the judge made allowance for only part of the time served. She (the judge) did not, however, go as far as urged by the prosecution, which wanted a sentence that would have kept Gettliffe incarcerated - with or without baby son - for a further 14 months

Gettliffe's continued detention, wrong as I keep saying she was to abduct two of her children in a bitter matrimonial/custody dispute, seems to me to be of value to no one. And least of all does it appear to serve the interests of the children the courts repeatedly said were their main concern.

When I do know more, I will have more to say, though I may wish to wait for more information about the sentencing hearing.

Oh, and the flagship 8pm news programme of France's private TF1 channel was only 15 or 20 minutes behind me with the news.