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Outrage At `Quality

Charles Bremner

The Irish Independent

Friday 23 Jun 2000

Jack Lang, the French education minister and star of Lionel Jospin's cabinet, faced calls to resign yesterday after he suggested that cannabis should be tolerated and backed steps to ensure that only good quality ecstasy was sold in dance clubs.

Politicians and parents' groups were appalled at the idea of a senior minister undermining the state's legal and educational drive against drug use.

Philippe de Villiers, co-leader of the conservative Rassemblement pour la France, said Mr Lang's remarks were mind-boggling and called for the minister's ``immediate departure''. During his nine years as culture minister under the late President Mitterrand, the Parisian socialist Mr Lang courted popularity and controversy with actions that included promoting gay rights and giving state support to techno-music.

Mr Lang's remarks were provocative in his job as boss of France's vast state education establishment. Mr Jospin brought the popular Mitterrand-era celebrity into his government last February after crippling strikes by
teachers.

The minister, aged 60 and still the darling of the Paris showbiz world, said he had smoked cannabis as a teenager ``but without much enthusiasm''.

France should stop discussing the drug in legal terms and hold a national debate, he told the newspaper France-Soir. ``We should put our cards on the table, working with doctors and educators and not just over cannabis. We should talk about tobacco and alcohol which are much more
destructive among the young.''

On ecstasy, which is widely consumed in the booming night-scene of raves and techno-clubs in Paris and the provinces, Mr Lang said he was encouraging welfare organisations that were sending teams out to test the quality of the drugs being sold.

This was too much for the Federation of Pupils' Parents, which accused Mr Lang of breaching his duty to ensure the moral and civic education of the young. ``A drug is still a drug and none is without danger,'' it said. The opposition UDF party said that Mr Lang appeared to be advocating
legalised ecstasy.

 

 

 

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