Umm Stephen. It is embarrassing for Nice but as far as I can tell from the Nice Matin coverage while the stipulation has been buried in the bottom of the small print it has not actually been enforced for decades. In fact probably not since approx 1945.

Unfortunately the Nice Matin is a crappy rag with a terrible internet presence so I present this link from the NouvelObs.com site instead - http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/actualites/societe/20070228.OBS4751/des_reglements_de_coproprieteexcluent_toujorus_les_juif.html?idfx=RSS_notr

Oh and I should note that pretty much every comment I've seen on this issue in the local TV websites etc is as shocked as you are that such regulations could still be in place even if they have not been enforced.

It isn't totally dissimilar to the way that we find anti-catholic prejudice in UK dealings - e.g. consider the fact that the heir to the throne is not allowed to be or marry a catholic.

"It isn't totally dissimilar to the way that we find anti-catholic prejudice in UK dealings"

It isn't dissimilar to the kind of anti-Semitic prejudice that is found with few exceptions right throughout Europe. Yes, France acted despicably during the Holocaust, but compared to many other nations like Holland, Poland, Lithuania and Britain, her conduct could have been much worse.

The Nazis could never have achieved what they did without the almost complete and willing collaboration of most of gentile Europe. That is because the Nazis were finally giving Europeans what they had always wanted - what was the inevitable result of hundreds of years of virulent hatred. Yes, in so many ways the Nazis and Europe deserved each other. And little if anything has changed in the interim.

Nothing compares to anti-Semitism. That is why it is the longest hatred.

Shocking, yes; entirely surprising, no. I wouldn't quarrel with Joshua that anti-Semitism is still far too prevalent, even if often covert (at least you know what you're up against when it is open, not that this is a great comfort of course), but it is not the only kind of shocking hatred still to exist, even if its modern expression (during the Holocaust) has few equals, although I'd argue that the crimes of the Khmer Rouge (in terms of the proportion of the population of Cambodia that was 'liquidated') carried out over a mere four years until Vietnam, of all countries, liberated the place, runs it pretty close. And as Dirty Dingus has pointed out the UK still has anti-Catholic legislation written into our 'constitution' in the form of the Act of Succession; I am not, as it happens, Catholic. Not forgetting the US which still has some pretty curious ideas on how it treats people it doesn't like whether foreign (in Guantanamo) or its own citizens (Padilla); I was and remain in favour of our actions in Iraq, but it is hard when our closest ally behaves like this.

DD, that might well be so but still it lurks there, like a Masonic punishment which they claim is never enforced.