A woman in France died yesterday after setting herself on fire to protest the expulsion of her boyfriend to Armenia. She had phoned journalists and arranged to meet them in front of the prison where he was being held, and, when they arrived, she lit the match.....

Her boyfriend was being sent back because he is a “sans-papier” (literally “with no (identity) papers”. In other words, he was considered to be an illegal immigrant. I could write about the decision to expulse him, but that’s not the subject here.

Once again, France is witnessing a practice that is almost unheard of in Western culture, and that will surely fan the flames of racial division. There have been several instances of people committing suicide to avoid expulsion in the last two years, most notably by throwing themselves off balconies in high-rise apartment blocks when the police arrive to arrest them.

This tragic tendancy has once again been thrust into the spotlight in a horrible manner, but, my dear reader, you may be confident that the French will finally see this as what it is - namely an immigration issue, and not a cultural/racial one.

The global melting-pot is a wonderful thing. Unfortunately, some people get crushed during the stirring-things-around-to-mix-them-together stage....

My thoughts go out to her boyfriend, her family, and all those who come here to France in desperation, hoping to avoid the poverty and repression they suffered elsewhere.

The world is NOT always a nice place to be.

But we hope on, and on, and on....let’s not stop.