More news of peace, freedom, and unity from Europe:

Any football match in France before which the country’s national anthem is booed will now be “immediately stopped”, French Sports Minister Roselyne Bachelot said Wednesday after meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The dramatic move followed the booing of “La Marseillaise” during France’s 3-1 friendly win over Tunisia at the Stade de France in Paris on Tuesday.

“Any match when our national anthem is whistled will be stopped immediately,” Bachelot said after talks with Sarkozy and French Football Federation president Jean-Pierre Escalettes.

What a great way to get out of having to sit through a soccer match. Just pucker up and you’re home free. If Sarkozy really wants to punish hoodlums, he should make them sit among thousands of chanting racists and watch an interminably slow and imprecise game that ends in a controversial score of 1-0.

International soccer culture keeps alive every miserable feature of twentieth century totalitarianism — racism, anti-Semitism, nationalist psychopathology, diminishing of the individual in favor of the group — and tries to paste these over the failed dreams of present-day multiculturalism. So, what does an enlightened European leader do when the inevitable disconnect hits? He forbids the mocking of the national anthem.

How does that European complaint about American jingoism and militancy go again?