• Davis/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images
    5 of 10

    HURTING THE PRESIDENT’S FEELINGS, PART TWO

    Lest you believe that weirdly restrictive free-speech laws are unique to the Third World or other dysfunctional states, it’s time to check up on France’s law regarding "offense au chef de l'Etat" or “offending the Head of State.”

    This 1881 law has been widely criticized by French lawyers as harking back to pre-democratic Ancien Regime times, but remains on the books largely because it is only used at the President’s own prerogative, and most modern French Presidents have refused to use it, with the exception of Nicolas Sarkozy who demanded a thousand-Euro fine of a protestor but received only thirty.

    On the other hand, legendary French hero (or legendary French egotist, depending) Charles de Gaulle is known to have brought charges against his critics more than five hundred times over the course of his administration.