Javert says "Non!" to new Wal-Mart theft policy

In an hastily-scheduled news conference yesterday, Inspector Javert of the French police protested Wal-Mart's recently announced relaxation of its stance toward shoplifters. The retailer has decided that it will decline to prosecute first-time thieves unless they fall between the ages of 18 and 65 and steal items worth over $25.

"The world is inside out, the world is upside down!" Javert exclaimed before a crowd of startled reporters. "What is le loi if it is to punish one thief only to overlook the crimes of another?" To the notion that the corporation had made the change in order to spend its resources on prosecuting professional shoplifters and its own employees, the detective retorted, "What is the difference between stealing a baguette and a copy of E.R. — The Complete Fifth Season? There is none! Il n'y a aucune différence!"

When one reporter suggested that the company had chosen to err on the side of mercy, the police inspector bristled. "What is mercy?" Javert scoffed. "Society is built not upon mercy, but upon the law. And so it must be, and so it is written, at the doorways of paradise, that those who falter and those who fall, must pay the price."

"This Wal-Mart, this McMarchand, with its indulgence of those who flaunt the law, becomes no better than a criminal itself," Javert sniffed. "It is better if people shop at Carrefour."

An anonymous observer - a long-time watcher of police activity and a student of French literature - professed puzzlement over Javert's emotional reaction to the new Wal-Mart policy. "This is quite unlike him," he said of the inspector. "Javert is normally quite controlled - cool, calm, grave, his gray hair perfectly smooth upon his temples, methodical with malefactors, rigid with the buttons of his coat. But this Wal-Mart thing seems to have freaked him out."

There are some who are concerned over Javert's state of mind in the wake of the new policy. When he was reminded that there are no Wal-Marts in France, the inspector turned away, muttering, "I am reaching but I fall - and the stars are black and cold. As I stare into the void of a world that can not hold...There is no where I can turn, there is no way to go on."

Present at the news conference was longtime Javert nemesis, liberated convict Jean Valjean. When asked for a reaction to his enemy's statements, Valjean smirked. "Nannee nannee huent la huée," he replied.

(Cross-post, aisle five...)