Richard Roe comments

Go ahead, protest ....... and your counter-propsal that works better is...?????

Absolute nut jobs. Have 'zero' tolerance for this sort of antics.

Heaven forbid if it was a 'lockdown' like in other parts of the World, proving - albeit in varying rates of success - that social distancing / quarantining WORKS!

Right to protest, ...fair enough. Just that this is absolute 'non' sense. Nonsense.

"What else is he going to say, as a diplomat?! "

Agree absolutely. It's soft politics, which most Govts use all the time at outset of communications - unless a regime Govt ....or POTUS;-)

We don't it seems know the precise connotation of the conversation but, allowing that it happened, a reasonable interpretation would be that by just mentioning the case France was reconfirming that (at Govt level) they are aware of the situation, and thereby putting out a soft message for Japan to treat Ghosn fairly during his time before court hearing.

Otherwise why say anything about 'judicial independence' at this time?:)

[Confiscating his wife's phone and passport - if true as reported - might not be part of that fairness:) ]

Parhetic, utterly pathetic.

its a Japanese Intl School (in Vancouver) right??!!

.... AND how he got a majority enough (9,000 or whatever) - signatures who had 99% nothing to do with that Classroom - to force that decision tells ‘me’ :

that someone did a great but biased Sales job, and

that voters / signatures were rolled over .... because if they were objective , open minded / well rounded then this would never have gotten off the ground :((( This is not how Canadians are, right?Maybe the Signatures came from Korea town?

[Like Korea & Korean’s a lot, but this stuff shows nothing of diversity in an Intl School, rather it highlights narrow mindedness:-((( ]