UPDATE II – I heard back from my friend in Paris, who says “non ne so nulla, mi spiace!”. In other words, she hasn’t heard anything about the purported library arson, and given the high literary circles in which she travels, she almost certainly would have.
My conclusion, then, is that this report is quite likely a gross exaggeration, if not a complete fabrication. However, that is only a partially-informed logical conclusion, not a fully-informed verdict.
I consider it to be relatively important to correct factual errors, as I have no sympathy for the ludicrous “fake but real” justification. That being said, I do not apologize for my default position of trusting other Internet sources until there is a reason to doubt them. Sometimes I will catch inaccuracies, other times I rely on other people to do so. It depends on the nature of the falsehood; I can spot a fraudulent CPI much better than fraud in the discovery of a new species of flower in Peru. It is downright ridiculous to expect any blogger to fact-check the links that forms the basis for his commentary; the beauty of the blogosphere is that it is self-correcting, based on the disparate knowledge possessed by each different blogger.
For example, Morgan mentioned that a mere 30 minutes of research might be sufficient to fact-check the link above, (as it happens, even a full day and a contact in Paris hasn’t been conclusive), but no one writing more than one post per day is ever going to waste their time on such superflous – and as I’ve intimated, redundant – activity. The difference between the blogs and the mainstream media is that blogs correct better, faster and without embarrassment.
Of course, if French Muslims aren’t burning books yet, it’s only because they haven’t attained an electoral majority. Just give them time….