Debord noted that Western Europe and the Scandinavian countries, had another level of intellectual tolerance, that such a trial was, at that moment, unthinkable in Paris or Copenhagen. That clumsy affair had already harmed the reputation of the Federal German Republic. Debord asserted that the pretext by which the Spur group was brought to trial, was "to make the Spur group, and all those who wish to pursue the same route, succumb to the ambient conformism." Debord ridiculed that trial to the prosecutions of Baudelaire and Flaubert for pornography and immorality in the 19th century France: