Category Archives: France

Marine Le Pen to meet Wilders in Netherlands next month

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Wilders and Le PenFrench far-right leader Marine Le Pen is to visit the Netherlands in November to forge closer ties with the Dutch anti-Islamic party of Geert Wilders ahead of next year’s European elections, a Dutch media report said Monday.

Le Pen will travel to The Hague on Wilders’s invitation after meeting the outspoken Dutch politician in Paris earlier this year, the Nieuwsuur news programme said.

“After our meeting, she’ll now travel to The Hague to be my guest in the lower house of parliament,” Nieuwsuur quoted Wilders as saying on its website. “She is a charismatic politician,” added Wilders, known for his platinum-blonde hairstyle and pronounced anti-Islamic and eurosceptic viewpoints.

The Party for Freedom (PVV) leader reiterated Le Pen’s statement last month that their two groups could campaign together for next year’s European parliamentary elections. “Parties such as (Le Pen’s) National Front (FN) and the PVV could make the europhile elite sing a different tune during the European elections,” Wilders said.

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Poitiers mosque targeted again

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Poitiers mosque anti-Islam banner 2013

In October 2012 the French far-right group Génération Identitaire staged a rooftop protest at a mosque that was under construction at Poitiers.

Des Dômes Et Des Minarets reports (via the UOIF) that on 11 October, presumably to mark the anniversary of the earlier protest, a banner was hung from the same building with the slogan “Islam out”.

A complaint has been lodged with the police and an investigation into “incitement to religious hatred” has been launched.

Mail backs French journalist accused of slandering CCIF

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nous sommes la nation (2)
Poster for the “We are the nation” campaign launched by the Collectif contre l’Islamophobie en France in 2012

A French journalist is facing a criminal trial under the country’s strict press laws for remarks made during a radio debate about the influence of Islam.

Ivan Rioufol, 61, believes the way he is being treated is an example of how writers are criminalised when the state is able to control the media. He was summoned to court under strict press laws which date back to the 19th Century following a complaint from a pressure group called the Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF).

“In seeking to undermine liberty of expression, a sacred principle of our civilisation, the Collective against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) takes the risk of appearing like a menace to democracy,” said Mr Rioufol. “This is essentially what I hope to be able to explain in court, because I will have to appear in a few months before the 17th Criminal Court in Paris.”

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French cartoonist combines anti-union propaganda with Islamophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Plantu CGT cartoon

The Collectif contre l’Islamophobie en France draws our attention to the recent controversy over a cartoon published in Le Monde last week.

Drawn by the paper’s longtime cartoonist Plantu, the illustration refers to recent court judgements – backed by the French trade union organisation, the Confédération générale du travail – that a number of retail outlets including the home improvement store Castorama were operating illegally on Sunday.

A snarling Muslim is depicted as shouting “I forbid you to go to school” at a young girl, while a CGT representative shouts at a woman employee “I forbid you to go to work on Sunday”. It is difficult to say who this is more offensive to – Muslims or trade unionists.

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‘I don’t want any veiled women in my town’, says French mayor

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Orty Gym owner Lynda Ellabou poses in font of her new all-women's gym on the outskirts of Paris, in Le RaincyLE RAINCY, France — A pink and orange all-women’s gym has become an unlikely focus of a very French row over Muslim integration, secularism and what some view as blatant populism in the run-up to France’s municipal elections.

The gym, which opened last month in the up-market Paris suburb of Le Raincy, is owned by a French Muslim couple who say their religion and appearance – she wears a headscarf and he a long beard – are the reason the mayor wants to shut them down.

The squabble has erupted five months before conservative mayor Eric Raoult, who says safety is his only concern, seeks re-election in nationwide municipal polls in which the anti-immigrant National Front is expected to gain ground.

“‘I don’t want any veiled women in my town,’ he told us,” said gym manager Nadia El Gendouli, who sports a piercing in her nose and plunging neckline. “‘You’re a fundamentalist!’ he told me.”

At the town hall on Thursday, Raoult denied the allegation that he did not want women wearing Muslim veils in Le Raincy. “These are fundamentalists, they lie!” he shouted. “They consider because they’re Muslims they’re victims and they consider they have more rights,” he said.

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French magazine accused of inciting racial hatred

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Valeurs actuelles cover

This is the cover of the next issue of the French magazine Valeurs Actuelles, due to hit the newsstands tomorrow. It features Marianne, the symbol of the French republic, wearing an Islamic veil.

The Union des étudiants juifs de France (UEJF), the Mouvement contre le racisme et pour l’amitié entre les peuples (MRAP) et SOS Racisme have all issued protests against its publication. The UEJF has registered a complaint against the magazine’s editorial director for incitement to racial hatred, stating that the issue “contains an explicit exhortation to commit acts of discrimination or violence … against Muslims”.

CCIF welcomes conviction for online threat against Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

CCIF Stop Islamophobia

The Collectif contre l’Islamophobie en France reports on the conviction of an individual who posted an anti-Muslim hate message on the website of Le Figaro in 2011. The court imposed a one-month suspended prison sentence and a €1680 fine.

The message read: “… as for the Muslims who increasingly provoke the indigenous French with their shit halal meals … I advise them to immediately stop these provocations or leave France as soon as possible and return to their Muslim countries if they don’t know how to live in harmony with other religions, otherwise they will eventually only have the choice of the suitcase or the coffin as was the case for the ‘pieds noirs’ in the ’60s.”

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Dog excrement thrown at Muslim prayer room

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Montrouge mosque vandalismAl-Kanz reports that this afternoon, while worshippers were at prayer, dog excrement was thrown at the door of a prayer room at Montrouge, in the suburbs of Paris.

Al-Kanz points out that Montrouge has been the site of a conflict between the local Muslim community and the mayor, who attempted to close down the same prayer room, which is the only mosque in the town. (Via LoonWatch)

Update:  See also “Mosquée de Montrouge souillée par des jets d’excréments”, CCIF, 24 September 2013

Don’t follow France’s burqa ban. It has curbed liberty and justice

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Join me in a criminal court in suburban Paris on almost any weekday and I’ll show you exactly where national debates about female face coverings end up.

Ever since France introduced its “burqa ban” in 2011, there has been a constant stream of wretched cases involving the handful of Muslims who choose to wear such garments. Not only are perfectly upstanding women being fined for their choice of dress, principally the full-body niqab, which leaves a slit for the eyes, but an increasing number of defendants are being tried for attacking them.

One case involves two self-styled “patriotic vigilantes” who targeted a pregnant 21-year-old in the commuter town of Argenteuil, north-west of Paris, in June. The new law persuaded the men to shout racist insults before putting the woman in hospital, where she lost her baby. Another three reported cases on the same council estate over the course of just one month this summer saw full-veil wearers assaulted as their attackers shouted: “Dirty Arab, dirty Muslim.”

Those calling for a veil ban in Britain have clearly ignored such depressingly routine cases. They do not realise how the legislation introduced by President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government has not only stigmatised Muslim women, but somehow legitimised physical attacks on them. The ban in France is a hateful assault on basic freedoms, one that has been seized on by an unlikely alliance of rightwing politicians and feminists.

Excellent article by Nabila Ramdani in the Observer, 22 September 2013