Vladimir Putin called on Russians to strengthen a new national identity based on conservative and traditional values such as the Orthodox church on Thursday, warning that the west was facing a moral crisis.
Category Archives: France
Le Pen wants to campaign with Wilders
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen wants to campaign with Dutch anti-Islamic party leader Geert Wilders in next year’s European parliamentary elections, she said in an interview Saturday.
“We could perhaps campaign together for the elections,” Le Pen told Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad. “It’s important that the voter sees that we do not stand alone, that similar patriotic movements are active in every EU country,” she said.
Le Pen said earlier this year that she wants to begin a pan-European far-right parliamentary grouping, including her National Front (FN) party, after the May 2014 European elections.
Secularism charter for French schools targets Muslims
All pupils in French state schools will be reminded this week that they are not allowed to wear items of religious clothing such as headscarves or crucifixes, nor object to the school curriculum on religious grounds, in a 15-point written statement to be displayed on school walls.
Second attack on Muret mosque
Al-Kanz reports that the mosque in Muret in southwestern France has suffered a second desecration. This time a shoulder of pork has been left outside the building. Last month a pig’s foot was tied to the gate.
Mosque site vandalised in Charleville Mézières
The CCIF has been contacted by the association of the Mosque and Cultural Centre of Ardennes after a series of acts of criminal damage and vandalism at the mosque construction site in the rue Anatole France in Charleville-Mezieres.
According to preliminary information provided by the centre’s officials, supported by photographic evidence, Islamophobic graffiti was written on the walls of the mosque.
On the photographs that have been sent to us the message “No to Islam” and the (far-right) Celtic cross can be clearly seen.
Quebec mosque vandalised with pig’s blood
Police in Quebec’s Saguenay region have been called in after a local mosque was vandalized over the weekend – splattered with what could be pig blood.
Representatives of the area’s small Muslim community say they believe it to be an isolated incident, and Saguenay Mayor Jean Tremblay agrees. Contacted by The Canadian Press Sunday, Tremblay said he was shocked by what he termed an “isolated and stupid” act of intolerance against a place of worship.
The mayor insisted that most local residents would also be appalled by the attack. “That’s not the mentality people in the region have… All it takes is one or two stupid people for something like this to happen,” he said in an interview. He said the incident undermines the community’s efforts to welcome diversity. “This isn’t the way to show we have an open mind,” he said.
A letter was also sent to the mosque and to the local Radio-Canada station spouting anti-Islamic rhetoric.
Should the ‘veil’ be banned in higher education?
It seems that the French never tire of debating the role of religion in public life. Or perhaps the concept of laïcité, a uniquely French model of secularism, just keeps tangling them up in political knots.
The most recent dispute over the wearing of the Islamic veil by French university students has once again laid bare the problems and paradoxes of a nation struggling to apply a revered historical principle to a rapidly changing social environment. It also reveals how the discourse and practice of laïcité have become caught in a time warp.
Rosemary Salomone writes in University World News, 1 September 2013
Another graffiti attack on Besançon mosque
Le JDM reports that yesterday an SS sign, a Celtic cross, an Odal rune and the words “Vive la France” were sprayed on the wall of the Es-Sunna mosque at Besançon in eastern France.
In Trappes
Valeria Costa-Kostritsky talks to young Muslim women in the French town of Trappes.
Solidarity with Aïssatou
The Collectif contre l’Islamophobie en France has set up an email address (aissatou@islamophobie.net) so that messages of sympathy and solidarity can be sent to Aïssatou, the young Muslim woman attacked by racists, who attempted suicide earlier this week. The CCIF also encourages support for the campaign launched by Al-Kanz, which can be followed on Twitter: #AvecAïssatou