Category Archives: France
French Senate adopts bill banning hijab for nannies
Nannies and childcare assistants could soon be banned from wearing the Islamic veil in France, even when working at home, after a controversial law bill was adopted by the French Senate late last night.
Green presidential candidate says France should honour Muslim and Jewish religious festivals
France’s Green presidential hopeful raised heckles across the political spectrum Tuesday by suggesting that France should honour Muslim and Jewish festivals as well as Christian ones, by according them a national holiday.
Speaking in Paris on Wednesday at her first campaign rally, Green presidential candidate Eva Joly argued that national holiday status should be accorded to the Muslim festival of Eid-ul-Fitr and the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur.
“Each religion should benefit from equal treatment in the public sphere,” she said. “I believe that national holidays should also be accorded to faiths other than the Catholic faith.” Describing religious equality as a “key element” of French identity, she then blamed the policies of President Nicolas Sarkozy for dividing religious communities. “Yes, I’ll say it,” she said. “This [suffering] has been caused by five years of Sarkozy-ism.”
Muslim bride sues mayor of Lyon over order to remove headscarf
A newly-wed Muslim couple are suing the mayor of Lyon after a local official insisted the bride remove her veil at the town hall wedding ceremony.
The bride, identified only as Nassima A., was asked to remove a veil which was covering her hair during her wedding ceremony at a town hall in Lyon in June.
“Nassima thought it was an order and did not think twice about removing her veil. She thought she had to do it to get married and took it off in front of everybody,” says her lawyer Gilles Devers in an interview with the French daily Libération. He says she felt humuliated during the ceremony.
The deputy mayor of Lyon’s 9th district, Fatiha Ben Ahmed, who asked the bride to bare her hair, told the bride that she looked “very pretty” without a veil.
Three-month suspended sentence for FN member who desecrated Muslim graves
A former soldier, convicted of desecrating Muslim graves with pieces of pork, in the cemetery at Castres in south-west France, received a 3-month suspended prison sentence on Wednesday 4 January.
In January 2011 the former soldier left pieces of pork rind on three graves in the Muslim section of Castres cemetery. Identified by DNA traces left on the rind, the accused, aged 48 and retired from the army for ten years, assured the court that his gesture was aimed only against radical Muslims, and he offered his apologies to the families of the deceased. During the investigation, he initially described himself as “a resistance fighter against the Arab-Muslim invasion”.
‘Only’ six veiled women fined since April, says French interior minister
France’s interior minister says that since a ban on face-covering Islamic veils took effect in April only six women have been convicted and fined.
Claude Gueant said in an interview with the daily Le Monde published Monday that no woman has been sent to a citizenship class – another potential punishment.
Controversy surrounded the law. Muslim leaders, most of them opposed to burqa-style veils, say it stigmatizes all followers of Islam.
Gueant says police cited a total of 237 women but only six were convicted. He expressed surprise that nearly a quarter of the women police questioned had converted to Islam.
Backers say the law is aimed at ensuring France’s secular values and gender equality and nipping radical Islam in the bud.
Associated Press, 2 January 2012
In reality, one French Muslim woman – Hind Amas – has been sentenced to 15 days’ “citizenship service” after being convicted of wearing the veil, and faces a possible two years in prison and €30,000 fine because she has refused to accept the sentence.
In the Le Monde interview Gueant stated that in 2012 there would be neither controversy nor rows over Islam or the presence of Muslims in France. He described Islam as “open, tolerant, vibrant, fully integrated into our society” and claimed that he was opposed only to “radical Islam”.
Presumably Gueant was tailoring his message to the readers of a liberal newspaper, but the actual practice of the Sarkozy government towards Muslims and other communities of migrant origin is very different. Cf. “France stiffens citizenship requirements”, Los Angeles Times, 2 January 2012
(Admittedly, Gueant’s measures don’t go far enough for some critics.)
French women’s groups protest FIFA decision to endorse hijab
Three French women’s organizations have expressed concern and disappointment with world soccer body FIFA’s endorsement of a proposal to lift the ban on women players wearing a hijab, an Islamic hair dress, on the pitch.
“To accept a special dress code for women athletes not only introduces discrimination among athletes but is contrary to the rules governing sport movement, setting a same dress code for all athletes without regard to origin or belief,” the three organizations said in an open letter to FIFA president Sepp Blatter.
Muslim woman fined for driving while wearing veil in Brittany – but police say it was purely a safety issue
A woman in Brittany was slapped with a €35 fine after police spotted her driving her car wearing a full-face veil.
The woman, who was visiting family in the north-west coastal town of Saint-Brieuc, was wearing the face-covering niqab, reported daily newspaper 20 Minutes.
Police stopped the woman who “seemed hesitant in her driving,” said local police spokesman Laurent Dufour. “On closer inspection, they realized she was veiled,” he said.
“This is an issue of skill, safety and visibility,” said Dufour. He compared driving with a full face veil to driving a car with ice on the windscreen, eating a sandwich or smoking a cigarette.
JDL and far-right parties find common ground
“Right-wing movements previously associated with anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi ideologies are increasingly opting for a surprising tactic to garner legitimacy within mainstream politics: Forging alliances with extremist Jewish organisations under the banner of fighting ‘Islamisation’.”
Nour Samaha of Al Jazeera examines links between the Jewish Defense League and far-right organisations in Europe and North America.
Muslim war graves defaced in Carcassonne
Thirty war graves of Muslim soldiers who fought in World War I have been attacked and defaced in the southern city of Carcassonne.
Racist insults and swastikas were painted on the graves, which are identified by the Islamic symbols of the star and crescent. Slogans including “France for the French” and “Arabs out” were painted on some of the gravestones, reported daily newspaper Le Figaro. The graves of Muslim soldiers in the same graveyard were attacked earlier this year in September.