A French court hit notorious Norwegian heavy metal musician Kristian Vikernes with a fine and six-month suspended prison sentence for blog postings that allegedly glorified war crimes and promoted discrimination against Jews and Muslims.
Category Archives: France
European Court of Human Rights ‘fails to protect religious freedom’
By upholding a French ban on wearing full-face veils, a common Muslim practice, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has failed to protect the religious freedom of Islamic women who choose the veil as an expression of their faith, according to the Forum for Religious Freedom-Europe (FOREF), an independent non-governmental monitoring group.
European Court of Human Rights upholds French ban on full-face veils
The European Court of Human Rights has upheld a French law banning the wearing of the full-face veil, the niqab.
The Strasbourg-based court was ruling on a case brought by a 24-year-old French woman, who argued that the ban on wearing the veil in public violated her freedom of religion and expression.
The ruling by the European Court’s Grand Chamber was immediately condemned by a leading UK human rights campaigner for “criminalising women’s clothing”. Liberty’s director Shami Chakrabarti also linked it to “the rising racism in Western Europe”.
The woman also argued that the law gives rise to “discrimination based on gender, religion and ethnic origin, to the detriment of women who wear the full-face veil”.
The woman was not named in the complaint which was brought to the court in April 2011. The case potentially has important implications for the UK where the possibility of banning the veil has long been discussed.
France: the need for a united fight against the fascists
At the end of May, the Front National results in the European elections sent a shockwave across France. John Mullen looks at the causes of this disaster, and at what can be done.
John Mullen has been active in anticapitalist groups in France since 1986. He is a member, in the Paris region, of Ensemble, an anticapitalist current within the Front de Gauche. He also writes at John Mullen à Montreuil.
French high court upholds firing over head scarf
France’s top court has upheld the decision of a childcare centre to fire an employee for wearing the Islamic headscarf, the hijab.
The case has dragged on for six years, pitting French legal interpretations of secularism against laws guaranteeing personal freedom of expression.
The privately run Baby Loup childcare centre in Chanteloup-les-Vignes, near Paris, fired Fatima Afif for violating a rule against displaying symbols of religious faith in 2008.
Years of legal battles have been fought against the background of the long-running debate on Islamic dress and the secular French republic and also raised questions of employers’ and employees’ rights in the workplace. Wednesday’s ruling was the fifth court decision on the case.
“It’s good news for the children, for the women and for the staff of Baby Loup, for Muslims and non-Muslims, for those who believe and those who do not, and for the republic and our capacity to live together within it,” commented the creche’s lawyer Richard Malka.
“The only people for whom it’s not good news are those who feed off political and religious difference and confrontation. After several years of legal and ideological battles, Baby Loup has moved mountains. France will remain secular, and we are thankful for it.”
Le Pen and Wilders fail to form anti-EU bloc
France’s far-right National Front (FN) has failed to form an alliance with the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) of Geert Wilders, reducing both parties’ influence in the European Parliament.
Pan-European party blocs get more funding, staff and speaking time in the parliament. The deadline for forming a bloc expired on Monday night.
The new 751-seat assembly, elected in May, holds its first session next week.
The UK Independence Party (UKIP) has formed a bloc with other Eurosceptics. UKIP’s new allies are the Italian Five Star Movement of comedian-turned-politician Beppe Grillo, Lithuania’s Order and Justice Party, the nationalist Sweden Democrats and a few anti-EU MEPs from Latvia, the Czech Republic and France. Jointly they are called the New EFD (Europe of Freedom and Democracy).
Under parliament rules, a faction has to consist of at least 25 MEPs from a minimum of seven EU countries. The EU has a total of 28 member states. The FN and PVV failed to satisfy the seven-country rule.
Before the election Mr Wilders and FN leader Marine Le Pen had spoken of their common ambition to return powers from the EU to the nation states.
Ms Le Pen’s triumph, leading the FN to first place in the French election, gave her party 23 seats. It was one of the biggest surprises on an election night that saw big gains for anti-EU parties across Europe. In the last parliament the FN had just three seats.
Mr Wilders was disappointed with the PVV’s result, however. The party won just three seats and fell to fourth place in the Netherlands – well behind liberal and centre-left, pro-EU parties.
Both the FN and PVV want tougher immigration controls, reject the euro and want their countries to leave the EU. Both parties also campaign strongly against the spread of Islam in Europe.
Paris protest: campaigners demand repeal of Chatel circular
Le Figaro reports that the campaign has been stepped up for the withdrawal of the “Chatel circular” – the policy introduced in 2012 by the then UMP education minister Luc Chatel which proposed, in the name of defending secularism, that Muslim women who wear the hijab should not be allowed to accompany their children on school trips.
The policy has been maintained under the present Parti Socialiste government, despite a ruling by the Council of State last December that the ban was outside the law.
On Tuesday, for the first time, a delegation of Muslim women involved in the campaign against this oppressive policy met with a representative of current education minister Benoît Hamon to discuss the issue. And yesterday a demonstration was held near the ministry of education in support of the demand for an end to the ban.
Benoit Assou-Ekotto condemns racism and Islamophobia in France
Benoit Assou-Ekotto chose not to play for France because he claims that the country blames “black players and Muslims” when the team is not performing well.
The Tottenham Hotspur full-back was born near Calais, but opted to represent Cameroon at international level, as he qualified to do so through his father.
Assou-Ekotto, who spent last season on loan at Queens Park Rangers, has revealed the reasoning behind this decision to be his refusal to play for a nation that he perceives to have a racist agenda.
He said: “When the national team get a bad result, they start to say there is a little bit too many black people, Muslim people and this kind of stuff. I don’t like it. There is no point for me to play for this kind of country.”
The 30-year-old, who has been capped 23 times by Cameroon since debuting in 2009, is expected to start when the Africans face Croatia in their second World Cup Group A game on Wednesday.
Pew Research Center publishes findings on European attitudes towards migrants and Muslims
On the eve of elections to the European Parliament, the Pew Research Center has published its latest report on public opinion in the EU. It is based on face-to-face and telephone surveys in seven countries: France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom.
Fascists desecrate Meximieux mosque
The Collectif contre l’Islamophobie en France reports that the Islamic Cultural Centre at Meximieux in the Rhône-Alpes region of eastern France has been defaced by fascists.
A swastika and a Celtic cross were sprayed on the front of the building.
The CCIF notes that this is the fifth desecration of the Meximieux mosque since 2012.
Le Progrès adds that over recent days a number of such far-right symbols have also appeared in l’Ain, Belley, Châtillon-la-Palud and Pérouges.