Category Archives: France

Sarkozy’s pandering to Islamophobia gives boost to Le Pen

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Le_PenFar-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, playing on fears over the spread of Islam, has regained the political initiative in France with a strong result in regional elections that poses a problem for President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Bouncing back from a string of recent reversals, Le Pen’s National Front won a surprise 11.74 percent of the national vote in Sunday’s first round ballot and will dilute support for Sarkozy’s conservative block in crucial run-offs on March 21.

Aged 81, Le Pen himself enjoyed a remarkable personal triumph, winning 20.29 percent backing in the southern French Provence-Cote d’Azur region, which has absorbed hundreds of thousands of mainly North African immigrants in recent decades.

His daughter Marine Le Pen also scored well, securing 18.31 percent support in the far north of France, where worries over industrial decline helped her cause amongst the working class.

Sarkozy himself believed he had managed to neutralise the National Front in 2007 by offering tough solutions of his own to its two main obsessions – immigration and security.

However, a government move in 2009 to organise a broad debate on national identity rekindled interest in the far right by reviving controversies over how to deal with immigrants and Islam in a country that has Europe’s largest Muslim population.

“The debate on national identity brought back to the fore themes that were favourable to the National Front … and proved counter productive for the ruling party,” said Henri Rey, head of research at the Sciences Po political science institute.

Le Pen, who has said the regional vote will be his last election campaign, proved astute at leveraging concerns over radical Islam, plastering billboards with a poster showing France covered by an Algerian flag, a veiled woman and minarets. “No to Islamism,” read the slogan.

Reuters, 15 March 2010

See also “Green shoots in France as race card backfires”, Morning Star, 16 March 2010

France plans bill banning veil for spring

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A bill banning the full Muslim veil will be introduced this spring, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Thursday. “A full veil that hides the whole face runs contrary to our idea of free and open social interaction. In a democracy, we don’t live behind a mask. That is why we have decided, with the president to legislate in the spring, ” Fillon said.

While a law against the full veil was already in discussion, no precise calendar had been put forward until now.

“All religions deserve respect, but what should not be respected is aggressive proselytizing, and withdrawing into one’s community”, Fillon told an audience of UMP party activists and supporters, at an electoral meeting in the west of France.

His announcement comes three days ahead of the first round of regional elections which is expected to end in an embarrasing defeat for the ruling party. With the far-right Front National in a position to overtake the UMP, the Prime Minister linked the “burqa legislation” to immigration. “There’s nothing shocking in saying that those who settle here should adopt the heritage of the home of Human Rights”.

According to the media, police research has shown that the full veil is a very limited phenomenon in France, with at most several thousand women, many of them French converts, opting for the attire.

France 24, 12 March 2010

See also Islam Online, 12 March 2010

US State Department report: Europe biased against Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The annual report of US State Department on human rights has warned of increasing concern that discrimination against Muslims was on the rise in Europe.

The human rights report for 2009 cited Switzerland’s ban on the construction of minarets on mosques enacted in November, as well as continued bans or restrictions on head scarves and burqa worn by Muslims in France, Germany and the Netherlands.

The report said: “Discrimination against Muslims in Europe has been an increasing concern.” Germany and the Netherlands have prohibitions against teachers wearing head scarves or burqa while on the job, and France bans the wearing of the religious garb in public, the report said.

The report particularly focused on problems in the Netherlands, where Muslims number about 850,000, saying that Muslims face societal resentment based on the belief that Islam is not compatible with Western values.

The report blamed right-wing politicians for playing a role in fuelling the resentment. It said: “Major incidents of violence against Muslims were rare, but minor incidents, including intimidation, brawls, vandalism, and graffiti with abusive language, were common.”

Al Jazeera, 11 March 2010

Le Pen launches anti-Islam campaign poster

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nonalislamism

French far-right party the Front National (FN) has revealed its latest election poster – a map of France decked in Algerian national colours, covered with minarets and featuring a woman whose face is hidden behind a “niqab” face veil. “No to Islamism,” the poster screams in big black letters.

The image is central to the FN’s campaign in the PACA (Provence Alpes Cote d’Azur) region, where the party’s leader, octogenarian firebrand Jean-Marie Le Pen, heads the party list in forthcoming regional elections due to begin March 14. The posters, already widely diffused on the Internet, are due to be distributed across France.

French anti-racist group LICRA failed to get an injunction against the distribution of the posters at a Marseille Court on Monday on the technicality “that the group itself was not based in Marseille”.

French campaign group MRAP has started proceedings at a Nanterre court (Paris) to ban the posters. The court is due to make a ruling on Friday, two days before voting in the regional elections begin.

Another anti-racist group SOS Racisme has started criminal proceedings against Le Pen, who will have to attend the criminal court in Paris on May 6. The group said in a statement: “Under the pretext of denouncing religious extremism, Le Pen has clearly marked a wish to solicit fear and rejection of not only Muslims but also all people of Algerian origin living in France.”

At a FN campaign meeting last weekend attended by thousands of party supporters, many of whom were carrying the poster, Le Pen railed against what he perceives as the “Islamist presence in France” and said mosques were “growing like mushrooms” across the country.

Nonalislamism2

Poll shows support for ‘burka’ ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

More than half of voters in four other major European states back a push by France’s Nicolas Sarkozy to ban women from wearing the burka, according to an opinion poll for the Financial Times.

As Mr Sarkozy presses ahead with plans to ban the wearing of the burka in public places, the FT’s latest Harris poll shows the move is not just strongly supported in France, but wins enthusiastic backing in the UK, Italy, Spain and Germany.

The poll shows some 70 per cent of respondents in France said they supported plans to forbid the wearing of the garment which covers the female body from head to toe. There was similar sentiment in Spain and Italy, where 65 per cent and 63 per cent respectively favoured a ban.

The strength of feeling in the UK and Germany may seem particularly surprising. Britain has a strong liberal tradition that respects an individual’s right to full expression of religious views. But here, some 57 per cent of people still favoured a ban. In Germany, which is also reluctant to clamp down on minority rights, some 50 per cent favoured a ban.

“This poll shows that the number of people in France opposed to the burka is going up and that is the product of debate on burka and national identity,” said Professor Patrick Weil, an expert on national identity at the University of Paris-Sorbonne. “But the figure is clearly going up in other countries in Europe like the UK as well, and that reflects the growing concern that there is about this issue in some parts of Europe.”

In the US, concerns about the issue are far less strong than in Europe. Just 33 per cent of Americans surveyed by Harris supported a ban, a far lower figure than the 44 per cent who said they supported it.

In Europe, while opposition to the burka was strong, few respondents said they were prepared to support the ban as part of a wider drive towards secularism in their country. Asked if they would support the burka ban if it were accompanied by a clampdown on wearing all religious icons such as the Christian crucifix and the Jewish cappel, only 22 per cent of French people said they supported such a move. In Britain, just 9 per cent of people said they would back such a move.

Financial Times, 1 March 2010

Fascist allowed to address school pupils and call for ban on hijab

Posted on by Bob Pitt

bnp-islam-posterA senior official in the British National Party was invited to address a classroom on whether the hijab should be banned, The Times has learnt.

Simon Darby, the BNP’s deputy leader, was phoned by 14-year-old students in Rochdale, Lancashire. The pupils, supervised by a teacher, asked him questions over the phone about the French ban on the hijab. The BNP’s policy is to ban Islamic dress in schools.

Andy Rymer, the head of Matthew Moss High School, told The Times that the students were doing a project on news reporting and had suggested contacting the BNP. He said: “We ask kids to be critically curious. This was something they were interested in and wanted to check out. They did so in a supported way with an intelligent teacher.”

Some Asian parents at the school, in the Castleton area of the town, spoke of their concern at allowing the BNP a voice in the classroom. Jamil Khan, whose daughter wears a headscarf to school, said: “I do not feel comfortable with the presence of the BNP in the classroom. They are extremists, full stop. They can only paint the picture one way.”

On his blog, Mr Darby said: “It was reassuring to think that even in 2010 politically correct Britain there are still teachers who insist on the old adage that if you don’t have access to all the information, you will never come up with the right answer.”

Times, 1 March 2010

French politicians claim halal menu discriminates against non-Muslims, poses threat of ‘Islamisation’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A French council has lodged a complaint against a fast food chain that serves only meat that conforms with Islamic dietary laws at a local branch. The mayor of Roubaix, in northern France, said the halal menu constituted “discrimination” against non-Muslims.

The Roubaix branch is one of several restaurants at which the chain, Quick, took non-halal products and pork off the menu in November. The move has triggered the latest row over France’s Muslim minority.

Several deputies from French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative UMP party have condemned the move, while Marine Le Pen, a vice-president of the far-right National Front, warned of “Islamisation”.

In Roubaix, Mayor Rene Vandierendonck, a socialist, called for a boycott of the Quick branch, and the town council has filed a complaint for discrimination with a regional court in Lille.

“I’m not bothered by the fact that there is a halal menu,” Mr Vandierendonck said. “But this is going too far because it is the only menu on offer and it has become discrimination.”

Quick decided to take a bacon hamburger off the menu at eight of its 350 branches, replacing it with a halal version that comes with smoked turkey. It said the move was designed to test the “commercial interest and technical feasibility” of introducing halal menus.

The Quick manager responsible for the Roubaix branch said there had been a slight increase in business after the introduction of halal menus and that he had not received complaints from customers, AFP news agency reported.

BBC News, 19 February 2010

Veil is ‘not a religious expression’ claims Dati

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Rachida Dati in BlackburnThe former French justice minister, Rachida Dati, has condemned the wearing of the burka, saying that it “does not correspond” to European values.

Ms Dati, the first person of North African descent to serve in the French cabinet, is in the UK to visit the Justice Secretary Jack Straw’s Blackburn constituency.

In a rare interview, she told Today programme reporter Zubeida Malik that “it’s important to remind what helps citizens live together and have a common destiny and living together and having a common destiny means having principles and values in common.

“And it’s true that the burka does not correspond neither to our values nor to our principles whether French or British and not even European. So it is important to say no to this expression that is not a religious expression.”

Ms Dati rejected suggestions that banning the burka and other face veils would make them more popular. “We have to remember that often women who wear the burka are either doing it out of ignorance or others are motivated by an activism linked to the creation of a new identity,” she said.

“And to those for whom it represents the expression of an identity, it is important to say that in our countries there can’t be any confrontation of identities. There is one single identity based upon common values and principles shared by our countries.”

BBC News, 19 February 2010

See also “French politician defends veil ban call on trip to Blackburn”, Lancashire Telegraph, 19 February 2010