Category Archives: France

Pork soup for homeless is not racist ploy, says French judge

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bloc IdentitairePork soup is back on the menu for homeless people in Paris after a judge ruled it could not be deemed racist.

Organisers of soup kitchens linked to extreme rightwing groups overturned a ban imposed by the city authorities over fears that its handouts discriminated against Jews and Muslims. Police had shut down food distributions by the organisation SDF (Solidarité des Français) – the same initials as given to the homeless group Sans Domicile Fixe – because of alleged xenophobia and fears of protests.

Groups across the country associated with a rightwing organisation called Bloc Identitaire have been handing out “soupe au cochon” since 2004. Last winter Fabienne Keller, the mayor of Strasbourg, justified banning the soup kitchens saying: “Schemes with racial subtexts must be denounced.” The groups insist that they are only serving traditional Gallic fare to “our own”. Pork soup is a staple of the French pastoral heartland from which, nationalists say, all true French spring.

Guardian, 3 January 2007

Americans oppose Dutch Islamic veil ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Many adults in the United States are against a proposal developed by the Dutch government that seeks to ban Islamic veils, according to a six-country poll by Harris Interactive published in the Financial Times.

59 per cent of Americans believe Islamic women should have the right to wear the garments if they wish to do so.

Support is significantly lower in the five European nations surveyed, with Spain at 39 per cent, Italy at 34 per cent, Germany at 33 per cent, Britain at 23 per cent, and France at 23 per cent.

Angus Reid Global Monitor, 31 December 2006

Dutch veil ban poll

‘Veil Wars’ reveal Europe’s intolerance

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Europe’s traditions of secular tolerance appear to be haunted by the Islamic veil. Every week seems to bring new headlines announcing moves to crack down on the wearing of what critics appear to deem this most alienating symbol of Muslim faith, whether in French public schools, British government buildings or out in public in the Netherlands.

“But is European tolerance more threatened by hijab head-scarf, or even the face-covering niqab … or by the hypocrisy and low-grade xenophobia of those telling Muslim women that this attack on their religious practice is really for their own good? Beneath all the reminders of secularist tradition and progressive discourse cited in Europe’s headscarf debate lies the mean, provincial ‘not in our country, you don’t’ attitude – even when many of the women at whom it’s addressed to were born and raised in ‘our country’.”

Bruce Crumley in Time Magazine, 24 November 2006

French unions resist after Muslims are sacked

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islamophobia isn’t just taking place in Britain. Authorities in France have withdrawn the security clearances for 40 mainly Muslim workers at the Paris airport of Roissy-Charles de Gaulle, one of Europe’s busiest airports. The police prefecture of Seine-Saint-Denis, linked to the interior ministry, withdrew the clearances, claiming that the workers could become involved in terrorist activity.

Serge Nybelene, the general secretary of the airport CGT union branch, spoke to Socialist Worker about the cases. He said, “The prefecture says that there is a direct or indirect connection with radical Islamic groups. But in their letters the employees concerned received no reason for their security clearances being taken away.

“We are used to having security clearances withdrawn for meaningless reasons. But in this case the prefect doesn’t even have to justify his decision. He says that the interviewee didn’t prove that he wouldn’t be susceptible to becoming dangerous in the future. So it is for the accused to prove his innocence and not the accuser to prove the person is guilty! The focus is on Muslim workers because we are coming up to an election.”

As Socialist Worker went to press, workers at the airport were meeting to discuss a proposed strike over the withdrawal of security passes. Serge said, “The CGT has brought two cases to court in order to stop what’s happening. We are talking to a group of MPs to call for a debate on the question. We have also called on our members at the airport to debate mass action.”

Socialist Worker, 11 November 2006

Paris airport faces strike threat

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Unions at France’s main airport, Charles de Gaulle in Paris, have threatened to call a strike over alleged bias against Muslim workers.

Seventy-two workers, mostly Muslims, have lost security clearance at the airport since May 2005. Officials say the workers posed a risk because of alleged links to groups with “potentially terrorist aims”.

Unions will hold a meeting on Tuesday to discuss the strike, which could be called for the end of the month. Didier Frassin, head of the main CGT union at the airport, told AFP news agency there would also be a march outside the prefecture in Roissy, which took the decision to remove the security clearance from the workers.

BBC News, 3 November 2006

Paris airport bars Muslim staff

Posted on by Bob Pitt

More than 70 Muslim workers at France’s main airport have been stripped of their security clearance for allegedly posing a risk to passengers. More than 100 baggage handlers and aircraft cleaners had been under surveillance for months. In all, 72 people were later told their passes allowing access to secure areas were being withdrawn.

Airport officials say some of the workers had frequently visited Pakistan and Afghanistan the previous year. Some of them are suing the authorities, claiming they are being discriminated against because of their religion.

The interior ministry last year ordered a security review of airport staff.

“Seventy-two employees had their badges withdrawn [because] they are linked to fundamentalist movements with potentially terrorist aims,” Jacques Lebrot, the deputy prefect in charge of the airport, told the AFP news agency. The “great majority” were linked to an “Islamist movement”, he said.

BBC News, 2 November 2006

Muslims challenged by gynaecologists

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“France’s leading gynaecologists have challenged hard-line [sic] Muslims to bow to France’s secular, ‘modern’ rules of society, and to stop insisting that their wives are examined by female doctors. The heads of the French National College of Gynaecologists and Obstetricians issued a public declaration, rejecting any moves to undermine the principle that public hospitals are part of a secular state, in which patients must accept being examined by a doctor of the opposite sex.”

Daily Telegraph, 23 October 2006

Europe draws battle lines on head scarves

Posted on by Bob Pitt

When Nora Labrak arrived at a private employment agency last summer near the French city of Lyon, the first question she heard was not about her resume. “I was asked to remove my head scarf at the lobby”, Labrak recalled in a telephone interview. When the 29-year-old refused, she was hustled to the door.

Long or short, sober black or brightly hued, the Muslim women’s head covering is drawing growing objections, and in some places downright hostility, in Europe. It has been banned from public schools in France and Belgium, and its strictest, face-concealing variation, the niqab, has been outlawed in several European towns.

Even in multicultural Britain, the niqab has sparked ferocious debate after the suspension of a Muslim teaching assistant and remarks by Prime Minister Tony Blair on Tuesday that the garment was “a mark of separation”.

“There’s a rise in Islamo-skepticism,” said Franck Fregosi, an expert on Islam at France’s National Center for Scientific Research, referring to the unease many non-Muslims feel about the seeming reluctance of Muslims to be part of the mainstream culture. “There’s a fear and tension that’s installed in certain parts of the population, and I don’t think it bodes well for the future.”

In Brussels, 41-year-old Nicole Thill shares that foreboding. “I haven’t had problems until now, but things are changing,” said Thill, who converted to Islam and began wearing the veil in 2001. “People’s looks are increasingly hostile. And there’s less and less respect. People don’t mind jostling you on the street because, after all, you’re only a veiled woman.”

To be sure, sentiments about Muslims vary widely in Europe. Polls offer a fractured snapshot about how the region’s Islamic community is viewed – and how it views itself. A survey by the Pew Research Center, released in July, found that a majority of European Muslims did not sense hostility from non-Muslims. But a significant number – 39 percent in France, 42 percent in Britain and 51 percent in Germany – reported otherwise.

San Francisco Chronicle, 22 October 2006

Two useful  books on the recent attempts to suppress the hijab in Europe are Dominic McGoldrick’s Human Rights and Religion: The Islamic Headscarf Debate in Europe and John R.Bowen’s Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves: Islam, the State, and Public Space.

Muslim staff banned from Paris airport

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Four Muslim baggage handlers are appealing against a decision to bar them from working at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.

They say that the local government’s decision to revoke their security passes is evidence of anti-Muslim discrimination. A local government spokesman says the decision was based on an assessment of the terrorist risk. He denied the move was linked to the men’s religion.

Lawyers acting for the four men say that dozens of other Muslims who work at the airport have also been stripped of their security passes, leaving them unable to work.

The four men, who are of North African origin, say they were summoned by security officials for interviews concerning their employment in August. A few days later they were told that their airport passes, which gave them access to the area near runways, were being withdrawn.

A lawyer acting for the men said the baggage handlers were told they had been barred because they had “not shown that their behaviour was unlikely to violate airport security”.

As well as appealing against the local authority’s decision, the baggage handlers’ lawyers have submitted a criminal complaint for alleged discrimination against the men on the grounds that they are Muslims.

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