Netherlands: Dutch plan ban on Muslim face veils next year

Via Reuters:

The Dutch minority government plans to ban Muslim face veils such as burqas and other forms of clothing that cover the face from next year.

The ban would make the Netherlands, where 1 million out of 17 million people are Muslim, the second European Union country to ban the burqa after France, and would apply to face-covering veils if they were worn in public.

“People should be able to look at each other’s faces and recognize each other when they meet,” the interior affairs ministry said in a statement Friday.

(source)

Via RNW:

The burqa ban passed by the cabinet on Friday is drawing mostly negative reactions, both among Muslim organisations and political parties.

A large Turkish interest group, IOT, says the government hasn’t considered the ban’s consequences. “Women who currently only venture outside, or are allowed to go outside, wearing a burqa, will from now on stay home,” IOT chair Aydin Akkaya warns.

(source)

France: Muslim and Jewish celebrations ‘should be bank holidays’

Via France24:

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.

Currently six of the 12 national holidays in France are Catholic calendar events, with the other six having no religious connotation.

(source)

Strasbourg: First Muslim cemetery in France

Via Le Parisien (French):

The first Muslim cemetery will be inaugurated in Strasbourg on February 6th. The cemetery will have place for 1000 graves.

The cemetery is the first to be established by a French municipality, and was made possible by the special local laws of the region, which do not recognize separation of Church and State. Elsewhere in the country, there are Muslim plots in other cemeteries.

Anne-Pernelle Richardot, deputy mayor of Strasbourg, says that Islam is not a recognized religion, but that they try to bring it up to the same level as the recognized religions, using the local laws. The municipality invested 800,000 euro in the cemetery. There are eight Muslim plots elsewhere in Strasbourg cemeteries, but they’ve gotten to full capacity in recent years. Families were burying their loved ones back in their home country for the burial to be according to Muslim rites.

Saïd Alla, president of the Grand Mosque of Strasbourg, says that the Muslim community had settled permanently in France and want to bury their relatives at home, not a thousand kilometers away. “It’s the ultimate gesture of good integration, it shows that you belong to the country in which you live.”

France: New law makes it harder to become French

Via France24:

Foreigners seeking French nationality face tougher requirements as of January 1, when new rules drawn up by Interior Minister Claude Guéant come into force.

Candidates will be tested on French culture and history, and will have to prove their French language skills are equivalent to those of a 15-year-old mother tongue speaker. They will also be required to sign a new charter establishing their rights and responsibilities.

“Becoming French is not a mere administrative step. It is a decision that requires a lot of thought”, reads the charter, drafted by France’s High Council for Integration (HCI). In a more obscure passage, the charter suggests that by taking on French citizenship, “applicants will no longer be able to claim allegiance to another country while on French soil”, although dual
nationality will still be allowed.

(source)

Turkey: Sarkozy is “fanning hatred of Muslims and Turks for electoral gains.”

Via AFP:

The war of words between France and Turkey escalated dramatically on Friday, when the Turkish premier accused Paris of committing genocide in Algeria and of stirring hatred of Muslims.

Furious that French lawmakers had voted on Thursday to outlaw denial of the 1915 Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan hit back directly at France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Earlier, Turkey’s ambassador to France had left Paris and Ankara had announced diplomatic sanctions — banning political visits between the countries — and frozen military ties between the nominal NATO allies.

“France massacred an estimated 15 percent of the Algerian population starting from 1945. This is genocide,” Erdogan told reporters, accusing Sarkozy of “fanning hatred of Muslims and Turks for electoral gains.”

“This vote that took place in France, a France in which five million Muslims live, clearly shows to what point racism, discrimination and Islamophobia have reached dangerous levels in France and Europe,” he said.

(source)

France: Far-right group has message in menu

Via AP:

They feasted in the verdant back country of picture-postcard Provence, the delight of tourists and the pride of France.

But it was no ordinary country idyll. The extreme right Bloc Identitaire, or Identity Bloc, was lashing out at Islam while dining on pork roast and local wine — off limits to practicing Muslims.

The group, an emerging force on France’s far-right scene, likens Muslim immigrants to invaders threatening the identity of the French heartland and menacing European civilization. The movement — with a wild pig as its logo — is gaining traction through its blend of Islam-bashing and romanticizing of French rural culture.

(source)

France: Senate passes bill on votes for foreigners

Via AFP:

A French bill to allow non-EU foreigners to vote in local elections passed its first hurdle Friday when it was adopted by the upper-house Senate after a tumultuous debate.

But the approval — by a Senate dominated by left-wing parties — remains mainly symbolic, as the bill stands no chance of passing in the lower house, the National Assembly, which remains under conservative control.

Some 300 supporters and opponents of the bill, separated by police, rallied near the Senate building to voice their opinions on the divisive issue of France’s immigrant population.

(source)

France: “We can not stand unlimited social immigrants”

Via Xinhua:

Sarkozy made the remarks while delivering a speech on Europe and the eurozone debt crisis in the southern French port city of Toulon, the same city where he spoke in 2008 about the global financial crisis and the need to “re-found global capitalism.”

“A Europe that applies the principle of free movement internally and does not control its external borders cannot last. The Schengen must be rethought,” Sarkozy said in the speech.

“We can not stand unlimited social immigrants,” he said, stressing that “Europe needs more political responsibility.”

Unfair competition caused by “social dumping and tax dumping between member states” could not continue, Sarkozy added, demanding immigrants to share the value of France for integration.

(source)

France: Actress ‘banned Muslim handymen’ over chihuahua worries

Via the Local:

One of France’s most well-known singers and actresses, Marie Laforêt, will today appear in a Paris courtroom to defend herself against charges that a job advertisement she placed discriminated against Muslims.

72-year-old Laforêt, who first found fame as an actress in the 1960s, placed an ad on an internet site looking for someone to carry out some work on her terrace in 2009, reported daily newspaper Le Parisien on Thursday.

She specified in the ad that “people with allergies or orthodox Muslims” should not apply “due to a small chihuahua.”

(source)

Toulouse: School tagged with anti-Arab graffiti

Via La Dépêche (French):

A high-school in Toulous was tagged with racist and anti-Arab graffiti: “Arabs out of France”, “Arabs get lost” “Islam get out” (the latter in English) as well as Nazi symbols. Some parents said they had to explain the meaning of the symbols to their children.

The Louis-Nicolas-Vauquelin school is located in the at-risk neighborhood of Mirail. One student says: There are no problems of religion, everybody gets along There are Muslims, Catholics, everything, we don’t even speak of it, it’s not something that interests us.