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A Paris swimming pool has refused entry to a young Muslim woman wearing a "burqini," a swimsuit that covers most of the body, officials said Wednesday. The pool ban came as French lawmakers conduct hearings on whether to ban the burqa after President Nicolas Sarkozy said the head-to-toe veil was "not welcome" in secular France. Officials in the Paris suburb of Emerainville said they let the woman swim in the pool in July wearing the "burqini," designed for Muslim women who want to swim without revealing their bodies. But when she returned in August they decided to apply hygiene rules...

A swimming pool in Paris has refused entry to a young Muslim woman wearing a 'burqini' - a swimsuit that covers most of the body. The ban came as French lawmakers consider whether to stop burqas - head-to-toe veils - being worn in the country. The debate follows President Nicolas Sarkozy saying the veils were "not welcome" in secular France. Officials in the Paris suburb of Emerainville had initially let the woman swim in the pool while wearing a burqini, in July. But, when she returned in August, they decided to enforce hygiene rules and told her she could not...

BAGNOLET, France – Restive youths in a Paris suburb torched a tourist bus and nearly a half-dozen cars and hurled objects at police early Tuesday, a night after fullblown unrest prompted by the death of a teen fleeing police. The local prefecture, the administrative center for the region, said the situation was under control despite the scattered torchings. An Associated Press Television News crew saw at least five torched cars and a burned-out tourist bus near a housing project. Groups of youths set street fires, sometimes fueling them with garbage cans or a mattress in one case and hurled stones...

About 40 rioters in a Paris suburb hurled Molotov cocktails at police and firefighters and torched cars in a rampage prompted by the death of a teen fleeing police. The interior minister called Monday for calm after the overnight violence. One person fired at police with a handgun during the rioting in a housing project in Bagnolet on the eastern edge of Paris, Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said in a statement. No injuries were reported. The latest eruption of tensions in France's suburbs broke out after an 18-year-old riding his motorcycle through the project tried to flee a document check...

Only 367 women in France wear Islamic veils that cover their faces and bodies, a newspaper reported on Wednesday, undermining the position of politicians who are pushing for a ban on the garments. A panel of legislators is studying the issue of whether the number of women wearing such veils is on the rise and why. The panel is expected to say in coming months whether it backs a ban on the veils in public places, as advocated by some politicians. President Nicolas Sarkozy has stopped short of backing a ban, but has said the veils were "not welcome" in...

Via the Brussels Journal, news that the French authorities are trying to make the media downplay the latest round of rioting: Only the figures for the night of July 13-14 were published: “Some 500 vehicles” were burned, the worst ever recorded for the eve of the national holiday. Despite repeated requests to the Interior Ministry, and the DGPN [similar to the FBI], no figures were forthcoming for the night of July 14-15. These orders have been strictly applied. The different prefectures contacted by Le Monde refused to respond, citing “ministerial instructions.” Regional news media reported the same problem. The daily...

French youths set 317 cars on fire and wounded 13 police officers overnight during a series of riots on the eve of the Bastille Day holiday, police say. Paris police said 240 people had been arrested, almost double the number held after unrest on the same day last year. The injured officers are suffering from hearing difficulties caused by home-made explosives blowing up beside them. Last week, the death of a young man in police custody caused three nights of riots in the southern town of Firminy. Police said Mohamed Benmouna, a 21-year-old of Algerian origin, had died after trying...

A 28-year-old African who styled himself as a barbarian was sentenced to life in prison last night for kidnapping and torturing to death a Jewish man in a case that exposed anti-Semitism in France’s immigrant suburbs. Youssouf Fofana, from the Ivory Coast, was the ring-leader of a gang of 27 youths who abducted Iman Halimi, 23, in 2006. The gang, from a housing estate in Bagneux, west of Paris, called themselves the “gang of barbarians”. Fofana Fofana, who describes himself as a hardline “Salafist” Islamist, fled to Ivory Coast after the killing. He was arrested there and extradited to France....

Youssouf Fofana, leader of a kidnap gang who called themselves "The Barbarians", has been sentenced to life in prison for an anti-Semitic murder of shocking brutality. The court ruled he must serve a minimum of 22 yerars before he can be considered for parole. Of 26 other defendants in the case, two were acquitted and the rest received sentences of between six months and 18 years jail. Fofana, 28, masterminded the kidnap, torture and murder of Jewish shop clerk Ilan Halimi in 2006. Halimi went missing on January 20, 2006 while on a date with a girl he had met...

The French Republic is not blessed or burdened with a First Amendment. So when President Nicolas Sarkozy recently suggested that France ban the wearing of the burqa in all public places, the Chamber of Deputies took it up. Unlike the headscarf, which covers a woman's hair but leaves her face visible, the burqa is a head-to-toe covering that makes walking draperies of women. Some, like the chador worn in Afghanistan, feature a mesh covering for the face. The Saudi version usually sports a slit for the eyes. Here's an online catalogue's description of one: "Khimar and niqab set made of...

Al Qaeda terrorists have vowed to 'wreak dreadful revenge' on France over its plans to ban the burkha. The chilling warning comes after President Nicolas Sarkozy said the Islamic garment which covers the head and body 'debases women' and is not welcome in his country. French MPs have set up a commission to decide if it should be made illegal for women to hide their faces in public. Now leaders of Al Qaeda's North African network have called on French Muslims to react 'with the utmost hostility'. One Islamic extremist website carried the message: 'We will seek dreadful revenge on...

French president Nicolas Sarkozy's rejection of the burka and the face veil are "in keeping with the republican spirit of secularism," according to the rector of the Grand Mosque in Paris, Dalil Boubakeur, quoted by media. Boubakeur said he supported a proposal by French MPs for a panel of deputies to look at the wearing of the burka "on the condition that they listen to what the experts on Islam have to say". The burka marked "a return towards Islam's past, in line with the preaching and vision of fundamentalists" added Boubakeur (photo)....

The French National Assembly announced Tuesday the creation of an inquiry into whether women in France should be allowed to wear the burka, one day after President Nicolas Sarkozy controversially told lawmakers that the traditional Muslim garment was "not welcome" in France.A cross-party panel of 32 lawmakers will investigate whether the traditional Muslim garment poses a threat to the secular nature of the French constitution. They are due to report back with their recommendations in six months.On Monday Sarkozy declared in a keynote parliamentary address that the burka, which covers women from head to toe, is "not welcome" in France....

The Islamic burqa is ‘not welcome’ in France and should be banned, President Nicolas Sarkozy announced today. In comments which were set to infuriate radical Muslim leaders, he said the body covering ‘is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience,’ adding: ‘It will not be welcome on the territory of the French republic.’ A group of 58 MPs from the Left and Right has called on Parliament to take action against women who are adopting what they called oppressive head-to-toe Islamic dress that ‘breaches individual freedoms’. There are more than five million Muslims in the secular...

Sarkozy says burqas have no place in France Mon Jun 22, 2009 10:18am EDT PARIS (Reuters) - President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Monday that burqas, garments that cover women from head to toe and hide their faces, had no place in France as they were a sign of the subjugation of women. During a solemn speech to parliament on a wide range of issues, Sarkozy backed an initiative launched by legislators last week who expressed concern over an increase in the use of burqas in France. "The issue of the burqa is not a religious issue, it is a question...

PARIS – President Nicolas Sarkozy lashed out Monday at the practice of wearing the Muslim burqa, insisting the full-body religious gown is a sign of the "debasement" of women and that it won't be welcome in France. The French leader expressed support for a recent call by dozens of legislators to create a parliamentary commission to study a small but growing trend of wearing the full-body garment in France. In the first presidential address in 136 years to a joint session of France's two houses of parliament, Sarkozy laid out his support for a ban even before the panel has...

Thousands in France rally to back Iran exile group By AUDREY HOROWITZ Associated Press Writer Posted: 06/20/2009 05:50:11 PM PDT VILLEPINTE, France—Thousands of people gathered north of Paris on Saturday to support Iranian opposition protesters and an Iranian exile group pushing to be rid of a terrorist label. Crowds spilled out of buses and filled the fairground in Villepinte under drizzly skies. Organizers said 1,000 buses were hired to bring protesters from around France and Europe, including legislators from several countries. The rally was organized by the National Council of Resistance of Iran. Organizers said 90,000 people turned out. Police...

President Nicolas Sarkozy's government is to consider banning the burka and other Islamic clothing which French MPs claim is degrading to women. In a move that sparked fierce debate, a group of parliamentarians called for an inquiry into the wearing of the head-to-toe Islamic veil in France and whether Muslim women who cover themselves completely in public constitute an assault on French secularism and women's rights. In a call that won support from senior figures in Mr Sarkozy's government, they demanded that a parliamentary commission consider the fate in France of the burka, where the eyes are covered by a...

France could bar Muslim women from wearing full veils in public, a government minister said yesterday as parliament took action over concerns about an increase in women who are wearing the niqab and burka in big cities. The latest controversy over dress habits among France’s six million Muslims follows public differences this month between Presidents Obama and Sarkozy over the merits of legislating on religious clothing. A group of 58 MPs from the Left and Right called on Wednesday for parliament to react to the phenomenon of women who are adopting what they called oppressive head-to-toe Islamic dress that “breaches...

FRANCE may introduce a law banning full burqas if a parliamentary commission finds the growing number of women wearing them have been coerced into doing so. Nearly 60 legislators signed a proposal on Wednesday calling for a parliamentary commission to look into the spread of the burqa in France, a garment that they said amounted "to a breach of individual freedoms on our national territory". France, home to Europe's largest Muslim minority, is strongly attached to its secular values and to gender equality, and many see the burqa, which covers the wearer from head to toe and hides her face,...

(ANSAmed) - PARIS, MAY 8 - Some 80% of Muslims in France believe they remain faithful to their countries of origin, according to a survey by the American Gallup research institute that questioned a sample of Muslims in 27 countries. In all 8% said they were not faithful to their original countries and 12% did not reply. The research also showed that in Britain Muslims "loyal" to their original countries amount to 82% and in Germany the figure is 71%. The survey published yesterday but carried out in 2008 adds that only 44% of French of other religions believe that...

The Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF), the umbrella body of French Jewry, will not renew dialogue with French Muslim groups that equated Operation Cast Lead in Gaza with the Holocaust, the group's vice president, Meyer Habib, told The Jerusalem Post on Monday. Palestinian supporters protest against the Israeli operation in Gaza, in Berlin. Similar protests were held in France. During Operation Cast Lead, some Muslim organizers of pro-Palestinian demonstrations equated Israel's actions with the Nazi Holocaust, and even carried banners that read "death to Jews."

Attackers rammed a burning car into a synagogue in the southern French city of Toulouse, officials have said. The car, packed with a petrol bomb, was set alight and then pushed into the synagogue door by a second car. The building caught fire but a local rabbi and about 12 people caught inside escaped unharmed after Monday's attack. It came as the French defence minister met Jewish and Muslim community leaders to stress the Middle East conflict should not lead to violence in France. Police said they were investigating the attack and had not made any arrests. Molotov cocktails Damage...

STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - Europe's human rights court on Thursday threw out a complaint by two French Muslim girls who were expelled from their school for refusing to remove their headscarves during sports lessons.

They are born in France and called Louis, Laurent or Marie but they want to become Abdel, Said or Rachida. Such requests from immigrants’ children for name changes are mounting in the French courts and worrying a state that lays store on melding a single national culture. In a sign of a new assertiveness, children with families from Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco are reversing the old custom in which immigrants from the old colonies gave French names to their children. Driven by a feeling that they do not belong to their Gallic Christian names, the applicants are meeting resistance from...

A Muslim member of the French Government has attacked the head-to-toe Islamic dress as a prison, applauding a court decision to deny citizenship to a Moroccan woman who wore it. “The burka is a prison, a strait-jacket,” Fadela Amara, the Minister for Urban Affairs and a longstanding women's rights campaigner, said yesterday. “It is not religious. It is the insignia of a totalitarian political project for sexual inequality.” The court decision denying Faiza Mabchour, 32, French citizenship has drawn approval from both Left and Right, highlighting a rejection of Muslim customs that conflict with the values of the secular French...

It appears that Europe is waking up more and more. I have been saying for years that the burqa is a sign of oppression and should not be allowed in non-Islamic countries. More actions like this will make Muslims not even want to come into our countries. Viva la France!! For the rest....

PARIS, July 12 (UPI) -- France has refused to grant citizenship to a Moroccan woman because of her conservative interpretation of Islam, papers show. Officials said the woman's religious beliefs are incompatible with French values, The Daily Telegraph reported Saturday.The unnamed 32-year-old woman is married to a French national. She arrived in the country in 2000. Her three children were born in France, the newspaper reported.Social service reports say they woman wears a black burqa that covers all her body except her eyes and lives in "total submission" to her husband and male relatives."She has adopted a radical practice of...

France has denied citizenship to a veiled Moroccan woman on the grounds that her 'radical' Islam is incompatible with French values, a legal ruling revealed. The case will re-ignite debate about how to reconcile religious freedom with other rights, which many in France feel are being challenged by the way of life of some Muslims. Le Monde newspaper said it is the first time a Muslim applicant had been rejected because of personal religious practice. 'She has adopted a radical practice of her religion, incompatible with essential values of the French community, particularly the principle of equality of the sexes,'...

Mayor blames 'gangs' for Paris high school night of violence 4 days ago PARIS (AFP) — Paris Mayor Bernard Delanoe blamed "organised gangs" on Saturday for clashes overnight near the Eiffel Tower between police and high school students celebrating the end of their final exams. Twenty-nine people were arrested, and 22 kept in custody, after the unrest in the Champ de Mars park in the well-to-do Seventh District that pitted police firing tear gas against "250 to 300 youths". About a dozen neighbourhood shops were damaged, and two police officers slightly injured, said Alain Gardere, who is in charge of...

A Young Jew Is Savagely Beaten in Paris FrontPage magazine.com, CA - June 24, 2008 Haddad, like Halimi, and like their attackers, are also of African or possibly Arab descent–as was Sebastien Selam who was murdered in Paris in 2003. ... http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=ADCCF3FF-97C6-47EE-9A3F-2DA1E8016A22

PARIS (EJP)---Five youths detained after a Jewish teenager was beaten into a coma by a gang in Paris have been released without charge, AFP reported Wednesday quoting judicial officials. The minors, aged 14 to 17, were held for questioning as witnesses following Saturday's attack in the multi-ethnic 19th district of the capital. The Paris prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin said Tuesday the 17-year-old victim, Rudy Haddad, was beaten by a gang after street brawls between Jewish teenagers and youths of north African and sub-Saharan descent. The boy was so badly beaten by a gang wielding metal bars that he went into a...

A recent AP story out of France describes how its "changing demographics" threatens to catapult that country back 1,000 years. The French courts decided in favor of a new husband who wanted his marriage annulled because he discovered the bride was not a virgin. The ruling ending the Muslim couple's union reportedly "stunned France and raised questions about the country's much-cherished secular values losing ground to religious traditions from its fast-growing immigrant community." And here's where the French, the rest of Europe and even MANY IN THE UNITED STATES are making theit mistake. They are confusing immigrants with invaders. Immigrants...

PARIS: The surgery in the private clinic off the Champs-Élysées involved one semicircular cut, 10 self-dissolving stitches and a discounted fee of $2,900. But for the patient, a 23-year-old French student of Moroccan descent from Montpellier, the 30-minute procedure represented the key to a new life: the illusion of virginity. Like an increasing number of other Muslim women in Europe, she had a "hymenoplasty," a restoration of her hymen, the thin vaginal membrane that normally breaks during the first act of intercourse. "In my culture, not to be a virgin is to be dirt," said the student, perched on a...

Brigitte Bardot fined for inciting racial hatred By Peter Allen in Paris Last Updated: 9:43PM BST 03/06/2008 Legendary sex symbol Brigitte Bardot has been fined £12,000 for inciting racial hatred against Muslims. Animal rights campaigner Bardot argued that Muslims should stun animals before slaughtering them during the Aid al-Kabir holiday In December 2006 the retired French film star-turned-animal rights activist wrote a letter to France’s then interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, arguing that Muslims should stun animals before slaughtering them during the Aid al-Kabir holiday. She outraged anti-racist groups by saying: “I’ve had enough of being led by the nose by...

Brigitte Bardot fined for racism From correspondents in Paris June 03, 2008 11:19pm Article from: Agence France-Presse FRANCE'S 1960s screen icon Brigitte Bardot has received a 15,000 euros ($24,440) fine today for inciting hatred against Muslims. In December 2006, the film star-turned-animal rights activist wrote a letter to France's then interior minister, current President Nicolas Sarkozy, arguing that Muslims should stun animals before slaughtering them during the Aid al-Kabir holiday. She outraged anti-racist groups by saying: "I've had enough of being led by the nose by this whole population which is destroying us, (and) destroying our country by imposing their...

PARIS - Brigitte Bardot was convicted Tuesday of provoking discrimination and racial hatred for writing that Muslims are destroying France.

The annulment of a young Muslim couple’s marriage because the bride was not a virgin has caused anger in France, prompting President Sarkozy’s party to call for a change in the law. The decision by a court in Lille was condemned by the Government, media, feminists and civil rights organisations after it was reported in a legal journal on Thursday. Patrick Devedjian, leader of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement, said it was unacceptable that the law could be used for religious reasons to repudiate a bride. It must be modified “to put an end to this extremely disturbing...

A court in French-Flanders annulled a marriage since the bride turned out not to be a virgin... The judges came to the conclusion that the bridegroom was deceived concerning an 'essential characteristic' of the bride, who had assured him before the wedding that she was still virgin. Both bride and groom are young French Muslims... The fraud was revealed when on the wedding night the groom could not show blood spots on the sheets to the feasting family. The groom's father brought the bride back to her parents.

French Prisons: Up to 70% of Inmates Are Muslims April 29, 2008 Muslims make up only about 12 percent of France’s population — but account for from 60 to 70 percent of all inmates in the country’s prisons. French prison officials blame that remarkable statistic on the poverty of people who have moved to France from North Africa and other Muslim nations in recent decades. French Muslim leaders further hold racism and discrimination as the root cause of unemployment and crime rates among the Muslim minority, according to the Islam Online Web site. In Britain, Muslims reportedly make up 3...

Samia El Alaoui Talibi walks her beat in a cream-colored head scarf and an ink-black robe with sunset-orange piping, an outfit she picked up at a yard sale. After passing a bulletproof window, El Alaoui Talibi trudges through half a dozen heavy, locked doors to reach the Muslim faithful to whom she ministers in the women's cellblock of the Lille-Sequedin Detention Center in far northern France. It took her years to earn this access, said El Alaoui Talibi, one of only four Muslim holy women allowed to work in French prisons. "Everyone has the same prejudices and negative image of...

Vandals dumped a bucket of red paint on a downtown veterans memorial this morning, the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, in what police suspect was a symbolic act of protest. Passers-by spotted the blood-toned paint on the Anchorage Veterans Memorial, in the Delaney Park Strip off I Street, during the morning commute and reported it to police. The soldier's helmet was blood red, with the paint dripping down to the ground below. "There's a movement across the country, since it's the fifth anniversary of the war, to protest," police Lt. Paul Honeman said. Police say they are...

ABLAIN-SAINT-NAZAIRE, France (AFP) — Vandals desecrated 148 Muslim graves in France's biggest war cemetery, hanging a pig's head from one tombstone and daubing slogans insulting France's Muslim justice minister, officials said Sunday. President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed "profound outrage" at the "sordid" attack on the Muslim quarter of the Notre Dame de Lorette cemetery, near the northern town of Arras on Saturday night. He vowed that those responsible would be punished. The cemetery is France's biggest military graveyards and commemorates tens of thousands of victims of a series of long and bloody battles for control of northern France at the...

France has launched a groundbreaking program to educate future imams and Muslim chaplains about the country and its values. The goal: to put a French stamp on Islam, the second largest religion in France. Lisa Bryant has more from Paris. The courses are being held in an unusual location - the Catholic Institute of Paris, an institution better known for training priests and Christian scholars than Muslim clerics. Established in collaboration with the French government and the Paris mosque, the program began in January with a largely male class of 25. It aims to give the students a broad understanding...

A book fair in Paris has become the subject of controversy with several Muslim countries announcing boycotts because the guest of honour is Israel. Saudi Arabia has become the latest to withdraw, following Iran, Lebanon, Yemen, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria. The Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Isesco) has also urged its 50 members to pull out from the fair, which starts on 14 March. Isesco said Israel had committed crimes against humanity in Palestinian areas. The organisers of the book fair have said their aim is to honour literature and promote dialogue between cultures. Israel 'unworthy' This year, the...

French Jews I received this post from a friend in NY. One of his friends is living in France and posted this to him with the request that Andy distribute it to his American friends. Andy prefaces with: "Once again, the real news in France is conveniently not being reported as it should. To give you an idea of what's going on in France where there are now between 8 and 10 million Muslims and about 600,000 Jews, here is an email that came from a Jew living in France. Please read!" "Will the world say nothing - again -...

VILLIERS-LE-BEL, France — More than 1,000 police raided housing projects outside Paris in an early morning sweep Monday, detaining 33 people in a bid to find rioters who led an outburst of violence here last year, a prosecutor said. Police were mobilized for raids in Villiers-le-Bel and in the neighboring towns of Sarcelles, Gonesse and Arnouville as part of the investigation into the November riots, according to police. Marie-Therese de Givry, prosecutor of Pontoise, said a total of 33 people were arrested, raising the number from some 20 cited earlier by police. Most of those detained, aged 19 to 31,...

Police raided housing projects Monday in a Paris suburb in a pre-dawn sweep aimed at finding rioters who led an outburst of violence here last year.

On January 4, 2008, the Islamist forum Al-Ekhlas (www.ek-ls.org ), hosted by NOC4Hosts Inc. in Florida, USA), posted a message by a participant calling himself Al-Murabit Al-Muwahhid ("The Monotheistic Jihad Fighter"), discussing the possible benefit of a terrorist attack in Paris. The writer speculated that such an attack would bring about the collapse of the French economy, and serve as a warning to other European countries "which are collaborating in the war against the Muslim countries." He added that the attack would also break the "security siege" on the Muslim population of France, and would enable the establishment of terrorist...

.."the processes can be divided into two categories, one material aimed at the most popular sites and most important economically, (Eiffel Tower, Louvre Museum, etc.) and the second directed against important figures [of] Paris, led by the mayor of Paris."