Free Republic

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....

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