Posted on 12/24/2005 7:45:08 AM PST by Feldkurat_Katz
French Christmas soup not for Jews or Muslims Thu Dec 22, 2005 2:13 PM GMT
By Pierre Thebault
NICE, France (Reuters) - An extreme-right French group has found a way to distribute Christmas cheer only to a chosen few by offering homeless people free hot soup containing pork, which observant Jews and Muslims do not eat.
The soup kitchen, set up at the harbour of this Riviera town, draws about as many protesters as poor people. Police stand guard between it and a Catholic charity group distributing vegetable soup outside their church.
Dominique Lescure, head of the small ultra-nationalist group distributing the soup, disputed charges by angry protesters on Wednesday evening that what he called his "patriots' soup" was meant to exclude Jews and Muslims.
"I don't see why I should not be able to put pork, which has always played a major role in my country's cuisine, into a traditional soup that I want to distribute, admittedly, to my compatriots and European homeless people," he argued.
"I'm not excluding anyone," he shouted in a heated exchange with a handful of jeering protesters. "We're tired of being treated like little Nazis. If a Muslim comes, I'll serve him, but the real poor these days are our people."
Standing nearby under bright Christmas lighting, a city official said he could do nothing about the controversial soup kitchen. "Serving soup with pork is not a crime," said deputy mayor Noel Ayraud.
The nationalist far-right is a strong fringe group in France, where its supporters feel under threat from Europe, globalisation and the country's five-million-strong Muslim community, the largest Islamic majority in Europe.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the anti-immigrant National Front party, finished second in the first round of the 2002 presidential election, stunning the country and knocking Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin out of the race.
Protesters at the soup kitchen denounced the group as racists. One Muslim woman shouted at Lescure: "Our fathers are Muslims and they fought for France with honour and loyalty."
A local left-wing militant said the protesters did not want Lescure's soup kitchen to operate unopposed.
"This pork-based soup kitchen is pure discrimination, it's an in-your-face way of telling people who don't eat pork -- you can stay in your cardboard boxes and starve," said Teresa Mafeis, holding back tears of anger.
"After the holidays, we're going to set up our own soup kitchen and there will be shorba for everyone," she said, using the Arabic word for soup.
Standing at the church soup kitchen, a Catholic priest urged the two sides to calm down. "This is not the place for politics or divisions," said Father Patrick Brizore.
When he launched his soup kitchen in early December, Lescure said in a statement he wanted to help "our least fortunate blood brothers ... in this hour when the black tide of demographic submersion and free-market impoverisation is rising."
His ultra-nationalist group is named "Soulidarieta" -- "solidarity" in the local dialect -- and its motto is "Ours before the others."
He's right, it doesn't exclude people. Beggers cannot be choosers.
I like ham and cabbage its a great meal and fairly cheap if the Muslims dont want to eat it, does that mean I cant..I dont think a piece of pork would keep most jews out of the Soup, the ones I know eat a lttle pork now and then.
Errrrrr....can't Jews and Muslims pick out the pork with their spoon? I do that all the time with the onions when my wife makes stew.
NO SOUP FOR YOU!!!
Yes, just watch the cowardly French -- soon it will be ILLEGAL for soup kitchens to serve pork!!!!
Yep, anybody who doesn't bow and scrape at the altar of multiculturalism is "extreme-right", which in PC parlance, is as bad as being called "racist".
"This pork-based soup kitchen is pure discrimination, it's an in-your-face way of telling people who don't eat pork -- you can stay in your cardboard boxes and starve," said Teresa Mafeis, holding back tears of anger.
You heard it here first! The left even wants to dictate what is served in a charity soup kitchen! The operator even says that he will serve anyone who comes, but that isn't good enough for Teresa M.
I like Lescure's style, though perhaps not all of his politics.
"Anyone for roast boar?"
It will be a crime after the next round of muslim riots.
Who knew there were still men in France?
Once you put the pork into the soup, it's no longer kosher. I take out the onions and the tomatos.
Gotta love how the headline only worries about Muslims even though Jews are in the same boat. Typical anti-semitism form Reuters.
They are in the USA. Welfare rights groups demand their "share" of what we earn.
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