Posted on 04/27/2010 3:07:46 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
A Muslim butcher who could be stripped of his French passport over allegations of polygamy has hit back, insisting he has not broken the law.
Lies Hebbadj, an Algerian-born 35-year-old, has been at the centre of a political storm since last week, when his wife complained she had been fined for driving while wearing her "niqab" full-face veil.
She refused to pay the fine and Hebbadj has taken her defence.
Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux has suggested the man could lose his French passport, saying he is believed to have four wives who had borne him 12 children and each was receiving welfare benefits.
But Hebbadj called a news conference on Monday to contend that, while he has several mistresses, he had not engaged in polygamy, which is illegal in France.
"As far as I know, it is not forbidden to have mistresses in France, nor is it forbidden under Islam," said Hebbadj, who runs a halal butcher shop in the western city of Nantes.
"Maybe under the Christian faith, but not in France," he added. "If you lose your French nationality for having mistresses, then a lot of French men would have been stripped of their citizenship."
Immigration Minister Eric Besson is investigating whether Hebbadj should lose his French citizenship, which he acquired after marrying a French woman in 1999. He has lived in France since the age of two.
The controversy over Hebbadj and his wife came as the government was preparing legislation to ban the wearing of the full-face veil.
President Nicolas Sarkozy has said the full veil, known as the burqa or the niqab, is not welcome in France, saying it denigrates women and is an affront to French values.
Police stopped Hebbadj's wife, 31, in Nantes on April 2 and fined her 22 euros ($A31.50) on the grounds she could not drive safely as the veil restricted her view.
Sarkozy's critics have accused him of pandering to the far-right following his party's humiliating defeat in regional elections last month.
Polls show 64 per cent of the French support either a complete ban on the burqa or at least outlawing it from state institutions across France, home to Europe's biggest Muslim minority.
The head of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), an official body grouping Muslim leaders, lamented the media's publicising of the polygamy row.
"If there was polygamy, the laws are clear on that and Muslims in France are respectful of laws," said CFCM president Mohamed Moussaoui.
In contrast, Moussaoui said, little had been reported about a weekend gun attack on a mosque in southern France that "left many citizens of the Muslim faith feeling frightened".
The mosque in Istres, northwest of Marseille, was pockmarked by about 30 bullets fired by gunmen early on Sunday, police said.
It’s about time somebody started calling “baby-mammas” what they really are; concubines.
Can’t ban that veil completely .... save a few for Nancy Pelosi and Helen Thomas
It’s a pretty sure bet this guy has 4 wives and is using the term Mistress as a loophole. If Muslim women are stupid enough to be used as mistresses or multiple wives in this manner it really isnt anyone else’s business IMO.
As for the Burka’s anyone can hide in one of those things and the make recognition impossible. This cannot be tolerated.
Here in America there is a sign on my bank’s door saying no hat’s or sunglasses. There is a reason, and reasonable people don’t have a problem with it.
A recent cable series on Paris shown, Ovation channel I think...Anyway, this past weekend’s episode was Bohemian Paris, origins, what’s going on there today. Young people trying to show that they’re artistic. The host (a charming young woman who spent a great deal of the show riding around on a bicycle in the rain), touched on the inequities in Paris housing. Large, high towers built for a booming immigrant population in what had been the Bohemian area. Crime wave, car burnings a few years ago. But this is what Parisiens do, protest, and sometimes violently...she said Not a peep about Muslims brought in to do manual labor the upper classes shunned. Not a peep about Muslims burning cars or cops too frightened to enter Muslim neighborhoods. You’d have thought the Amish were running amok.
Not a peep about Muslims brought in to do manual labor the upper classes shunned.This is such BS... BS on so many levels... and is often repeated by eruoscum commies.
The fact is, Muslims are not "brought in to do manual labor" because they are locked out of most jobs by euroscum commie-unions, especially in France.
And the fact is, finding a job and raising a family is not the primary goal of the invading muzzie populations... it's to establish Sharia and take over the country.
But the euroscum commies don't want to face either of those facts. They prefer to coddle their unions (the TRUE elitists in their society) which lock out not only immigrants from finding decent jobs but also a lot of their own youth... and they prefer to encourage the destruction of Western values. Commie Euroscum find common cause with muzzie murderers in the destruction of the west.
So I wouldn't put much stock in what the charming woman on a bicycle in the rain has to say about the "inequities in Paris housing".
Compare those "inequities" to the sh*t-holes these muzzies are emmigrating from.
As usual, you nailed it, Sam, but you have to admire their propaganda technique - a charming young woman riding a bicycle in the rain. Were these people not so dangerous to our way of life it would be laughable.
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