Thursday, 12 January 2012
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.Source: France24
By Sophie PILGRIM
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.
“Each religion should benefit from equal treatment in the public sphere,” she said. “I believe that national holidays should also be accorded to faiths other than the Catholic faith.” Describing religious equality as a “key element” of French identity, she then blamed the policies of President Nicolas Sarkozy for dividing religious communities. “Yes, I’ll say it,” she said. “This [suffering] has been caused by five years of Sarkozy-ism.”
Joly, who holds dual Franco-Norwegian nationality, also criticised Sarkozy’s far-right-leaning interior minister, Claude Guéant, and leader of the far-right National Front party, Marine Le Pen. “When I hear Claude Guéant, when I hear Marine Le Pen, I feel for my France, for our France.”
Joly’s proposals were rejected Tuesday by all three leading parties. Minister of Higher Education and UMP member Laurent Wauqiez argued on French news channel BFM that “France’s national holidays have come about through our Christian history. We are not going to rub out our history.”
Michael Sapin, campaign director for Socialist presidential candidate François Hollande, told French news channel iTélé that “while the state respects all religions, it recognises none”. He said that Joly should bear in mind “the great French principle of secularism”.
Marine Le Pen, head of the far-right National Front party, attacked Joly directly, calling her rival presidential candidate a “Francophobe” on BFM. “I have to ask myself if Eva Joly finds anything good in France, our people, traditions, history and life morals (…). It’s astonishing coming from a presidential candidate.”
Too many Christian holidays?
Joly’s proposition is clearly an unpopular one, but not impossible, Religion Editor for Reuters in Paris, Tom Heneghan, argues: “We’re not expecting this to happen in the near future, but we can’t rule it out completely either. It was, after all, the Stasi commission that originally proposed this in 2003”.
Set up by then president Jacques Chirac, the 2003 Stasi commission was charged with assessing French secularism. Its findings led to the banning of religious symbols in schools, and eventually, the prohibition of the full Muslim headscarf in public. But it also recommended that national holidays reflect religious diversity. The state should therefore cut out two of the six Christian holidays and add two of other faiths, it concluded.
Heneghan is not mistaken when he predicts “plenty of public opposition” if the proposal were to go any further. Joly’s mere suggestions were met with outrage on Thursday, with many online articles on the subject inundated with angry comments.
Candid candidate
Joly had already proven herself a candid voice in July this year when she suggested replacing France’s annual military march on Bastille Day with a civilian parade. She also questioned Nicolas Sarkozy and Marine Le Pen for squabbling over Joan of Arc as a source of inspiration, which she described last week as “rather more an ultranationalist figure”.
But with the support of just three and four per cent of the electorate, Joly’s outspoken opinions look unlikely to propel her into the Elysée Palace in May. “Muslims and Jews alike will probably welcome this initiative,” says Heneghan, “but they are unlikely to press it because they know politically that Eva Joly doesn’t have enough weight to see it through.”
Brigitte Bardot has written Joly a fulgurating letter in which she accuses her of "betraying the environmental movement by supporting a barbaric France".
"You shame France, shame the environmental movement whose values you scorn by showing contempt for animals and those who defend them."Source
Labels:
Eva Joly,
France,
French Presidential Elections
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January
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- Catholic Bishop Speaks of "Ethnic Cleansing" of Ca...
- Mohammedans Burn Church in Response to Macedonian ...
- The Prime Minister-In-Waiting is on the Muslim Pay...
- Death Threats for Singer of Burka Song
- Participation in Jihad Should Be a Capital Offence...
- Blonde Dutch Girl Attacked by Mohammedan Mob in Eg...
- French Politician Says Civil Peace May be in Doubt...
- Young Men Who Reject Britain to Join Jihad
- Turkish Police Chief Says Honour-Killed Women Dese...
- Muslim Taxi Service Set up in Germany
- Leveson Considers Regulating Bloggers
- Chechnya: First the Prophet's Cup, now the Prophet...
- Muslims and Collaborators Agitate for 'Alternative...
- Let's Hope Soros is Right
- Muslim Procession in Sweden
- "Your Norwegian Friends Have Struck Again"
- The New York Times Knows How we Can Integrate Musl...
- The New Book Burning
- Congolese for Marine Le Pen
- Goodbye Forsane Alizza
- It's OK to be Nasty to European Immigrants
- Putin: Multiculturalism has Failed
- Berlin: 1 in 3 Schools has More than 40% Immigrant...
- 55% of Poles Have a Negative Attitude to Islam
- The Invaders' Astounding Sense of Entitlement
- 100,000 Attend Pro-Orban Demonstration in Hungary
- Muslim Tries to Sell Swiss Woman Her Two Children
- Will EU Enslave Croatia Too?
- German Establishment Journalist Says Islam is a Th...
- These Muslims Have the Right Idea
- Jizya Makes us Safe
- Nanterre: Pig Heads Found in Ground of Future Mosq...
- SION is Wrong to Embrace the Ideal of Human Rights...
- 'French' Footballers Opt to Play for Other Countri...
- BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA: Bishop warns fundamentalism is...
- Breivik Play Sparks Outrage in Denmark
- The Rise of Homonationalism
- Muslim-Only Shopping Centre in Germany
- Muslim Demonstration in Front of French Senate
- Massive Muslim Benefits Dependency in Britain
- Turks Release Film Glorifying Their Conquest of By...
- Brussels: a Muslim Colony in the Heart of Belgium
- Salt Under Demographic Attack
- Germany: Muslim Kills His Girlfriend's Unborn Baby...
- EU Launches Legal Action Against Hungary
- Muslim Party Seeks Power In Dutch Parliament
- Asian Influence Broker Claims £10,000 Gets Cameron...
- France: Cries of "Allahu Akbar" at Homage to Dead ...
- Massive Muslim Benefits Dependency in Germany
- The Scottish Stephen Lawrence
- Peter Oborne, Court Chronicler to the Baroness of ...
- Another British Freedom Falls to the Third-Worlder...
- Paki Lawyer Says Sharia Isn't So Bad
- 'True Face of Britain''s Road Rage Attack Was Musl...
- 'Far-right' Burn EU Flag in Hungary
- Tunisian Asylum Seekers Terrorise Swiss Town
- Blair's Company is Called Windrush Ventures
- Brussels: Muslim Majority by 2030
- 100 Days to French Presidential Elections
- Islamophobic Lib Dhims? Whatever Next
- Alien Serial Rapist in France Asks Victims Their N...
- Francis Fukuyama Blames Europeans for the Failed I...
- Dutch - World Leaders in 'Islamophobia'
- Israel Battles Illegal Immigration
- Polygamy Accepted in French Benefits System on May...
- Muslims Agitate to get Poster Removed at London Un...
- Are Immigrants Zombies?
- Muslim Celebrations "Should be French Bank Holiday...
- The Good German
- A Glimpse of Europe's Future ... In South Africa
- Immigrants Show Off Their Specialist Skills in Swe...
- Muslim Website Claims 8 Million Muslims Live in Au...
- Town Hall in Burgundy Defaced With Anti-French and...
- Luxembourg Train Attack
- Economic Effects of Immigration into Europe
- Belgian Police Target Cyberhate (Thought Crime)
- Video of Dead Muslim Found
- "Immigrants behind most rapes in Stavanger"
- "Saint Joan Pray for Us, Save France!"
- Islamic Parties are like Christian Democrats Says ...
- Revealing pamphlet about Muslim demographics in a ...
- Turkish Hackers Attack French Websites
- French Government Demands Journalist Convert to Is...
- EU Attacks Hungarian Democracy
- Muslims are 12.6 Per Cent of the Prison Population...
- French Town Lives in Fear of Mohammedan Rage
- Breivik to Receive Visits from Fans
- Thought Police to Monitor Anti-Islam Sites in Germ...
- Entire Egyptian Village Marries Bulgarian Roma Wom...
- Does Diane Abbott Hold 'Black-Only' Meetings With ...
- Self-Conquered
- Rat Infestation in Saint-Denis
- What British People Really Think of Immigration
- Diane Abbott's Finnish Nurses Controversy Revisite...
- Illegals Enter Britain on Passports for Hire
- French 'Far Right' Rallies Around Joan of Arc
- French People Overwhelmingly Reject Immigration an...
- German Churches Under Rocket Attack from Mohammeda...
- Anonymous hAcKXoR Kiddies Target the EDL
- Diane Abbott Brainwashing Class
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1 comments:
Eva Joly - keeping them occupied?
Just a thought. Let's make the assumption that Joly will not be elected president. What if she was a magnet, leading some streams, keeping them occupied, like a tool to keep certain masses under some kind of control, while others get on with the business?
Crises, what crises?
As if what France needs the most right now, was another bank holiday! What France needs now is to get more work done.
Special islamic bank holidays would also be an encouragement to more segregation, wouldn't it, legitimizing parallel societies?
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