So much joy it spreads around…
A Month of Multiculturalism in France: June 2018
- “Cultural anti-Judaism from the Maghreb has been imported in the luggage of some immigrants…. It has often been aggravated by… the image of the man and the father, at the bottom of the social ladder… From there, a focus of resentment on ‘France’ and ‘the Jews,’ whose success, real or imagined, appeared to some as an additional ‘injustice’ and an affront to the ancient hierarchies.” — Georges Bensoussan, Causeur.
- The Christianophobia Observatory, a Paris-based Roman Catholic non-profit organization that tracks attacks against Christians, reported 128 incidents of church vandalism or other anti-Christian attacks in France during the first five months of 2018.
- “I am opposed to the institutionalization of an Islam of France. If the state interferes with religion, then it is an infringement of the 1905 law on the separation of church and state.” — Bruno Retaillea, Chairman of the Republicans in the Senate, opposing the creation of a French Islam.
June 1. In an interview with the magazine L’Obs, Marwan Muhammad, one of the leading Muslim activists in France, vowed to oppose President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to reorganize Islam in France: “Macron can do his own thing, we do ours. He can name a great imam, he can even to pray behind him if he wants to. That does not mean that he will receive the approval of the people.”
June 2. In an interview with the newspaper Le Monde, the chief chaplain of the Muslim faith in the French armed forces, Abdelkader Arbi, called for the establishment of a military seminary to train the next generation of Muslim chaplains. The course of study would be at the undergraduate level and would be full-time for a period of three years.
June 3. The managers of a Carrefour hypermarket in Chambourcy complied with Muslim demands to remove Israeli dates from the store’s “Ramadan department.” Customers complained that the presence of Israeli products at the store was “an affront to Muslim customers.”