July 23, 2014 The National Assembly’s legal commission strengthened the law aimed at reinforcing France’s fight against terrorism. The legislation is expected to combat the threat represented by the presence of numerous French and European jihadists in Syria and in Iraq. The plan’s key measure provides for the possibility to prohibit, for a limited time,…
Le Monde – JUNE 19 2012 Mostly “white” until now, France’s National Assembly has diversified following the legislative elections on June 17^th . Eight deputies of Maghrebian, Asian and Brasilian origin have been elected. They are all members of the Socialist party. The Maghrebian members include: Kader Arif (Haute-Garonne), the former minister of veteran affairs,…
News Agencies – April 27, 2012 France’s socialist presidential candidate Francois Hollande says that, if elected, he won’t seek to overturn a law banning face-covering Muslim veils enacted by President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservatives. Francois Hollande, who leads Sarkozy in all polls, and most other Socialists abstained from the 2010 vote in the National Assembly…
The Toronto Star – March 31, 2012 Nearly one year after France implemented its controversial ban on wearing the Islamic veil— a niqab or burka — in public, a surprising fact has emerged. It appears that few women have actually removed their veils to obey the law. As the presidential election in France approaches,…
The National Post – March 11, 2011 The report from the 2008 commission headed by sociologist Gérard Bouchard and philosopher Charles Taylor was supposed to clarify, finally, the boundaries where secular politics and religious accommodation could reside comfortably in Quebec. But in the three years since making public their “reasonable accommodation” recommendations, things have only…
