On June 15th 2010, Paris police banned a “pork sausage and wine” event planned for Friday night by a group protesting what it calls the “Islamisation” of a city neighborhood. The scheduled “Apero Géant” was organized on Facebook by a woman using the pseudonym Sylvie François. She told French daily Libération that she no longer felt at home in the Goutte d’Or, the northern Paris district where she had lived all her life:
“People of French origin can’t have a drink in peace there. If you are a woman you get hostile looks if you’re not wearing an [Islamic] veil,” she said. The street party was planned to coincide with the close of Friday evening prayers at a local mosque, when the neighborhood’s Muslims fill the streets. Algeria is also scheduled to play England at the football World Cup that night. Pork and alcohol, the event’s planned components, are forbidden by Islam.
Fadela Amara, a French government minister of Algerian origin, denounced the idea as “hateful, racist and xenophobic.” Extremist groups on the right and left had been publicizing the party on other Internet sites. Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë defended the ban and said he feared the party could have turned violent.
