French Prime Minister Francois Fillon attended the inauguration of a mosque in Argenteuil, a suburb north of Paris, the first time a head of government has attended such an event. Fillon gave a speech to the 800 dignitaries in which he denounced violence against Muslims in France. But he also warned against religious fundamentalism. Fillon…
Vandals have desecrated the graves of seven Muslim solders who died fighting for France in World War II, the Defense Minister announced, expressing “deep indignation.” “I wish to express my deep indignation at this ignoble and cowardly act,” Hervé Morin said in a statement after the tombstones were toppled at a military cemetery in the…
This article from Le Figaro Magazine includes passages from a new book Sous Mon Niqab [Under my Niqab] by Zeina (Plon, 2010), a young Muslim woman who sought to be liberated from her niqab in France.
This short article examines the question of how the number of women wearing full-face veils in France is counted. At the beginning of the controversy, a study undertaken by the DCRI (Direction centrale du renseignement intérieur) for Le Monde counted 367 niqab-wearing women. This number according to the DCRI is an estimate. Several weeks later…
A French Muslim threatened by the government with being stripped of his passport for practicing polygamy had publicly stated he has one wife and several mistresses. The case of Lies Hebbadj, an Algerian-born butcher who became a citizen when he married a French woman in 1999, has flared into a major political row with opposition…
