Fadéla Amera, secretary of state for urban policies in the conservative UMP (Union for a Popular Movement) party, has announced new incentives for the government’s “Hope Suburbs” project. Among them are a 10% tax initiative for schools which accept students from “difficult” neighborhoods and more banlieusard (suburban-living) youths being hired at the Roissy airport. Those…
Le Monde describes the tensions and divisions emerging in the French Muslim community around the wearing of the niqab in the country. One group has organized a petition with 5700 signatures against the “anti-Islamic” procedures of the government. Libération presents an interview with Olivia Cattan from the Voices of Women Association (association Paroles de femmes)…
A coalition has come together in the National Assembly of members who wish to consider women who wear the burqa and the niqab in the French territory. 58 deputies (43 from President Sarkozy´s Union for a Popular Movement or UMP) from different parties signed a proposition put forward by André Gerin (Rhône) to create a…
In the wake of U.S. President Barack Obama’s address to the Muslim World in Cairo, the French press compare the two leader’s leadership style, particularly their rhetoric on Islam. President Sarkozy similarly addressed the Muslim world in Riyad in January 2008. Le Monde concludes that the French President remained far more neutral and secular in…
Police found explosives in a Paris department store after a written tip to AFP (Agence France-Press) from a group demanding the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan. The group called itself the Afghan Revolutionary Front; they were not previously known to French security services and did not mention Islam. The five explosives were not primed…
