France’s Far-Right to Ban No-Pork Menus
"We will not accept any religious requirements on school menus," party leader Marine Le Pen told RTL Radio earlier this week.
"There is no reason for religion to enter into the public sphere, that's the law."
According to Le Pen, the FN-run councils will ban school canteens from providing alternatives when food that contravenes Muslim and Jewish dietary.
The new restrictions were suggested on the grounds that these menus contravene France's secular constitution.
The far-right leader accused the mainstream right UMP and the ruling Socialist Party of frequent breaches of laïceté, the French version of secularism that stresses keeping religion out of the public sphere.
France is home to a Muslim community of nearly six million, the largest in Europe.
French Muslims have been complaining of restrictions on performing their religious practices.
The concept of halal -- meaning permissible in Arabic -- has traditionally been applied to food.
Muslims should only eat meat from livestock slaughtered by a sharp knife from their necks, and the name of Allah, the Arabic word for God, must be mentioned.
Halal meat has become a central issue in electoral campaigns by Elysee hopefuls ahead of the April-May election.
Far-right National Front leader Martine Le Pen said last February that all meat in Paris was halal, a claim denied by abattoirs.
In 2007, France's highest administrative court has endorsed a police decision banning an organization with far-right links from offering only pork soup meal to the homeless as it meant to exclude poor Muslims and Jews who do not eat swine.
The pork soup, distributed by members of the far-right Bloc Identitaire, was regarded as discriminatory and a threat to public order.
Source: OnIslam.net
