Showing posts with label Islam in France. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Islam in France. Show all posts

Thursday, December 7, 2017

A Two-State Solution For Europe?

Authored by Judith Bergmann via The Gatestone Institute,



  • A poll conducted this summer found that 29% of French Muslims found Sharia to be more important to them than French laws. It also found that 67% of Muslims want their children to study Arabic, and 56% think it should be taught in public schools.

  • A 2016 UK poll showed that 43% of British Muslims "believed that parts of the Islamic legal system should replace British law while only 22 per cent opposed the idea". Another poll from 2016 found that 23% of all Muslims supported the introduction of sharia law in some areas of Britain, 39% agreed that "wives should always obey their husbands," and 52% of all British Muslims believe that homosexuality should be illegal.

  • French President Emmanuel Macron blamed France, not Islam, for the increased radicalization, which he said should lead France to "question itself." According to Macron, then, the parallel Islamic societies of France, have nothing to do with Islam. They are the fault of the French republic. Did the French republic impose sharia and the subjugation of women in the suburbs, described by one female survivor as "hell"? Was the French republic behind the recent distribution of leaflets stipulating "if you meet a Jew, kill him"?


A French intellectual, Christian Moliner, recently suggested that France should establish a Muslim state-within-a-state that adheres to sharia law, inside the borders of France, to avoid a civil war. Warning against refusing to deal with the problems of Islamism in Europe because of political correctness, he stated:


"Out of the fear of appearing Islamophobic, to satisfy this bustling fringe of Muslims, governments are ready to accept the spread of radical practices throughout the country.... [some] territories are outside the control of the Republic. The police can come only in force and for limited durations... We can never convert the 30% of Muslims who demand the introduction of sharia law to the merits of our democracy and secularism. We are now allowing segregation to take place that does not say its name."



Moliner"s solution?


"... Establish a dual system of law in France... one territory, one government, but two peoples: the French with the usual laws and Muslims with Qur"anic status (but only for those who choose it)... The latter will have the right to vote... but they will apply Sharia in everyday life, to regulate matrimonial laws (which will legalize polygamy) and inheritance... They will no longer apply to French judges for disputes between Muslims... conflicts between Christians and believers will remain the responsibility of ordinary courts..."



Moliner"s proposal represents a total surrender to political Islam and is of course outrageous, especially considering that Muslims only comprise a little more than five percent of the French population. What he suggests, however, merely formalizes the status quo that already exists -- and not only in France -- even if it abandons reform-minded Muslims and eventually, with their collapsing demography, the non-Muslims there.


In France, the no-go zones with their Islamization and Islamic law, sharia, and most noticeably the subjugation of women, has already spread from the suburbs (banlieues) to the cities themselves. As Gatestone"s Yves Mamou described:


"... no-go zones are no longer relegated to the suburbs, where migrants and Muslims have usually been concentrated. No-go zones, through mass migration, have been emerging in the heart of Paris, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Marseille, Grenoble, Avignon -- districts "privatized" here and there by a mix of drug traffickers, Salafist zealots and Islamic youth gangs. The main victims are women. They are -- both Muslim and non-Muslim -- sexually harassed; some are sexually assaulted".



Last year, French TV aired a documentary about women disappearing from public view in certain areas, where parallel Islamic societies had taken hold. The program named Sevran in the district of Seine-Saint Denis -- a suburb of Paris described by French political scientist Gilles Kepel as "the capital of French Islam". There are 1.4 million people living in the district of Seine-Saint-Denis. More than 600,000 of them are Muslims. The French postal service recently said that it will no longer supply its Chronopost delivery service to Seine-Saint-Denis -- the danger to their delivery drivers is too high. Last year, 51 of its delivery drivers were reportedly attacked while doing their rounds.




Riot police muster in the northern Paris suburb of Villiers-le-Bel, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)


In France, a poll conducted by Institut Montaigne this summer found that 29% of French Muslims found sharia to be more important to them than French laws. It also found that 67% of Muslims want their children to study Arabic and 56% think it should be taught in public schools.


A 2016 UK poll, apparently the largest poll ever done on the subject in the UK, showed that 43% of British Muslims "believed that parts of the Islamic legal system should replace British law while only 22 per cent opposed the idea". A different poll, also from 2016, found that nearly a quarter (23%) of all Muslims supported the introduction of sharia law in some areas of Britain, and 39% agreed that "wives should always obey their husbands", compared with 5% of the country as a whole. Nearly a third (31%) thought it was acceptable for a British Muslim man to have more than one wife, compared with 8% of the wider population. According to the same poll, 52% of all British Muslims believe that homosexuality should be illegal.


According to a 2014 study of Moroccan and Turkish Muslims in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Sweden, an average of almost 60% of the Muslims polled agreed that Muslims should return to the roots of Islam; 75% thought there is only one interpretation of the Koran possible and 65 % said that Sharia is more important to them than the laws of the country in which they lived. The specific numbers for Germany were that 47% of Muslims believe Sharia is more important than German law. In Sweden, 52% of Muslims believe that Sharia is more important than Swedish law.


As the polls show, there already are "two peoples" in France and large parts of Europe, who wish to live according to completely different standards, as Moliner suggests. Politicians persist in ignoring these facts or downplaying them. So why be shocked at the suggestion of a "two-state solution" for France? How do these politicians, who do not even acknowledge the problems, propose to tackle the fact that large percentages of their population would rather live under sharia law? They do not propose anything. They pretend that this information does not exist.


French President Emmanuel Macron, is an example of such immunity to facts: "Radicalization has taken hold because the French Republic has resigned," Macron said recently about the Islamization of the French suburbs. Macron blamed France, not Islam, for the increased radicalization, which he said should lead France to "question itself". Macron noted that, "We allowed, in too many cities, too many districts, representatives of a distortion of a religion, which are full of hate and disenfranchisement to provide solutions that the Republic no longer gives."


According to Macron, then, the parallel Islamic societies of France, have nothing to do with Islam. They are the fault of the French republic. Did the French republic impose Sharia and the subjugation of women in the suburbs, described by one female survivor as "hell"? Was the French republic behind the recent distribution of leaflets stipulating "if you meet a Jew, kill him"? Did the French republic force the mother of Mohammed Merah, the man who killed a little Jewish girl at school by shooting her in the head, while screaming "Allahu Akbar", to say that "the prophet permits the killing of Jewish children"?


France, as well as the rest of Europe, is -- wittingly or unwittingly -- heading towards the "two-state solution" outlined by Moliner, whether it wants it or not. That fact, however, does not appear particularly to bother the political establishment.









Monday, August 7, 2017

France: Churches Vanish, Mosques Spring Up

Authored by Giulio Meotti via The Gatestone Institute,


  • In the last 30 years, more mosques and Muslim prayer centers have been built in France than all the Catholic churches built in the last century.

  • The Church of Santa Rita used to stand in the fifteenth arrondissement of Paris. A few weeks after Father Hamel was murdered by Islamic terrorists, the French police cleared the church. It is now a parking lot. Police dragged the priests out by their legs as a Mass was being celebrated.

  • In France there are laws protecting old trees. But the state is free to flatten old Christian churches. The vacuums created in the French landscape are already being filled by the booming mosques. Cowardly French authorities would never treat Islam as they are now treating Christianity.

"France is not a random space... fifteen centuries of history and geography determined its personality. Inscribed in the depths of our landscape, the churches, the cathedrals and other places of pilgrimage give meaning and form to our patriotism. Let us demand our civil authorities to respect it". Two years ago, the French journalist Denis Tillinac promoted this appeal, signed by dozens of French personalities, after some French imams requested the conversion of abandoned churches into mosques.


A year later, terrorists who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State assaulted the Catholic parishioners in the church of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, murdering an elderly priest, Father Jacques Hamel, at the foot of the altar. An outpouring of great emotion followed the most serious attack on a Christian symbol in Europe since the Second World War.


After that attack, the French authorities prevented many Islamist plots against the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Last June, police shot a Muslim man outside the cathedral after he tried to attack them with a hammer. Another terror cell of French women, guided by Islamic State commanders in Syria, had previously been foiled before they could attack Notre Dame. France"s most famous Catholic house of worship is a prime target for the jihadists. A t the same time, France has been dismissing the religious and cultural heritage of France"s Catholic patrimony, which, in a time of religious clashes and revival, should instead be protected as treasures and sources of strength.


Last month, around the time of the first anniversary of the murder of Father Hamel, a wrecking crew demolished the famed Chapel of Saint Martin in Sablé-sur-Sarthe, built in 1880-1886 and deconsecrated in 2015. A parking lot will replace the old Christian building. Photographs and videos posted on social networks, in scenes reminiscent of ISIS" vandalism of churches in Mosul, show the cross being ripped from the church and the church destroyed. A few days earlier, in Rouen, not far from where Father Hamel had been killed, the local authorities ordered the destruction of the Saint-Nicaise Church"s presbytery, for "safety reasons".



The Chapel of Saint Martin in Sablé-sur-Sarthe, France, pictured shortly before it was demolished on July 17, 2017. (Image source: Simon de l"Ouest/Wikimedia Commons)


In 1907, the French state appropriated all church property, and now an increasing numbers of local authorities are deciding they cannot or will not renovate their churches. French mayors call this process "deconstruction".


The year of Father Hamel"s martyrdom, France was very busy demolishing churches. The Patrimoine-en-blog website, a platform providing a regular inventory of demolished churches, reports seven demolished churches in France in 2016 alone, and two in the first half of 2017. Along with these destroyed Christian buildings, 26 churches were put up for sale in 2016, and 12 churches were listed for sale in 2015. In 2017, many churches were converted to offices, apartments, "entertainment centers", gyms and art galleries.


The picture is not promising for French Catholicism:





"Over the past two years, Christian associations have sold nearly 40 churches throughout the country, at prices ranging from 100,000 to 400,000 euros. Twenty-seven other churches have been demolished. According to the Catholic Church, more than 1,000 churches are to be sold or demolished throughout France".



According to a report from the Observatory of Religious Heritage, presented at the French Senate, France could lose "5,000 to 10,000 religious buildings by 2030". Every year, 20 churches are sold and converted in France. The art historian Didier Rykner, who runs La Tribune de l"Art, said that "not since the Second World War have we seen churches reduced to rubble".


These authorities and mayors, so lenient when it comes to presenting economic reasons for destroying churches, are always generous when it comes to mosques. "Nearly 2,400 mosques today, compared to 1,500 in 2003, is the most visible sign of the rapid growth of Islam in France, a consequence of a population of immigrant origin and the process of strong re-Islamization", noted an report by the magazine Valeurs Actuelles.


When it comes to Islam, neutrality is abandoned. For example, "the municipality of Évreux voted for the provision of 5000 square-meters of land, for one symbolic euro, for the project of the Union of the Muslim Faith". The author and journalist Élisabeth Schemla detailed how French mayors have become "builders of mosques". This is how, in the last 30 years, more mosques and Muslim prayer centers have been built in France than all the Catholic churches built in the last century.


The Church of Santa Rita used to stand in the fifteenth arrondissement of Paris. A few weeks after Father Hamel was assassinated by the Islamic terrorists, the French police cleared the church. It is now a parking lot. Police dragged out the priests by their legs as a Mass was being celebrated. "When France is moved by the martyrdom of Jacques Hamel and [then Prime Minister] Manuel Valls speaks of financing mosques and training imams, we do not understand that churches are abandoned to their sad fate and demolished", Eloise Lenesley wrote at the time in Le Figaro.


In France, there are laws protecting old trees from indiscriminate cutting. But the state is free to flatten old Christian churches. The vacuums created in the French landscape are already being filled by the booming mosques.


Cowardly French authorities would never treat Islam as they are now treating Christianity. Marine Le Pen pointedly asked: "What if we built parking lots on top of Salafist mosques, instead of our churches?"