Debunking Jean-Francois Copé's Ramadan pain au chocolat tale

The campaign for the presidency of the centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP) has taken a decided turn to the right in recent days.

At least for one of the candidates still left in the race, Jean-Francois Copé, the party's current secretary general.

If he runs out the winner against former prime minister François Fillon in November, the chances are the UMP will be able to drop any pretence of being a centre-right one.

The signs are there.

First up there's his aptly entitled "Manifesto pour une droite décomplexée", extracts of which you can read in Le Figaro and which illustrate how Copé believes there's an "anti-white discrimination" in some areas of France.

And presumably that so-called discrimination can be found, if you follow Copé's line of thinking, in the very same areas as the ones quoted in a campaign speech he gave last Friday in the southeastern town of Draguignan.

Jean--François Copé in Draguignan (screenshot from i>Télé report)

Apart from banging on about the current government's mishandling of the country which is, after all, what a party in opposition is supposed to do, Copé also revealed a little more of what we might expect from the UMP with him at the head.


You see, apparently he can "understand the exasperation of some people who return home from work in the evening to learn that their son has had his pain au chocolate taken from him, just as he was leaving school, by thugs who explained to him that Ramadan means fasting."

Take a listen to the clip.



Right. Yes definitely an "uninhibited Right" and not a direction some other leading UMP figures  would share, as former finance minister François Baroin was clear to point out at the weekend.

Quite apart from the offensive and inflammatory nature of Copé's remark with its obvious undertones which surely don't need to be spellt out (but have been nonetheless by many over the past couple of days in what the French almost lovingly refer to as a "polemic") there's also an essential problem with his little anecdote.

Timing.

When was the example quoted by Copé as leading to his enlightened understanding of some parents' annoyance supposed to have taken place exactly?

2012? Impossible as many have since pointed out because Ramadan fell during the school holidays

2011? Equally unfeasible for exactly the same reason.

So that leaves the most recent possible date for such a  act 2010
So in other words, poor old Copé has been waiting two whole years to bring the plight of that child to the public's attention and to show just how in tune he is with the thinking of M. et Madame Average French citizen?

Yes M. Copé, let the French eat their pain au chocolat.

Summer camp monitors from Gennevilliers - suspended and then reinstated

The case of four temporary instructors sacked and then reinstated by Jacques Bourgoin, the mayor of the town of Gennevilliers in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, is one that has made both the domestic and international news.

Jacques Bourgoin (screenshot from AFP video)

And you could be forgiven for believing that on the face of it, Bourgoin's decision appeared to be one that, in the words of the Conseil français du culte musulman (French council of the Moslem faith, CFCM) was "an attack on religious freedom".

After all the headlines such as "Sacked over Ramadan fast" or "French Moslem suspended in Ramadan fasting row" certainly gave that impression.

There's no doubt that Bourgoin's U-turn to reinstate the four men in an effort to "avoid controversy" was more than a little late as the damage had been done.

But looking at the background to the decision, you can see that while he undoubtedly mishandled what was after all a sensitive issue and one bound to "raise indignation" once it became part of the public domain, Bourgoin had the best interests of the children at heart

Briefly, the four men had been employed as monitors to accompany children from the town to a summer camp in southwestern France.

They were sacked on July 20, the first day of Ramadan, after inspectors paid a visit, discovered they were observing their fast and, "not respecting the terms of their contracts in a way which could have endangered the physical safety of the children for whom they were responsible."

In other words, as far as Bourgoin and Gennevilliers' councillors were concerned, by not eating or drinking the men couldn't carry out their jobs properly.

And Bourgoin surely had good reason and didn't want a case of history potentially repeating itself.

Because in 2009 during a similar summer camp involving children from the town, a monitor fell asleep behind the wheel of the minibus in which they were travelling, causing an accident and seriously injuring one child.

She - the monitor - too had been fasting.

Of course there's the valid argument put forward by the CFCM president Mohammed Moussaoui that worldwide, "Hundreds of millions of people fast during Ramadan every year without it having a detrimental effect on their ability to work."

But equally, Bourgoin had a moral and legal obligation to ensure the well-being of children in the council's care and simply didn't want to take the risk.

A tricky one - not helped by the way in which it was handled - or reported.

The number of Moslems in France causes problems says Claude Guéant

He's at it again.

Hardly a week goes by - no strike that - hardly a day goes by - without France's recently-appointed interior minister, Claude Guéant, making a remark guaranteed to hit the headlines.



Guéant is proving himself to be the master of the provocative comment that doesn't just border on the racist, but is clearly meant to appeal to any xenophobic tendencies that might and do exist among some French.

And his comments have once again ignited outrage from the opposition Socialist party and angered anti-racist groups.

After saying that the "French didn't not feeling at home in France" and suggesting that "Obviously anyone working in a public service shouldn't wear a religious symbols or show any religious preference" Guéant has continued with the same theme.

"This growth in the number of Moslems and a certain number of behaviours causes problems," he said on Monday.

"There is no reason why the nation should accord more rights to one particular religion than others that were formerly anchored in our country."

Highly appropriate and timely from the interior minister given than the comments came on the eve of the debate organised by governing centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire's (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP) debate on laicity.

It's a debate which is supposedly about secularism but is really more about the place of Islam in French society and comes shortly before the implementation of the ban on wearing full face veils in public places on April 11.

It's surely hard to defend Guéant's comments, even if some of his cabinet colleagues such as the higher education and research minister Valérie Pécresse have tried, when she suggested that the "Left was trying to whip up anti-Claude Guéant propoganda."

The big question remains though, where is the Omnipresent One, usually so keen in the past to rein in ministers when they step out of line?

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy has been noticeably quiet giving the impression that he is more than happy to allow his interior minister to be his "unofficial spokesman" in making an appeal to those who might be attracted to the far-right Front National and its leader Marine Le Pen in next year's presidential elections.

Perhaps it's Eva Joly, a European Member of Parliament for the Europe Écologie party, who best sums up the sentiment many have about why Sarkozy, far from reprimanding Guéant, could actually be encouraging him.

"Nicolas Sarkozy seems determined to overtake Marine Le Pen on the Right," she said after Guéant's most recent remarks.

"He's allowing his chief spokesman to 'surf' on subjects such as national identity, the Roma immigration and Islam," she continued.

"It has become an ignoble competition with the xenophobic Right."

Hear hear!

Row over homophobia in local French soccer league - redux

There has been yet another twist in the tale of two local football clubs in France who came to blows (off the pitch) over claims of homophobia.

You might remember that the story first hit the headlines at the beginning of the month when Créteil Bébel refused at the last minute to play Paris Foot Gay (PFG).

Both are amateur clubs playing in a local league in the French capital.

Créteil Bébel is made up of practising Moslems. PFG is a team of both gay and straight players whose aim is to fight homophobia in the sport, be that on the pitch or from the stands, and promote tolerance.

Claims of homophobia from one side were met with the defence from the other that there had been a "misunderstanding" in the interpretation of what Zahir Belgharbi, one of the directors of Créteil Bébel, had been quoted as saying in the media.

While insisting that he wasn't against his team taking to the field against a side that included both gay and straight players, Belgharbi said he had a problem with the name "Paris Gay Foot" which by implication (as far he was concerned) seemed deliberately provocative

"We don't call our club by a Moslem name for example - why should others?" he said.

PFG complained to those responsible for running the league in which both teams play, la Commission Football Loisirs (CFL).

And then a lawyer for Créteil Bébel, Bénédicte Puybassant, stepped into the fray to reiterate on behalf of the players that their refusal to play had nothing to do with homophobia but was "simply because the name of the club (PFG) doesn't reflect our vision of what the sport is about."

"They had," she said, "regretted their initial decision and had proposed to reschedule the match."

But events overtook them somewhat when the CFL took the decision to red card the side and kick the club out of the league for "refusing a match and making discriminatory comments."

End of story you might think. Except it wasn't.

An attempt to reconcile players from the two clubs was proposed in which they would play collectively against a team of former professional footballers, politicians and celebrities all in the name of "fighting against all forms of discrimination".

But once again the idea has apparently been turned down by Créteil Bébel.

Apparently because in fact Belgharbi went as far as to deny that there had been any approach made to play in the first place.

"We have nothing to gain by playing a match with 'people' (celebrities) in front of the media," he said.

"We prefer to remain anonymous."

A final refusal which brought about a prompt response from PFG.

"We understand that the players from Créteil Bébel wish to return as quickly as possible back into the anonymity they should never have left in the first place," PFG says on its site.

"Therefore, we will not be playing together in a match to combat discriminations in all its forms," it continues.

"We deeply regret it."

The match - without the participation of the Créteil Bébel players - is still scheduled to go ahead on November 14 at the Charlety stadium in Paris.

The end of a childhood horror story for eight brothers and sisters

It's a shocking story and one which hit the headlines on Tuesday afternoon here in France.

A couple have been taken into police custody and charged with neglecting and mistreating their children after police and social services discovered the wretched conditions in which they were living.

The case first came to the attention of the local authorities just last Friday in Banyuls-sur-Mer in the southwestern French department of Pyrénées Orientales.

One of their children was seen rummaging through dustbins. The 16-year old was bleeding from the head and visibly emaciated.

Passers-by informed the police and when questioned, he explained that he had been hit on the head with a pot by his mother and beaten on the arms with a stick.

He had been punished, he told the police, because he had stolen a lump of sugar.

The boy weighed just 32 kgs (71 lbs) for 1,65m (five feet and five inches) and was immediately taken to hospital for treatment.

When the police arrived at his home to question his parents, they found an apartment almost bare of furniture according to the regional daily newspaper, Le Midi Libre.

There were no beds, just covers that served as mattresses. The kitchen and the sitting room were locked and the fridge was virtually empty.

There were also seven other children in the apartment - one boy and six girls - ranging in age from seven to 17. They all showed scars and traces from having been regularly beaten.

Two of the girls, aged 13 and 15, weighed just 22kgs (48lbs) and were immediately taken to a nearby hospital.

The remaining children were taken to a foster home and on the way "the police stopped at a fast food restaurant and the eyes of the children lit up as though they had discovered another world," is how Le Midi Libre describes their journey out of hell.

The parents were immediately taken into police custody.

The father, a 50-year-old devout Moslem, reportedly told investigators that for him the condition of his children was a sign of the success of their education, and that he wanted to "purify them".

"This is a case of a family that lived outside of reality and totally cut off from the rest of society," Jean-Pierre Dreno, the public prosecutor of Perpignan told reporters.

"The father's behaviour was exactly as one would expect from someone who treated his own family as a sect," he added.

Only three of the children were sent to school, the rest had dropped out once they had reached puberty because the education authorities refused to allow them to attend wearing headscarves.

Under French law there is a ban on the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols in public schools at both primary and secondary levels;

"There had been a conflict in the past between the mother and the school authorities especially about absenteeism " said Dreno.

"The only affair that we had in this department in 2003 about the wearing of the headscarves at school involved this family and theoretically the children were following lessons by correspondence," he added

The father and his 49-year-old wife have been charged with putting at risk the health and lives of their children and failing to provide them with the appropriate education and security.

They also have a ninth child who is no longer living at home.