I suspect that, with the growing tensions, there will be some open conflicts soon.
This from Reuters with a biretta tip to Sancte Pater:
Paris bans open-air “sausage & wine party” over Muslim concerns
By Laure Bretton
PARIS (Reuters) – A giant "sausage and wine" party planned later this week in a Paris neighbourhood with many Muslim residents risks sparking disturbances and will therefore be banned, police in the French capital announced on Tuesday.
The event, announced on the social networking site Facebook late last month, had drawn growing criticism from politicians and civic groups in recent days as its page containing barely disguised anti-Muslim slogans attracted over 7,000 members.
The event, called an "apero geant" (giant cocktail party), was due on Friday, a date seen as highly provocative because that will be the day of the weekly Muslim prayer and the World Cup soccer match between England and majority Muslim Algeria.
It is also the 70th anniversary of General Charles de Gaulle’s famous 1940 "Appeal of June 18" from London calling on the French to resist the German occupation of their country.
"This open-air event creates serious risks of disturbances to public order," the police said in a statement, noting the symbolism of the time and place chosen for the flash mob-style party. It also said counter-demonstrations were planned.
The main organiser, Sylvie Francois, wrote that she wanted the event to be "a joyous protest" against the closing down of roads in the Goutte d’Or neighbourhood every Friday by Muslims praying in the street outside the overcrowded mosque there.
MAYOR CRITICAL
The Facebook page also appeared to signal the party’s thrust with appeals to "native Parisians" and complaints about "the resolute foes of our local wines and pork products."
In a statement before the ban was announced, Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe said the party was "clearly inspired by extreme right-wing movements" and seemed to be "designed to degenerate, possibly into violence."
Fadela Amara, secretary of state for urban policy and a practicing Muslim, denounced the planned event as a bid by the extreme right to spread hatred.
"I’m all for people getting together, having a drink and a good time, but when it’s organised like that … it’s very dangerous," she told RTL radio.
After the ban was announced, supporters of the event wrote on the Facebook page that they would still gather on Friday in Goutte d’Or, a poor mixed-ethnic area of northeastern Paris.
"It’s official — Muslims can pray in the street but we don’t have the right to eat pork there. France is now ruled by sharia," one supporter named Antoine wrote.
The "apero geant" plan, a takeoff on flash mob drinking parties that have become popular in France, recalls earlier events such as winter soup kitchens serving only dishes containing pork so neither Muslims nor Jews would eat them.
The Paris event page also carried announcements of similar "sausage and wine" parties in Lyon, Toulouse, Brussels and London, where the event is called a "bacon and beer" party.
(Reporting by Laure Bretton, writing by Tom Heneghan)
Paris bans open-air “sausage & wine party” over Muslim concernsParis Pork Parties and British Beer Bashes
Note what the tags were for this story.
extreme right | facebook | muslim | paris | pork | protest | sausage | wine
Loading ...
So often lately I am reminded that in any compromise between good and evil, evil wins.
Muslims seem as politically assertive as the gay contingent. The apparently inevitable result being the loss of rights for those outside the respective groups.
Pray for our world to snap out of this groggy haze of political correctness, before we are stripped of all our rights.
The “extreme right” – but of course! Trot out that phrase for instant vilification!
This couldn’t possibly be the reaction of a people to the blatant usurpation of their country, culture, and (what’s left of) their faith. Not at all.
In conquering Europe what Islam failed to do by the sword they are accomplishing by immigration and higher birth rates.
I wonder if this is not how the West is getting punished. How many times have I heard someone asking a newly wed couple “are you planning to have any children?” So here we see the wonderful consequences of contraception! If the French would have had children they woudn’t be asking some foreigners now what is permissable to do in their own city. This is a worldwide phenomenon: affluent societies with no kids getting slowly overtaken by newcomers. We now have televised commercials with soft music and attrative actors pushing contraceptive devices: and what do we expect? A bright future? Sure!
Amen Andrew, AMEN
Pfreddys,
An excellent point. I found a short video clip that shows how the Muslims are doing just that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-3X5hIFXYU&feature=player_embedded
Description of the Video Clip:
“Islam will overwhelm Christendom unless Christians recognize the demographic realities, begin reproducing again, and share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with Muslims.”
Does it bother anybody else that they were planning a big meat festival on a Friday? That’s my one and only gripe with it.
Carolina, on that point, the organizer of the event says the following in an interview (with a radically secularist website – and it’s worth recalling the exact history of secularism in post-revolutionary France when considering the sympathies of those involved, as well as noting the not entirely accurate response that she makes to the question)
http://www.ripostelaique.com/Sylvie-Francois-Un-apero-geant.html
(My translation)
“I discussed this with a (catholic) priest, and as it happens with a “traditionalist” priest. His response was siple: the only thing that is obligatory for Catholics is to abstain from meat on Fridays during lent. And it is not now lent.”
Personally, I think this event is misguided in the extreme and trying to stir up rancour and hatred and inter-communal tensions, and that, as such, the government is correct to ban it. Above all because it is intended to be a provocation.
Holding a wine-and-pork fest on a Friday evening next to a mosque…makes me think of “gay pride” types invading cathedrals (as they have done, both in Paris and here in London)
(and as for all the nonsense about this district of Paris being “occupied territory”… http://777socrate.blogspot.com/2010/06/de-lapero-geant-saucisson-pinard-de.html makes clear that wine, pro sausages, etc, are freely available in shops of the district, and that all sorts of dress are worn in the neighbourhood)
“J’invite donc Sylvie François, nous allons ensemble nous rendre dans les différentes épiceries de la Goutte d’Or, elle constatera qu’il est possible dans la majorité d’entre elles d’acheter de l’alcool, et même du saucisson dans plusieurs. J’invite Sylvie François à m’accompagner faire la tournée des bars du quartier, elle verra qu’on peut aisément boire un bon verre de vin (ou un Ricard pour moi), en terrasse également, sans même se faire dévisager. Je me propose d’accompagner Sylvie François pour qu’elle découvre le nombre de femmes non voilées qui se promènent sans être dévisagées, elle pourra même mettre une jupe et des talons.”
In any case anyone who doubts this can easily see for themselves on google maps (Rue de la Goutte d’Or, 75018 Paris, France)
But frankly me above all this makes me think of anti-Catholic mobs that have been rabble-roused at various times in our history in England (or even more, in Scotland). It is crass, nasty and wrong.
Carolina – exactly right.
Maybe there’s some kind of traffic ordinance the Parisians could use for the mosque slop over.
My initial reaction to a story like this is: “So much for the French, the first to leave the room when a fight starts.” (My ancestry is French, by the way. A small town near Verdun, but I digress …) Then again, this is how most of the non-Muslim world responds to what appears to be the fear of giving offense, but what is actually the work of a bunch of bullies using the threat of death disguised as religious fervor. Surely there are those Muslims who will say, “This is not true Islam.” Well, pray tell, what is?
I agree with Dominic. This is childish. Having a pork party in a Muslim neighborhood is more of a temper tantrum than serious politics. After all, there wouldn’t be a Muslim neighborhood in Paris if French immigration laws were other than they are. This does nothing to address real issues regarding those immigigration laws and assimiliation issues.
To be sure, Fr.Z is right that it is interesting as an indication of the mood of the country, but I’m surprised to see so many people supporting it.
More and more I come to think that the problem in the west isn’t just secularism, but also immaturity.
I’m with Dominic and Brian.
“The main organiser, Sylvie Francois, wrote that she wanted the event to be “a joyous protest” against the closing down of roads in the Goutte d’Or neighbourhood every Friday by Muslims praying in the street outside the overcrowded mosque there.”
Eating pork where a lot of Muslims gather to pray is just plain rude. It’s not that the Muslims object to people eating pork in public – this is deliberately provocative.
Rude Yes, but as the saying goes sauce for the goose ect. Part of me would love to be there, all that wonderful PORK, quote Emeril “pork fat rules. sausage, bacon, chops, heaven
I agree with those who view this pork party as childish . . . and as anyone who knows me can attest, I’m not one to readily turn down sausage or wine!
The Muslims of Paris are praying in the street – so what? Perhaps instead of bewailing the fact we could have more frequent public displays of our faith, such as processions with the Blessed Sacrament or statues of saints. I’m looking forward to the upcoming festival of St. Peter in Gloucester, MA:
http://www.stpetersfiesta.org/
How many American communities have something like this?
Ah yes but I bet if a Catholic parish tried to hold a procession anywhere near the Mosque there would be a riot, the whole word seems to be afraid of offending these thin skinned pagans. Some places in USA there have been suits to silence church bells, some that have rung for over 200 years because they offend muzzie ears. tough
Kradcliffe said “It’s not that the Muslims object to people eating pork in public”. Many Muslims do. If the majority of Muslims had their way all of us would be living under the boot of Shariah law. Look at what they are doing in Michigan and anywhere else they hold a majority.
Well, I’m glad the heathen celebration was shut down, but it’s too bad that the reason is not that it would offend the city’s Catholic populace to eat pork on Friday. Offence to Catholics won’t stop anyone from anything in France.
John Allen calls what I’m feeling right now, “censorship envy” :)
I assume that the Friday abstinence laws still apply in France. Would I be right? Or have the French bishops sold out like the American bishops did?
re: The Egyptian — “Ah yes but I bet if a Catholic parish tried to hold a procession anywhere near the Mosque there would be a riot”
Until someone actually tries to hold such a procession we will never know what the reaction will be. If we assume there will be a hostile reaction and react as if there had been then we become the aggressors. Is that what you really want?
“Some places in USA there have been suits to silence church bells, some that have rung for over 200 years because they offend muzzie ears”
At least in the United States, complaints and law suits over church bells were going on long before the Muslims entered the picture.
I find the “muzzie” term to be offensive and hateful. Surely you can make your point without resorting to such slurs.
““Islam will overwhelm Christendom unless Christians recognize the demographic realities, begin reproducing again, and share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with Muslims.”
If you think it is a fight between Christians and Muslims in France you are living about 200 years in the past. France has not been a Christian country for a very long time now, France is a Godless secular nation and has been ever since the French revolution and its aftermath when they killed our priests and ethnicly cleansed the Vendee region to destroy the Catholic presence there.
Catholics have no side in this fight except their own, both the Muslims and the secularists are the enemies of God. French Catholics should abandon the country which abandoned their God and form their own nation, a Catholic nation.
Its rather Ironic that the man largely responsible for this situation is actually the same General Charles de Gaulle who fought to free France from the Germans and who is considered a hero of France, if he had not abandoned Algeria handing it over to the Muslims and allowed Algerian muslims to freely move to France this situation would not be any way near as dire as it is.
Tridentine Catholic, what are Muslims doing in Michigan?
Thanks,
Elly
Elly,
In and and around Dearborn, Michigan there are areas that would look like any Islamic country complete with people speaking Arabic and the signs also in Arabic. Some of the local PUBLIC schools are required to have Muslim “foot-washing” fountains and Islamic prayer time and rooms. I had family members that were living in the area (moved recently) and they say that many of those in these Muslim areas are not “welcoming” to non-Muslims. Those in the Muslim areas are not at all well integrated in to the American culture and our customs and some are hostile to it our attitudes toward women in particular. These cultural issues are very present in the workplace as I was told. This does not seem to be a good thing.
And I am an old enough women to remember back when Dearborn MI was more “Little Lebanon” (Maronites, Melkites, Orthodox and Gregorian parish communities) with the many varied ethnic churches and parishes. There were Syrians as well as various Turkish groups as well. In the summer they had many different street fairs that we’d be taken to by our relatives and their friends.
I was a “sheltered child” I never met a practitioner of Islam until I was in the military. All the Arab speakers we knew growing up were Christians, and many were Eastern Rite Catholics.
I was in Dearborn in 2007, a very different place,I felt more comfortable in places like Kuwait and Dubai (thank-you Uncle Sam), than in my own country.
I have mixed feelings on this. Certainly, if the Muslims have formally closed that street on Fridays (the way, say, a street could be closed for a religious procession), they have a right to do that. I doubt that the city has given permission to shut down neighborhood traffic on Fridays, however, and I doubt that they have asked because they know that if they ask for a permit, the city will tell them either to find another facility or to arrange their members so they pray someplace other than in the street. I suspect the Muslims are actually doing this as a sort of provocation, the same way they go into the Cathedral of Cordoba and try to say their prayers.
Also, you can’t really let any group take over a neighborhood. There was a problem with Orthodox Jews wanting to “wall off” a neighborhood in New York City for the Sabbath, and the city finally compromised by letting them put symbolic strings around it but not prohibit access or exit. As for processions, having an event a few times a year is different from a weekly shut down of traffic; it also mentions that the neighborhood has “many” Muslims but is certainly not entirely Muslim and that this is perceived by neighbors as a Muslim power-grab.
Yes, the pork festival is a bit childish, but the problem is that Muslims take silence as consent, and unless people show some signs of opposition to them, they simply advance even further along the track of Islamicizing the non-Muslim culture into which they have moved. Look at the monstrous taunt to non-Muslim humanity that is being built next to Ground Zero in NY.
This is stupid foot stomping. I have no doubt that there are real and urgent problems with Muslim/Christian (or Muslim/secular) populations all over the world, but this isn’t the way to solve them. Holding this on Friday night when Muslims are praying outside their mosques because they’re TOO SMALL TO HOLD ALL THE MUSLIMS? It’s a slap in the face. If it had been Saturday night, you might be able to argue “joyous,” but this is all
“protest.” How can the French seriously protest against people being so faithful they will pray in the street? I’ll tell you how — and it’s not by insulting the faithful people! That will only make things worse. They could start by being more faithful themselves — and less hateful. I haven’t been to France in more than 20 years, but last time I was there I was struck by how nasty people were to the Muslim immigrants.
I’m not saying that being nice to Muslims will prevent terrorism — I’m not naive! But it was obvious to a foreign teenager who spoke very bad French, so it must have been pretty bad.
A civilization must be glued together with the same religion, which is why the Romans called the Christians heretics, as they knew the new morals and new customs were a real threat to the pagan Roman Empire. Why can’t European countries see that they are suicidal by allowing Christian customs to be stopped in the face of violence, a dire threat which needs to be addressed. We are too politically correct here as well. Christian or not Christian, that is the question.
Nobody has a right to pray in the street while blocking traffic, just as that nasty group of San Francisco bicycle protesters has no right to ride in huge packs that block all the lanes, just to show their numbers and power. If those Muslims were being devout in any normal Western sense, they would be careful not to impede traffic.
Christians of course were taught by Jesus to “render unto Caesar”, and to treat our neighbors well. Even during persecution in the Roman Empire, Christians were supposed to be as good and obedient members of the pagan Roman Empire as they could possibly be, save for worshipping the Emperor and the gods. They risked their lives during plagues and other disasters to care for those who hated them most. They served faithfully in the army. Discourtesy toward unbelievers was not advocated by the Fathers.
The Koranical Muslim ideal of good conduct toward nonbelievers is to make them feel oppressed, so that they will either obey submissively or join Islam. So it’s not about being devout enough to pray in the road; it’s about being devout enough to give unbelievers a hard time. On purpose. Whenever they have the numbers to do it. Persistent unbelievers deserve it.
I don’t think the pork party is the answer. But considering some of the things Muslims have pulled here in the US (like moving into a building with a bar out front, and then insisting that the bar is offensive and must move), it’s obvious that people have to show some sign of resistance.
French people have historically reacted badly and in numbers to all sorts of things. Holding a pork party and possibly hoping for a fight is pretty polite from this standpoint, frankly.
Andrew,
You are wrong. The birth rate in France is the highest in Europe.
The French population will be greater than that of Germany within 25 years
while that of Russia will drop under 80 millions in less than 50 years.
The blessed Fr Charles de Foucauld who lived and was martyred in a time when Algeria was a French colony, once wrote about Algerian people:
“IF WE DON’T CONVERT THEM, they will chase us (we, the French people) away”.
And this is exactly what happened 50 year later.
The problem with the muslim immigrants is that they despise us because the
main part of the French people have become atheists. No wonder that if only we had keptthe faith of our catholic ancestors we would have succeeded in converting them in their
countries of origin and in France too.
I like to give as a good example the immigrants from Lebanon. They have the
same arab origins as those from Algeria: On the contrary of these last ones not
only are they well integrated in France, but a good part of them are much
better catholic faithfuls than the French. They love France and the French
people. Many even call France “their sweet mother”.
I agree with what Leonius says about De Gaulle. He shares a good part of the responsibility of the problems we have currently with the immigrants from northern Africa and in particular from Algeria.
Albizzi:
I hope I am wrong, but if I can trust some charts, the highest birth rate presently is Niger with more than 50 new births for each 1000 individuals in the population. The lowest is Japan, less than 8 new births. France with 12 new births is just a little higher than Japan, or Italy or some other European nations but it is hardly a robust birth rate. Muslim populations are generally much higher than that (easily double and tripple and some).
By the way, I cannot imagine any Western woman wanting sharia law, which includes the pork law. Let one law in and the others will follow. Scary.
St. Gilbert Keith Chesterton and St. Hilaire Belloc, ora pro nobis.
Banning French saucissons is a *human rights violation* —
if I may loosely quote Sarah Palin, “if God didn’t want me to eat pigs, why did he make them out of pork?”
I’m still trying to get my head round the idea of Parisians wanting to have a party on Waterloo Day.
I have a philosophical question. If some of the Muslems weren’t violent, would there be such concern about “political correctness”?
Political Correctness is a method of thought control and social engineering.
Muslims in France are demanding that they share space with Catholic Churches. In other words, they want to take over Catholic Churches, because there are too few Catholics and too many Muslims. Unfortunately, many seems to forget that Muslim law does not allow shared worship space which means the intent it to take over the Catholic Churches. Their praying in the streets appears to be designed to force this issue. So, it appears this is not an unprovoked situation. They should build their own mosques.
I find most of the responses very timid and temporising and way too accommodating to Muslim Doctrine,Culture, and political pressure.
I think the party if a great idea and, were I in France, I’d show-up for the wine and I’d be sure to be walking around with my Rosary Beads clicking and clacking.
Those complaining the party is childish and not serious politics fail to understand that it is me and thee, not our corrupt elected creeps, who will revive our cultures.
Some of those who hang-out at websites are the first to post about the necessity of taking back our country but they are the absolute last ones to count on when a body is needed on the street actually doing the taking back.
The party is a great idea.
Go, France, Go.
@Bornacatholic
AMEN !!!
If you go I’ll Go and just for good measure we’ll have a Eucharistic Procession around the muslim neighborhoods chanting Tanterm Ego, Salve Regina, Lead kindly light, the Angelus and the Rosary