From al jazeera

France is a country that appears split on many levels.

In foreign policy terms it is a country torn between its imperial past and its integration into the European Union and between its pretentions as a key player on the world stage and its increasingly modest means.

Economically there is apprently insurmountable divisions between France's strong and united trade unions and its laissez-faire president.
 
Nicolas Sarkozy is moving to change France’s role on the world stage, but two years after taking office some analysts say his "champagne" tactics are all bubbles, but no fizz.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has spoken out strongly against the wearing of the burka by Muslim women in France.

In a major policy speech, he said the burka - a garment covering women from head to toe - reduced them to servitude and undermined their dignity.

Mr Sarkozy also gave his backing to the establishment of a parliamentary commission to look at whether to ban the wearing of burkas in public.

In 2004, France banned the Islamic headscarves in its state schools.

'Not welcome'

"We cannot accept to have in our country women who are prisoners behind netting, cut off from all social life, deprived of identity," Mr Sarkozy told a special session of parliament in Versailles.


"That is not the idea that the French republic has of women's dignity.

To raise the subject like this, via a parliamentary committee, is a way of stigmatising Islam and the Muslims of France
Mohammed Moussaoui, French Council for the Muslim Religion

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When in France...

Liberty, Fraternity, Equality... Obviously the burka does not fit any of these premises... unless one changes them to "perverse freedom, submission via brainwashing, superiority of men".

A political scandal is gathering pace over claims that 11 French submarine engineers were murdered in a bomb attack in Karachi seven years ago to punish France for the non-payment of arms contract "commissions" to senior Pakistani officials.

Lawyers for the French victims' families believe the attack, allegedly carried out by Islamist terrorists, was in fact part of a web of financial chicanery and political manoeuvring which may yet severely embarrass senior figures, including the French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari.

Two French magistrates investigating the bombing of the engineers' bus in May 2002 have ruled out the possibility that it was an attack by al-Qa'ida on Western interests. They have told the victims' families there is "cruel logic" to an alternative explanation. They believe unknown figures in the Pakistani establishment may have fomented the attack in retaliation for the non-payment of part of the €80m (£68m) in sweeteners promised to senior officials when Lahore bought three Agosta 90B submarines from France in 1994.

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sweeteners?... see toon at top.

Halal meat, or meat slaughtered in line with Muslim tradition, is at the centre of a political controversy.

Quick - a fast-food French restaurant chain - is testing out a new niche market, withdrawing all pork products from the menu and serving only halal meat in some of its branches.

Experts say that with more than 5 million French Muslims who are potential customers, Quick is targeting a booming market: the $7.5bn halal business.

But the mayor of Roubaix, a French town near the northern city of Lille, has launched a law suit against the food chain, arguing that it constituted "discrimination" against non-Muslims.

And Marine Le Pen, the vice-president of the far-right National Front party,  has warned of "Islamisation".

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after the veil, the meat and sausage tray... see toon at top...

Thanks for this read mate. Well, this is my first visit to your blog! But I admire the precious time and effort you put into it, especially into interesting articles you share here!

The inauguration of the « Louvre Abu Dhabi » was the occasion of a fine speech about the culture which unites us – a performance which was included in the 1 billion-dollar package long agreed between the two States. Once he had acquitted himself of this formality, President Macron asked his host, Cheikh Mohammed Ben Zayed, about what was happening in neighbouring Saudi Arabia, and the fate of Saad Hariri.

Unlike the Bedouins of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the Emiratis are a fisher people. While for centuries the Bedouins lived exclusively in their desert, the Emiratis travelled the seas. Because of this particularity, during the British colonisation, the Emiratis were attached to the Indian Empire, depending not directly from London, but from Delhi. Today they have invested their oil revenues by buying up sixty ports in twenty-five countries (including Marseille in France, Rotterdam in Holland, London and Southampton in the United Kingdom). This system enables their secret services to import and export whatever they want in these countries, despite local customs controls – a service which they are adept at selling to other States. Thanks to US sanctions against Teheran, the port of Dubaï has become - de facto – the doorway to Iran, raking in incredible profits for violating the US embargo. That is why Abu Dhabi has a vital economic interest in encouraging the Arabo-Persian quarrel, even while the Emirates claim the islands of Tonbs and Abu-Musa, which, in their eyes, are « occupied » by Iran.

read more:

http://www.voltairenet.org/article198765.html

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 A Leonardo da Vinci painting of Christ that sold in New York for a record $US450 million ($591 million) is heading to a museum in the United Arab Emirates.

The newly opened Louvre Abu Dhabi made the announcement on Wednesday (local time).

The 500-year-old painting, called Salvator Mundi — Latin for Saviour of the World — depicts Christ dressed in Renaissance-style robes, his right hand raised in blessing as his left hand holds a crystal orb.

It is one of fewer than 20 paintings by the Renaissance master known to exist and the only one in private hands.

Read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-07/record-breaking-da-vinci-painting-...

The Renaissance oil painting of Christ, whose title in Latin means “saviour of the world,” sold for a record-breaking $450m (£335m) at auction at Christie’s New York last November. The painting depicts a blue-robed Jesus holding a crystal orb and gazing directly at the viewer.

It was scheduled to go on display from 18 September, but mystery has swirled around the museum’s acquisition of the painting.

Western diplomats say a Saudi royal acting as a proxy for Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is close to Abu Dhabi’s powerful crown prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, was the buyer.

The Saudi embassy in Washington and officials in Abu Dhabi say the unnamed Saudi royal purchased the painting on behalf of the museum in Abu Dhabi, which opened just days before the auction.

The display of the painting would be a major draw for the new museum, which has sought to distinguish itself from its namesake in Paris since opening after a decade of delays.

Abu Dhabi has agreed to pay France $525m (£407m) for the use of the “Louvre” name for the next 30 years and six months, plus another $750m (£582m) to hire French managers to oversee 300 loaned works of art.

Authorities have not said how much it cost to build the museum, located on Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/sep/03/louvre-abu-dhabi-po...

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A row has erupted in France over plans to build a mosque in Strasbourg, with the interior ministry on Wednesday accusing the municipal authorities there of using public money to fund "foreign meddling" on French soil. 

While President Emmanuel Macron wants to crack down on Islamic extremism, which he blames for a series of deadly terror attacks in France since 2015, the planned mosque in the eastern French city has found itself in the government's crosshairs because it is backed by a leading Turkish Muslim group.

On Monday, municipal officials in Strasbourg, run by a Green mayor, approved a grant of 2.5 million euros (nearly $3 million) to the Milli Gorus Islamic Confederation (CMIG), a pan-European movement for the Turkish diaspora.

But the CMIG is one of three Muslim confederations in France that have refused to sign a new anti-extremism charter championed by Macron.

Macron wants the groups to commit in writing to renouncing "political Islam" and to respecting French law, as he seeks to combat radical Islam which he sees as a threat to the country's secular system.

>> French government unveils new law tackling Islamist extremism >>

The government has also drafted legislation which would force Muslim groups to declare major foreign funding and would give the state increased powers to shut down speech judged to spread hate or violence.

"We believe that this association is no longer able to be among the representatives of Islam in France," Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said of the Milli Gorus group on BFM television.

"We believe that this municipal authority should not be financing foreign meddling on our soil," he added.

Macron warned against Turkish meddling in France's presidential elections next year, in an interview broadcast Tuesday.

Relations between France and Turkey have been battered by disputes over the conflicts on Libya, Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh, and Turkish accusations of Islamophobia in France.

Darmanin said he had asked the government's top regional representative to file an administrative court complaint to stop the subsidy.

Strasbourg Mayor Jeanne Barseghian has said the mosque project has been in the works since 2017, before she was elected, and that the funds are contingent on Milli Gorus presenting both a solid financing plan and "a reaffirmation of the values of the Republic."

A CMIG official, Eyup Sahin, told AFP that his association was refusing to sign the charter because it had not been allowed to fully participate in its elaboration.

"It was done by two or three people," Sahin said. "If we sign a charter, it will be one that we have all worked on together."

Darmanin is set to meet again in the coming days with the president of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), an umbrella group of Muslim organisations, to try to hammer out an accord.

Read more:

https://www.france24.com/en/france/20210324-row-erupts-in-france-over-plans-to-use-state-funds-to-build-strasbourg-mosque

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assange