Newcomers to France to sign ‘no-burqa’ clause

From the Dawn:

The “no burqa” clause and a second provision rejecting female genital mutilation should be added to the “integration contract” that newcomers have been asked to sign since 2007, said Families Minister Nadine Morano. The government is drafting legislation to restrict the wearing of the face-covering veil after a parliament report last month called for a burqa ban in all schools, hospitals, government offices and public transport.

Morano said the newcomers’ contract currently states that forced marriages and polygamy are not allowed in France because “equality between men and women is a fundamental principle of French society.”

The minister told French radio that the clause –”the same applies to the full veil” — should be added to that provision. “I also want to add that female genital mutilation is strictly prohibited,”she said.
Morano plans to propose the changes at a conference on Monday called by the government to take stock of its three-month debate on national identity that has exposed fears about immigration and Islam.
Prime Minister Francois Fillon last week said he would sign a decree refusing French citizenship to a man who forced his wife to wear the full Islamic veil.

 

French Muslims fear rise in Islamophobia after mosque attack

Image from France 24

From France 24 and AFP:

After condemning the weekend mosque attack which occurred in the north of Paris, France’s top council of Muslim representatives called for a national debate on Islamophobia. The attack was the latest in a growing trend of violence targeting mosques.

AFP - France’s top council of Muslim representatives on Monday condemned a weekend attack on a mosque north of Paris and called for a national debate on Islamophobia.

Vandals painted “Islam get out of Europe” and “France is for the French” on the walls and entrance of the mosque in Crepy-en-Valois overnight Saturday to Sunday.

 

U.S. Speeding Up Missile Defenses in Persian Gulf

(Image from the NYT)

By David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt, for the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is accelerating the deployment of new defenses against possible Iranian missile attacks in the Persian Gulf, placing special ships off the Iranian coast and antimissile systems in at least four Arab countries, according to administration and military officials.

The deployments come at a critical turning point in President Obama’s dealings with Iran. After months of unsuccessful diplomatic outreach, the administration is trying to win broad international consensus for sanctions against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, which Western nations say control a covert nuclear arms program.

 

Group: 150 Muslims killed in Nigerian town

From the Washington Post:

JOS, Nigeria — An international human rights group is calling on Nigerian officials to investigate reports that at least 150 Muslims were killed in a central Nigerian town.

Human Rights Watch on Saturday cited reports of a massacre in a town located south of Jos, where fighting broke out between Christians and Muslims about a week ago.

 

Eurabian Follies

Image from Foreign Policy Mag

By Justin Vaisse, for Foreign Policy Magazine:

By 2050, Europe will be unrecognizable. Instead of romantic cafes, Paris’s Boulevard Saint-Germain will be lined with halal butcheries and hookah bars; the street signs in Berlin will be written in Turkish. School-children from Oslo to Naples will read Quranic verses in class, and women will be veiled.

At least, that’s what the authors of the strange new genre of “Eurabia” literature want you to believe. Not all books of this alarmist Europe-is-dying category, which received its most intellectually hefty treatment yet with the recent release of Christopher Caldwell’s Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, offer such dire and colorful predictions. But they all make the case that low fertility rates among natives, massive immigration from Muslim countries, and the fateful encounter between an assertive Islamic culture and a self-effacing European one will lead to a Europe devoid of all Western identity.