Pork on the menu

[Gob]

You can get a bad meal in France, apparently

When Aïcha Tabbakhe, a Frenc.h nurse, went to fill out the forms for her children’s school dinners in her small town outside Paris, she was puzzled.

The box she would usually tick to say that her Muslim children didn’t eat pork wasn’t there. “Confused, I called the town hall and I was bluntly told: ‘From now on, that’s the way it is,’” she said. “Pork or nothing.”

After years of French controversies over headscarves, pork has become the new battleground in the nation’s uneasy debate over national identity and the place of Islam. Bacon and sausage school dinners are being used by rightwing politicians to hammer home what it means to be French. Court battles and vicious political spats have erupted as protesters warn that controversial menu changes are sending a message to Muslim or Jewish children that to be truly French, they must eat roast pork. Politicians, as they go to war over the ham on school dinner plates, are fighting about the true meaning of French secularism and whether it has been hijacked and twisted by the right in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks.

Tabbakhe’s home town of Chilly-Mazarin – a town of about 20,000 people in L’Essonne, which nudges up against Orly airport to the south of Paris – is the latest of several run by rightwing mayors to announce they will scrap pork-free options in school canteens in the name of secularism. For 30 years, Chilly-Mazarin has provided non-pork alternatives to Muslim and Jewish children. But from November, that will stop. On days when the menu features dishes such as roast pork with mustard and courgette gratin, or Strasbourg sausage and organic lentils, or ham pasta bake, children whose families don’t eat pork for religious reasons will be offered nothing but the side dishes. The new mayor, Jean-Paul Beneytou, from Nicolas Sarkozy’s rightwing Les Républicains party, says this is a commonsense way to preserve public sector “neutrality”. But many parents, teachers and leftwing opposition politicians call it a deliberate stigmatisation of Islam that is cruel to children by playing politics with school lunches.

France’s much vaunted secularism is not the neutral space it claims to be
Giles Fraser
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“It’s the impact on the children that has been the hardest,” says Tabbakhe. “My four-year-old daughter is too young to understand that she doesn’t eat pork. It’s not something she’s aware of and it’s not something we talk about. What am I supposed to tell her now? We tried to subtly tell her we didn’t eat pork at home. But she thought ‘pork’ was a type of dessert. She said, ‘Yes, I do eat it, it’s delicious.’ That would be funny if it wasn’t such an awful situation. She is totally confused and has picked up on the atmosphere. She’s crying at school and says she doesn’t want to eat at the canteen. My nine-year-old son went door to door with a parents’ association petition against this and got lots of signatures from non-Muslim parents who were upset. He said to me, ‘Don’t worry, Mum, I won’t eat it.’ He shouldn’t have to be worrying about this. School is supposed to be about learning and living together, not about this. Now my nine-year-old is starting to ask, ‘Why am I different?’”

Tabbakhe takes off her headscarf every morning to go to work because by law, French public-sector workers, including hospital staff, must be seen as neutral and cannot show religious belief with an outward symbol. “That is the law, so I do it. But this isn’t the law,” she says.

In the past eight months, decisions by some rightwing mayors to end pork-free school meals – with the full support of the former president Sarkozy – have sparked outrage, petitions and court battles. School canteens in France are run by town halls, which are free to make their own rules. Unlike in the UK, French state schools do not offer halal or kosher meat. Muslim or Jewish children who stay for lunch eat the same meat as everyone else. But on days where pork is served, a large number of town halls offer substitutes, such as a turkey sausage. Other towns offer vegetarian options. There has never been a big movement to demand halal or kosher meat in France – children who eat only halal or kosher either go home for lunch or attend private faith schools. But now controversy has gripped France.


continues...

[Guinevere]

They love their pigs in France. Ham for everyone!

[Gob]

Jambon!

[MajGenl.Meade]

Pagans!

[Big RR]

Are there moslems, or jews for that matter, who do not demand halal/kosher meat but yet refuse to eat pork? If so, a reasonable accommodation (such as alternative vegetarian dish) would not be too much to ask, but France has its own ideas.

[Scooter]

This is one of those cases where I would say that secularism is being turned into a religion.

[Big RR]

Perhaps, but it seems more like another thinly veiled "we don't want you here" aimed squarely at immigrants.

[dales]

Pagans!

Let's not get started on the "Pagan Easter Ham" thread.......no sense in beating a dead pig.

[oldr_n_wsr]

How about Spiritual Christmas Bacon.

[rubato]

I'm surprised at how mean-spirited and bigoted their reaction is.

Providing meals acceptable to vegetarians and those who keep Halal / Kosher is simply a matter of common decency. What is gained by telling your Jewish and Islamic ( and vegetarian ) neighbors that you hate them so much that you will force their children to go hungry?

A pointless escalation of hatred. Saddening. But it is just a few narrow little villages, rather like the American South.

yrs,
rubato

[Econoline]

I was agreeing with this post completely and enthusiastically...until I got to the final sentence.
Rubato, sometimes you should just stop writing and let a thought remain inside your head.

Oh, well...

Anyway, I *DO* strongly agree with this much:

I'm surprised at how mean-spirited and bigoted their reaction is.

Providing meals acceptable to vegetarians and those who keep Halal / Kosher is simply a matter of common decency. What is gained by telling your Jewish and Islamic ( and vegetarian ) neighbors that you hate them so much that you will force their children to go hungry?

A pointless escalation of hatred. Saddening.

But IMO the superfluous dig at the American South is itself

A pointless escalation of hatred.

Saddening.

[rubato]

The confederate flag worship is an analogous public expression of hatred, and mostly a southern phenomenon.

It think it is appropriate to acknowledge that we in the United States have the same problem that they do.

yrs,
rubato

[Sue U]

menu changes are sending a message to Muslim or Jewish children that to be truly French, they must eat roast pork.

Exactly.

The new mayor, Jean-Paul Beneytou, from Nicolas Sarkozy’s rightwing Les Républicains party, says this is a commonsense way to preserve public sector “neutrality”.

This isn't "neutrality," it's an aggressive anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish policy. If they wanted to be neutral, they'd be providing only vegetarian lunches -- a healthier option in any event.

[rubato]

menu changes are sending a message to Muslim or Jewish children that to be truly French, they must eat roast pork.

Exactly.

The new mayor, Jean-Paul Beneytou, from Nicolas Sarkozy’s rightwing Les Républicains party, says this is a commonsense way to preserve public sector “neutrality”.

This isn't "neutrality," it's an aggressive anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish policy. If they wanted to be neutral, they'd be providing only vegetarian lunches -- a healthier option in any event.

Cheaper, better for the environment too.


yrs,
rubato

[Gob]

The confederate flag worship is an analogous public expression of hatred, and mostly a southern phenomenon.

It think it is appropriate to acknowledge that we in the United States have the same problem that they do.

yrs,
rubato

This in a topic on French kids school meals, OCD is a major component of Aspergers.

[wesw]

"thinly veiled..." ?

I thought that they had gotten rid of those damned veils already....

[rubato]

The confederate flag worship is an analogous public expression of hatred, and mostly a southern phenomenon.

It think it is appropriate to acknowledge that we in the United States have the same problem that they do.

yrs,
rubato

This in a topic on French kids school meals, OCD is a major component of Aspergers.

OMG! A mental health ward orderly thinks he is a qualified Psychiatrist!


Go piss down your other leg and stop posting while drunk.


yrs,
rubato

[Gob]

OMG! A mental health ward orderly thinks he is a qualified Psychiatrist!


Go piss down your other leg and stop posting while drunk.


yrs,
rubato

This, in a topic on French kids school meals, inability to respond rationally to criticism is a major defining symptom of Aspergers

[Joe Guy]

Go piss down your other leg and stop posting while I'm drunk.

FTFY

[Lord Jim]

stop posting while drunk.