Plan B Forum

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.

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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.


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MajGenl.Meade wrote:Pagans!

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.

A pointless escalation of hatred.

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

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”.

Sue U wrote:

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 wrote: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

Gob wrote:

rubato wrote: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.

rubato wrote:


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

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

stop posting while drunk.