Every day Meryem Belmokhtar turns her tidy sitting-room into a workshop. She lays out the equipment on the table, puts on rubber gloves and dips into various jars to make up 250g bags of sweets. Each packet is marked with her logo, featuring a stick of barley sugar.
Belmokhtar, 39, lives in Compiègne, northern France, and manages the Candine Halal website (a pun on candy in English and dine, religion in Arabic), which markets the usual chocolate-coated marshmallow bears, preserved cherries and acid drops, except that hers contain no pork gelatine and are halal. In other words, they comply with Islamic dietary rules.
[TOP RATED COMMENT] Are we supposed to feel sorry for her? Forgive me if I don't.
Although this article speaks of a headscarf ban as if this is something radically new, the principle of not wearing religious items of clothing or jewellery in public workplaces and schools has been in place for decades.
If she wants to be petty minded and refuse to work because she can't wear a scarf, fine. But the problem is with her, not with the French government. [The Guardian] Read more
