.... Hakim El Karoui, an adviser to French President Emmanuel Macron and a proponent of further assimilation, has reinforced this view, arguing that eating halal products is not so much a religious requirement as it is a “social marker” and a sign of “the penetrations of Islamist behaviors.” He further notes that Islamic groups make significant earnings by selling and certifying halal meat, and he proposes instead that France “run the cult.”
Among the most explosive topics are public school cafeterias and whether French republican values permit observant Muslim and Jewish students to skip weekly pork offerings in favor of “substitution meals.”
On the right side of the political spectrum, the answer has been a resounding “non.” This year, Julien Sanchez, the far-right mayor of Beaucaire, in southern France, outlawed alternatives to pork in local schools. “My decision is so that the republic wins, that in France the republic has priority and not religion,” Sanchez told The Washington Post in January. [The Washington Post] Read more
