Originally posted 2013-07-12 16:34:09.
Pork. It’s such a mainstay of French cuisine, that it’s frankly impossible to conceive of French food culture without it.
Every thing from saucisson to saucisses, fried, grilled, cured, dried, you name it, the French have a way of eating pork like that.
It goes back to the time of the Gauls, you know, Asterix and his lads, roasting wild boar on spits.
Ever since then, pork, whether from domestic farmed animals or wild boar hunted in the woods (or occasionally walloped by a certain French potter in his 4×4 as they cross the road, and then stuck in the freezer, but that’s another story) has been at the heart of French culture.
Pork is Under Attack
So you wouldn’t think anyone in their right minds would try to take it away, and far less that French companies would collude in this blackguardly attack on the nation’s gastronomes.
But then, that would be to ignore the increasingly fervent and unreasonable demands being made by our old friends, the Muslims, of which France has a large and noisy minority. The may only be ten percent of the total, but the fact is that they now have the political clout that France’s legendary (and now largely mythical) paysans, the peasant farmers, once had. And just as les paysans propped up a series of conservative French Governments from De Gaulle’s to Jospin’s, the Realpolitik of today means that Hollande must keep the Muslims onside if he is to win a second term.
France is itself a secular state and this is enshrined in the Constitution. However, many in the Muslim minority refuse to recognise the secular, inclusive values that are the foundation of the nation, as this story, first reported in the Le Mensuel de Rennes, the local newspaper in Rennes, recently, shows:
…In the Italie shopping centre, in the Blosne district of Rennes, the butcher (known only as Jérôme) finally closed his doors at the end of April. ‘Worn out by the pressure,’ the shopkeeper sold his premises.
In eleven years of operation, the butcher has had his window smashed a dozen times. Why? ‘Because I had the misfortune to sell pork!’ assures Jérôme. A few years ago, a message … was engraved by knife on to a wooden door in the back of his shop: ‘Death to the pigs, we will bleed you.’
Jérôme said, ‘As in previous cases, I filed a complaint at the police station. As in the previous cases, the police refused to come here to take note of it. I am bitter.’ The intimidations even went as far as physical threats. ‘Three years ago, one evening, a dozen thugs came into my shop. They told me that if I cooked galettes-saucisses (sausage pastries, a delicacy associated with Rennes) outside, as has been the tradition since forever, it would end very badly. Right away, I stopped making galettes-saucisses on Friday, a day of prayer for Muslims. I made them on Saturday in the early morning, when the troublemakers in this district are still asleep.’
Shocked by what they consider racist acts being carried out by Muslims against the local French, the inhabitants of Blosne circulated a petition to denounce them and show their solidarity with the butcher. Several hundred signatures were collected. ‘Nothing changed,’ Jérôme admits publicly. ‘I tried to resist, but I’ve given up. Today, I’m abandoning the ship.’– Le Mensuel de Rennes
The report has been circulated widely and it is high time people in France and other parts of Europe took notice of it. Our secular, democratic system has been under threat from Islam for centuries, and what it was unable to achieve by military means it may just, by stealth, infiltration and intimidation.
Do we wish to remain in a nation which may change its underlying character into something no modern European could endure, let alone enjoy? Equally, do we want to put up with increasing levels of sectarian intolerance coming from a bigoted religious group?
While, at 10%, the Muslim population is still very much a minority, it has a history of using both legitimate and illegitimate pressure to get its own way. Is France robust enough to resist, and to defend the libertarian, secular values that make it so attractive?
I’ve nothing against Muslims. I’ve nothing against Moonies, Mormons or Jaffas either. All I ask is that they practise their faith quietly and leave everyone else alone. Personally, I don’t care if you believe in some Dark-Age nonsense cooked up by an illiterate camel-herder with ambitions, as long as you keep it to yourself and out of my way.
But that appears to be the problem. For some reason, Muslims do not, apparently, accept that when they come to Europe they must recognise and adopt the culture they have immigrated into; and more importantly, that the democratic law of the land trumps all others, including those dreamed up by the aforementioned camel-herder.
Time to ‘dehalalify’ France?
However, and thankfully, there are already indications that the grim Islamists will not, at least, have it all their own way, as this report suggests:
“How to ‘deHALALify’ your supermarket in two minutes!”
“ around 20 people from the Ligue du Midi went into a supermarket in Montpellier and, in just 2 minutes, completely cleared out a halal display, throwing everything in baskets that they then left lying around the store.”
And in a deliciously French turn of the tables,
“After the offensive halal crap was cleaned out, the supermarket staff filled up the empty shelves with pork products and wine.” (http://www.barenakedislam.com)
And here:
“Quick, a fast-food French restaurant chain has become sharia-compliant by removing pork products from its menu and serving only halal-slaughtered meat at many locations.
“The Roubaix branch is one of several restaurants at which the chain, Quick, took non-halal products and pork off the menu in November…Quick decided to take a bacon hamburger off the menu, replacing it with a halal version that comes with smoked turkey.
“But the mayor of Roubaix, a French town near the northern city of Lille , has launched a law suit against the food chain, arguing that it constituted ‘discrimination’ against non-Muslims.” (http://allahhasnofuture.blogspot.fr)
Legions of farmers blocking the motorways with their tractors and fishermen bottling up ferry ports have frequently carried the day in French politics. Let’s hope that the rising numbers of champions of pork and defenders of French life can do the same.
The deep-seated anarchy and lack of respect for sacred cows (or pigs) that is at the heart of this great nation may yet, once again, be its saviour. At the same time, the growing protest movement in France has cleverly avoided the absurd accusation of ‘Islamophobia’ by making it clear that ‘halal’ and the odious methods it demands, are the real target.
And now I’m going to barbecue some nice juicy pork saucisse de Toulouse and have a glass of wine.