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submitted 6 months ago by jeffw@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world
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[-] phoenixz@lemmy.ca -2 points 6 months ago

And France is Islamophobic because...?

[-] magnor@lemmy.magnor.ovh 11 points 6 months ago

Because Muslims are increasingly marginalised, disenfranchised and used as a scapegoat for everything that goes bad?

[-] intensely_human@lemm.ee 3 points 6 months ago

Yes that does sound like the definition of an islamophobic country. I think the question is, how specifically?

[-] magnor@lemmy.magnor.ovh 7 points 6 months ago

Pretty sure the OP was a troll, actually.

Anyhow, if you want specifics, we currently have 90 far right MPs in Congress and even our "centrist" government and the "classic right" seem to have decided muslims are to blame for everything. This includes and is not limited to :

  • banning "muslim adjacent" wear like abbayas from schools ;
  • a broad offensive to remove pork free meals from school lunches in some cities ;
  • à brutal crackdown on any pro Palestinian action, including summons from anti terrorism units that have targeted union leaders, students and leftwing MPs ;
  • targeting of muslim private schools for closure whereas radical catholic schools are absolutely fine even when they teach gay people are all rapists (see Lycée Stanislas for a very striking example) ;
  • repeated incidents of police disproportionately targeting muslims ;
  • a general attitude of paranoia regarding anything muslim : last year our Home Office equivalent actually asked primary schools to provide a list of pupils that missed class because of specifically muslim religious holidays.

I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot of things. But also, I can see everyday around me how hard muslim people, but also any arab looking person, have it in the public eye. The far right is on the rise politically but also socially. Anything that "does not belong", be it LGBTQ, non white people, etc is increasingly targeted by pressure groups of "concerned citizens ", "protector of the peace,", "defender of children" and so on. It worries me. A lot.

[-] General_Effort@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

Assuming you want to know why France is islamophobic...

It's historically grown. France invaded majority muslim, north Africa in the 19th century. Present day Algeria was french territory. The native muslim population was brutally oppressed; somewhat comparable to the oppression of blacks in the US. Nevertheless, the Muslims were french and fought for her in its wars, such as in the trenches 1914-18.

Algeria eventually won its independence after a brutal war lasting from 1954 to 1962. The brutality of this civil war is showcased by the massacre in Paris in 1961. Police attacked a peaceful demonstration for independence, murdering dozens, maybe hundreds of citizens. The police chief was a criminal nazi collaborator, convicted for his role in the holocaust. For decades, information about the massacre was suppressed in France.

President Charles de Gaulle - formerly the leader of Free France, the french forces that did not surrender to the nazis - brokered independence for Algeria. In response, far right traitors attempted a coup d'état and to assassinate him.

In many ways this history is comparable to the terrorist campaign that the US far right unleashed in the 1950/60 against African Americans and the civil rights movement. But the struggle was far more brutally fought in France. Hundreds of thousands were killed. Over a million people, mainly of european descent, were forced to flee from what became Algeria.

The decades after Algerian independence will seem quite familiar to Americans. North African Muslims had become a minority in metropolitan France (the mainland). This hated minority was quietly, without much legal upheaval, pushed to the fringes of society. Information about past atrocities against them was suppressed. Small scale terror attacks continued to happen.

These are the origins of the french far right and its islamophobia.

this post was submitted on 08 May 2024
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