France goes from burkas to burgers in latest Muslim row

After the burka, France is now grappling with the bacon burger. The culinary import that was once anathema for Gallic patriots is at the heart of the latest bout of anguish over the rise of Islam in France.

Politicians, media and Paris penseurs have been piling in against Quick, a Franco-Belgian fast-food chain, over its policy of serving only halal meat in 8 of its 362 burger outlets. Smoked turkey has replaced bacon at the Islamically correct restaurants at Roubaix, on the Belgian frontier, and in Muslim-dominated suburbs of Paris and other cities.

A campaign for regional elections next month has heated a row that was ignited when Marine Le Pen, heir to her father Jean-Marie’s far-right Front National and MEP for the Roubaix area, heard about the pork-free Quicks, which have been operating since last October without a complaint.

Last weekend she denounced the “halal burgers” as an “Islamic tax”. President Sarkozy was supporting the “forced Islamisation of France” because a state investment fund holds a majority stake in the Quick company, she said.

The bacon-free policy has since been criticised by Cabinet ministers and the leader of Mr Sarkozy’s Union for a Popular Movement. Some left-wing figures are also upset. René Vandierendonck, the Socialist Mayor of Roubaix, has complained to prosecutors against Quick on the grounds that it discriminates against non-Muslims in his town.

The burger fuss is the latest manifestation of France’s anxiety over what is perceived to be an assertive Muslim population. The sense of threat lies behind the popular steps by the Government to outlaw the full Muslim veil on transport, universities and other state-run services.

It also fuelled Mr Sarkozy’s four-month “great national debate” on the nature of French identity. The exercise closed this month after focusing only on the 6 million Muslims in France’s midst.

Outsiders, especially from the “Anglo-Saxon” countries, are quick to criticise the way in which the French Establishment appears to condone intolerance and even Islamophobia. Barack Obama and The New York Times have both taken swipes at France over its restrictions on Muslim women’s dress.

However, the foreign critics find it hard to grasp the different way in which France approaches matters involving liberties, religion and race. The critics of Quick fast food and Muslim veils draw on high-minded principles that go back to the equality of the 1789 Revolution and the Republic’s more recent principle of laïcité, or strict separation of religion from public life.

These valeurs de la La République are cited by leftists and intellectuals, as well as right-wing politicians, to deplore the more visible practices of Islam. The argument is that public conduct outside the mainstream — meaning white — national culture is an act of separateness.

By setting themselves apart from traditional French life, Muslims are being identitaire and committing communautarisme. The equivalent to sectarianism, this means putting one’s ethnic or religious identity ahead of Frenchness.

Britain and the United States, with their supposed ethnic ghettos, are seen as examples of the ill. A commentator in today’s Le Figaro complained that France had imported communautarisme from America along with hamburgers, and worried that it was too late to halt the process.

This sin, however, has a flexible definition and that is what makes it dubious when applied to Muslims. With France’s collaboration in wartime Nazi genocide, no one would dare publicly to accuse the Jewish population of communautarisme. No one protests against kosher restaurants — or Chinese or Italian ones for that matter. Try substituting Jewish for Muslim in the complaints over Quick burgers and the effect is offensive.

In reality the noble values of the Republic are a hindrance to France’s ability to tackle its difficulties with the immigrants who originally came from the North African colonies. Many in France understand that, but they also note that the other, theoretically more tolerant, nations of northern Europe have not done much better.

See more on this Topic