Foreign Affairs

French Town To Muslim Supermarket: Sell Pork, Or We’ll Shut You Down

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A French town in a Paris suburb has told a halal supermarket that if it doesn’t start selling alcohol and pork, the store will be aggressively shut down.

The store, called Good Price, is apparently violating the terms of its lease agreement that it has with the local town, namely that it has to act as a general food store, The Telegraph reports.

And part of being a general food store entails selling items like alcohol and pork, which the store currently does not, owing to the fact that it is a halal store and hence follows Islamic food regulations.

“The mayor of Colombes, Nicole Goueta, went there herself and asked the owner to diversify the range of products by adding alcohol and non-halal meats,” Jérôme Besnard, the mayor’s chief of staff, told The Telegraph.

Older residents in Colombes had complained vociferously that they weren’t able to get the products they wanted from Good Price.

“We want a social mix. We don’t want any area that is only Muslim or any area where there are no Muslims,” Besnard added.

As a result, the French town is trying to prematurely end the store’s lease, which currently is set to run to 2019.

The store’s own has hired a lawyer to push back against the eviction effort.

Elsewhere in France, Muslim practices are running up against the country’s strong tradition of public secularism.

A group in Marseille has booked a waterpark for the day for the purpose of only allowing Muslim women who wear the bathing suit equivalent of a burka, called a “burkini.”

“This Islamist day demonstrates that, outside of the comforting words of Muslim authorities, a certain number of Muslims are deciding among themselves to break away from our Republican model and put themselves outside our society,” Stephane Ravie, a mayor of two districts in Marseille, said.

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