Eat pork or starve, say French politicians

The rhetoric from France's far-right is reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition, writes Shelina Janmohamed

France’s far right leader Marine Le Pen is offering Muslim and Jewish schoolchildren an impossible choice: eat pork or starve. Her extremist party, the Front National, has just won local elections in 11 towns around France. Schools that fall within these districts are proposing not to offer alternatives as they currently do when pork meals are served.

“We will accept no religious requirements in the school lunch menus,” said Ms Le Pen. “There is no reason for religion to enter into the public sphere.” Obviously this will affect both Muslim and Jewish children, as well as any children of Rastafarians, Seventh Day Adventists and vegetarians. But it’s the Muslim angle that gives Ms Le Pen the notoriety and headlines she craves.

Her hate-filled world is simplistic: pork versus halal, secularism versus food choices, France versus Muslim. All of them are false dichotomies to tap into the electorate’s growing wave of anger at mainstream political parties that don’t appear to be listening, and a distressing rise of extremism aimed at immigrants. The Front National, like other European extremist parties, is trying to hide its racism by pretending it is religion they are targeting. But the veneer is thin.

Europe is veering alarmingly towards the extreme right. In Greece, the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party came to prominence in 2011 in the wake of austerity measures. In 2012 its spokesperson, MP Ilias Kassidiaris claimed the Holocaust did not happen. It is easy to dismiss such parties as fringe lunatics, but their proximity to power is cause for anxiety.

In France, the Front National is the third party. In Greece, a video last week showed the Prime Minister’s chief of staff leaking classified information to the Golden Dawn spokesperson.

Ms Le Pen’s school meals remarks are a modern echo of Marie Antoinette: “Let them eat pork!”

There is another, more disturbing, European historical echo: the Spanish Inquisition. Isabella and Ferdinand persecuted Muslims and Jews who either fled Spain or were forced to convert to Christianity. To verify whether these “conversos” really had changed, Inquisitors would roam around their homes while meals were being cooked to ensure pork was used. Aromas were vetted and even rubbish was inspected to police pork consumption. The Inquisition was one of the most shameful episodes in Europe’s history, and yet, here we are again, with the same rhetoric of forcing pork down people’s gullets.

Ms Le Pen says her move is about “saving secularism”, a thinly veiled and despicable attempt to hide her hatred. Will forcing vegetarian children to eat pork save the secular state? And who knew that the French constitution enshrined food choices for its citizens? (Although if any country was to do this, it probably would be France.)

Like many who hide their hatred of Muslims under the guise of opposing halal, kosher food – which is prepared the same way – is not in their cross hairs.

France has no problem making money for itself from halal. According to the USDA, about 10 per cent of France’s annual meat and poultry exports are halal.

Ms Le Pen’s directives about what schoolchildren eat should stick in everyone’s throats. Her words have nothing to do with the relationship between the state and the citizen and everything to do with igniting hatred. We’ve been here before during the Inquisition, as during the Nazi era. Let’s learn lessons from history and avoid a hate-filled repeat episode.

Shelina Zahra Janmohamed is the author of Love in a Headscarf and blogs at www.spirit21.co.uk