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Far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen said on Friday it would prevent schools from offering non-pork alternatives to Muslim pupils in the 11 towns it won in local elections, saying such arrangements were contrary to France's secular values.
France's republic has a strict secular tradition enforceable by law, but faith-related demands have risen in recent years, especially from the country's five-million-strong Muslim minority, the largest in Europe.
European countries have always been less willing to be accommodating to their Muslim populations, despite their fairly large numbers. What results is completely segregated communities where the Muslims don't integrate with the rest of society. We don't have that problem, since most American Muslim immigrants are typically very well integrated and middle class.
Well here in Australia, you either get the well integrated Muslims or the ones that don't integrate and are outspoken about it as the muslim immigrants were either well educated or not really have a good education.
Yet for Europe, the very large amount of muslims immigrating has only happened in a period of 40 years and so many of them came as unskilled workers as there was a large worker shortage in the 1960s.
If you're hungry, and food is free, and you're relying on public aid and your religion dictates you can't eat pork. The parents should get a job, don't complain about their kids eating a pork sandwich.
Parents are going to have to learn how to make lunch, pack it and send it with their kids if they don't like what the school serves.
It's getting to be too much to cater to the various individual groups that want their own meals.
Oh the hardship !
The thing is: this shouldn't be extrapolated to American politics for two reasons:
1.The National Front is an insane Neo-Fascist party.
2. France interprets freedom of religion differently than we do. In almost the opposite way, actually. We guarantee the church freedom from the state. They guarantee the state freedom from the church. This goes back to historical reasons. The U.S. was founded by the pilgrims who were looking for freedom to worship. The French Republic was founded by the upper middle class who were tired of the Catholic Church's disproportionate wealth and representation in the French government at the time.
Why can't the parents just pack their own kid's meals? I went to school with many Jewish kids and they never had any issues with what the food selections were. Of course maybe France might be different, but still I think this is easy to get around.
I find religious dietary laws to be stupid altogether. Any parent that makes their children abide by such stupid dogma isn't a mentally healthy person.
If a person has special dietary needs then it is up to that person to take responsibility for his/her own needs. They should bring their lunch from home or go hungry...The whole world should not be turned upside down to accommodate each and every "need."
My mother paid attention to the school lunch menu and either gave us lunch money or made our lunch accordingly. She would never give that responsibility to someone else.
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