Just under 30 percent of France’s 3 to 4 million Muslims reject the country’s secular laws, according to an Ifop poll published by the French weekly Journal du Dimanche.
When asked if they considered the Islamic legal and moral code of sharia to be more important than the French Republic’s laws, 29 percent of respondents answered “yes.”
The poll found that 20 percent of male Muslim respondents and 28 percent of female Muslim respondents were in favor of the face veil, the niqab, and of the burqa which covers both face and body.
Another 60 percent said they were in favor of letting girls and women wear a head scarf at schools and universities which is forbidden at France’s secular public institutions.
Deadly attacks by Islamist militants, including bombings and shootings in Paris which killed 130 people last November and a truck attack in Nice killing more than 80 people in July, have raised tensions between communities in France. [Reuters] Read more
”We cannot live among people who support Islamic law” – Nicolas Sarkozy
FORMER head of state, Nicolas Sarkozy has said France will never accept Sharia and that any radical muslims should be “kicked out”.
An opinion poll carried out by the Montaigne Institute, a liberal think tank, revealed that 29 per cent of Muslims living in France were hardline – known as “ultras” in France – who believe the country should respect Islamic law.
Sharia is widely considered as unsecular and flying in the face of the country’s liberal values.
Responding to this “troubling” poll during a radio interview with Europe 1 today Mr Sarkozy, said that the “zealous” Muslim community – the 29 per cent – should be deported from France, or be forced to assimilate – not just integrate – into French society.
He said: “The Montaigne Institute’s poll is extremely troubling. It proves that a quarter of young Muslims are being seduced by radical ideology.”
According to the right-wing presidential candidate, it would be “irresponsible” for the government to allow these pro-Sharia youngsters to follow their Islamic law dream and said: “I’m not being over dramatic.
“The truth is this, simply integrating radical youngsters into France’s Republican society has not worked, it will never work. They must assimilate into French society and culture.” [Daily Express] Read more
One in four French Muslims in ‘revolt’ against secular laws
Around one in four French Muslims, mostly young people, support an ultra-conservative form of Islam, including the wearing of the full-face veil, but the vast majority accept France’s strict secular laws, a study showed Sunday.
The Ifop survey carried out for a major study of French Muslims by Institut Montaigne, a liberal think-tank, showed that the vast majority of people who identify as Muslim accept curbs on religion in public.
But 60 percent considered girls should nonetheless be allowed to wear the headscarf in school, 12 years after it and other religious symbols were banished from the classroom, the survey published in Le Journal du Dimanche weekly showed.
And around one in four — 24 percent — supported the wearing of the burqa and niqab, the full-face veils that were banned in public places in 2010.
The survey of 1,029 people aims to inform the government’s plans to overhaul French Muslim bodies in the wake of several jihadist attacks, most of them the work of French extremists. [AFP] Read more
Islam Surveyed 