Facebook draws 7,000 to anti-Muslim pork sausage party in Paris
| Paris
French organizers of a so-called 鈥減ork sausage and booze鈥� party in Paris 鈥� designed as a deliberate provocation against Muslims 鈥� will move it from a heavily Muslim neighborhood to the Arc de Triomphe on Friday.
The group, "Identity Block," called the new venue 鈥淧lan B,鈥� after Paris police banned their bash this week on grounds of maintaining public order.
Advertised on Facebook and receiving some 7,000 RSVPs, the party is billed as a 鈥渞esistance to the Islamization of France.鈥� It was initially planned to take place next to a mosque in the 18th district after Friday prayers, and on the same day as the English-Algerian World Cup soccer match.
The date holds meaning for the French: On June 18, 1940, Charles DeGaulle issued his famous call for the French to resist Nazi occupation in World War II.
鈥淚dentity Block鈥� is an assortment of mostly French right-wing groups.
Today, the group sent out a press release, calling upon 鈥渁ll Parisians 鈥� and French鈥� to meet at the Arc de Triomphe Friday to eat ham and drink grape juice, fly French flags, protest the police ban, and listen to speeches against 鈥渞eligious control of public space鈥� in France 鈥� a reference to the majority Arab-Muslim Goutte d鈥橭r neighborhood where the sausage and wine party was to be held.
Fadela Amara, a French federal minister of Algerian origin, calls the implicit protest against Muslims "hateful, racist, and xenophobic."
Why the Arc de Triomphe?
The idea to gather at the Arc de Triomphe is described by Identity Block as symbolic, since it was where 2,000 schoolboys defied a Nazi ban on protest and marched against the occupying forces some 70 years ago.
The plan to hold a pork-and-wine bash in Goutte d鈥橭r, where the overcrowded mosque spills into the streets on Fridays, was considered provocative enough to cause a riot. Islam forbids the consumption of pork and alcoholic beverages.
But it is also the latest and most public example of France鈥檚 current identity and culture wars aimed mainly at Muslims. In the past year, a controversial 鈥渘ational identity鈥� debate run by the ruling party has gone along with a nearly completed federal ban in public places of the full-length veil or burqa worn by Muslim women. France is home to Europe鈥檚 largest Muslim population, some 4 million, most of whom are of North African origin.
Facebook flash mob
The pork bash and protest is also seen as an example of Facebook鈥檚 power to quickly mobilize large crowds. The right-wing pork party is a further morphing here of a new fad called 鈥�a辫茅谤辞 g茅ant鈥� 鈥� huge binge-drinking parties organized overnight on Facebook. A辫茅谤辞 is short for ap茅ritif, and geant means giant.
French authorities have lately reined in a辫茅谤辞 g茅ant after a man fell off a bridge and was killed; an a辫茅谤辞 g茅ant aiming at 10,000 drinkers beneath the Eiffel Tower two weeks ago was also banned.
Some conservative media have played the pork party ban as an abridgment of free speech.
Marine Le Pen, deputy leader of the right-wing National Front (FN) party, calls the ban a 鈥渃apitulation鈥� by authorities to Muslims.
The conservative American Thinker website ran a blog notice titled 鈥�,鈥� suggesting that concern by Paris city hall of a riot or casualties is a bending to Islamic law.
That is hardly the main reading in France.
A more authentic comparison might be a neo-Nazi group holding a pork barbecue in front of a synagogue in a Hasidic Brooklyn neighborhood on Passover, then, when the city bans the event, calling the response 鈥淐reeping Torah.鈥�
French Protestant clergy are opposing the anti-Muslim party, including Friday鈥檚 鈥渇estival鈥� at Arc de Triomphe 鈥� calling it 鈥渆xplicitly racial and religiously motivated.鈥� Pastors have written letters comparing derogatory images of Muslims in the Facebook invitation to ugly images of Jews broadcast during the Vichy regime under the Nazis.
Pastor James Woody of the Paris church Oratoire du Louvre said of the event that, 鈥渁 rally specifically aimed at fellow citizens of France who are Muslim, using the French flag 鈥� that is not the way to do something in brotherhood.鈥�
Websites associated with the party claim Goutte d鈥橭r has become so Islamized that pork is no longer sold there. But French media in recent days have published photos of piles of pork sausages and ham legs in the windows of shops in the Paris neighborhood.
RELATED STORIES:
