Tag: France

A Muslim in Paris

So, earlier this month, when my husband presented me with two tickets to Paris, I had to hide my trepidation behind a wide smile. Had my anti-French rhetoric calmed down in the past 12 months enough for him to think France was a safe space for Muslims? Had he not read the recent article in Al Jazeera highlighting Frances state-sponsored Islamophobia and the subsequent violence that followed? Did my husband even love me? Why was he sending me into the belly of the beast and disguising it as a Romantic getaway?

Subjugation, Inequality, Hostility: Hail the new French motto.

From its inception however, the phrase has never been wholly adopted by it’s citizens nor its leaders. From Napoleon to Marshal Pétain, it has had to be altered to suit Frances true relationship with equality and liberty. French women, for example, were only give the right to vote in 1945. It was one of the last countries in Europe and the world to do so, given that many of the countries that followed had been colonised and not self-governed. Freedom and equality have never been principles France has been comfortable with.