Talking of food, the head honcho of Marie Claire wrote to a bistro boss and told him that he and some guests would very much like to dine at his restaurant. It had been chosen to be featured in 'Paris vu par... Jean-Paul Lubot', on condition that the meal was offered. Old JP was given short shrift by the manager who told him his request was 'louche et frauduleuse'. Magnificent words from a man whose bistro could have been bathing in the light of a thumbs-up review in a major magazine, but chose to stick two fingers up instead.
At the other end of the social scale, an association providing free meals for people in need was given a couple of wild boar weighing in at 30kg to add to the menu. These beasties had been rampaging through the centre of Chambery last week along with the rest of the family and were brought down before they wrought too much havoc. The association was offered eight beasties in total, but only accepted two because of the work needed to butcher them. They will be dealt with by retired butchers who on the previous Monday had sharpened their knives on a boar of 95kg! Bon appetit!
Unlikely to tuck into a meal of civet de sanglier however will be Muslim recipients of these dinners. Not only would they be horrified at the prospect, but they should also be concerned about the results of a new IFOP/Le Figaro survey. It shows a hardening of attitudes among the French towards Muslims - 43% of those questioned said that they thought Islam is a 'threat', due especially to an increase in the visibility of Islam in the media and in public. 67% think that Muslims don't integrate enough; 63% don't want to see veils and scarves in the street and 89% don't want to see them in schools. 69% believe that France has been extremely welcoming to Muslim immigrants but that they reject French values.
What this means is that despite years of having Islam rammed down our throats by a pc media, the French refuse to be lobotomised into accepting all the disinformation thrown at them. What will the government do with these results? Nothing, it will continue to ignore the rising frustration of the people, let ever more immigrants into the country and clamp down on dissent.
As it has done with Génération-identitaire, a group of essentially young adults under 30 from the extreme right, whose group is at present under threat of dissolution. They decided to occupy, peacefully, an unfinished mosque in Poitiers. A mosque which is supposed to be just a building site, the owners having run out of money, yet has in it prayer carpets... Four of the occupiers are accused of 'damaging a prayer carpet' and a judge is asking for a maximum prison sentence of 5 years!
France is a country where many of us love to live, but it's not all wine, baguettes and pretty countryside. There are a lot of very worrying and dodgy tendencies that are becoming increasingly widespread, and not just in France. Ignore them at your peril.
