- An estimated 40,000 cars are burned in France every year - a destruction often attributed to rival Muslim gangs. Every day, more than 80 cars are burned.
- The rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris, Dalil Boubakeur, called for the number of mosques in France to be doubled over the next two years. Boubakeur said that 2,200 mosques are "not enough" for the "seven million Muslims living in France." He demanded that unused churches be converted into mosques.
- Prime Minister Manuel Valls revealed in April that more than 1,550 French citizens or residents are involved in terrorist networks in Syria and Iraq.
- "Can we not talk about subjects that split opinion? If you talk about immigration, you are a xenophobe. If you talk about security, you are a fascist. If you talk about Islam, you are an Islamophobe." – Henri Guaino, MP.
- "Those who denounce the illegal behavior of fundamentalists are more likely to be sued than the fundamentalists who behave illegally." – Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Front party.
The Muslim population of France reached 6.5 million in 2015, or around 10% of the overall population of 66 million. In real terms, France has the largest Muslim population in the European Union, just above Germany.
Although French law prohibits the collection of official statistics about the race or religion of its citizens, this estimate is based on several studies that attempted to calculate the number of people in France whose origins are from Muslim-majority countries.
What follows is a chronological review of some of the main stories about the rise of Islam in France during 2015:
No comments:
Post a Comment