Source: REUTERS
By: Tom Heneghan.
PARIS, March 5 (Reuters)- France’s prime minister urged Muslims and Jews to consider scrapping their halal and kosher slaughter laws on Monday as President Nicolas Sarkozy and his allies stepped up their efforts to woo far-right voters.
Prime Minister Francois Fillon made the suggestion after Sarkozy called at the weekend for butchers to clearly label meat slaughtered according to religious laws and his allies warned immigrants might impose halal meat on French schoolchildren.
Fillon and other conservative leaders linked this tough stand on ritually prepared meat to issues such as immigration and French identity that the far-right National Front uses to tap into resentment against Europe’s largest Muslim minority.
“Religions should think about keeping traditions that don’t have much in common with today’s state of science, technology and health problems,” Fillon told Europe 1 radio while discussing the two-round presidential election ending May 6.
The “ancestral traditions” of ritual slaughter were justified for hygienic reasons in the past but were now outdated, he said. “We live in a modern society.”
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Again, democracy (‘vote-catching’) at its worst.
Surely the President will know that both Muslims and Jews are not going to give up ‘halal’ and ‘kosher’… The Muslims have stuck to it for 1400 years and the Jews for a few thousand years…
(vote-catching) at its worst. Fully agree with you. A system where heads are counted only. Human history proves that, the wise in a society, had always been in minority. Its also a common experience that, society had always been reluctant to follow the wise. Mostly people like to be driven by their passions.