Global News Journal

from FaithWorld:

Sarkozy says Muslims should not feel singled out by full veil ban

A veiled woman in Nantes, western France, on April 26, 2010/Stephane Mahe

France attempted the arguably impossible on Wednesday by presenting a bill to ban Muslim face veils and asking Muslims not to feel it was singling them out in the process.

President Nicolas Sarkozy made a brave effort of it at the cabinet meeting that approved the government's draft "burqa ban" that we reported on here.  Justice Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie, who Sarkozy's UMP party always seems to call on when things get tough, did her best in an interview (here in French) that got the part about Mecca wrong. There will be more of this in the months ahead as the bill moves through the National Assembly and Senate.

It's hard not to single out Muslims when they're the only ones who wear full face veils. The bill avoids mentioning them as such, saying only that the ban applies to "concealment of the face in public." But nobody's fooled, a fact Sarkozy acknowledged in his comments to the cabinet: "This is a decision one doesn't take lightly. It's a serious decision because nobody should feel hurt or stigmatised. I'm thinking in particular of our Muslim compatriots, who have their place in the republic and should feel respected. Laïcité means respect for all beliefs, for all religions.

"But we are an old nation united around a certain idea of personal dignity, particularly women's dignity, and of life together. It's the fruit of centuries of efforts. The full veil that fully conceals the face violates these values that are so fundamental for us, so essential to the republican contract. Dignity cannot be divided and in the public sphere, where we meet each other, where we are with others, citizenship should be lived with uncovered faces. So  ultimately there can be no other solution than a ban in all public places."

To critics who say the ban would victimise women who want to wear the veil, Alliot-Marie - seen at left leaving the cabinet meeting (photo: Jacky Naegelen) said: "As we see it, these women are victims. It would be ideal if these sanctions didn't have to be imposed on them."

Who do you call to speak to Europe?

Who do you call when you want to speak to Europe? The question, long attributed to Henry Kissinger, has yet to be answered convincingly by the 27-country European Union.

Six months ago, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told a news conference the person to call on foreign policy issues was Catherine Ashton, who had just been chosen as the European Union’s foreign affairs chief.  The “so-called Kissinger issue is now solved”, he said.

Ashton reinforced that view on Monday by suggesting she was the person to call if Iran wanted to discuss the latest diplomatic moves on its nuclear programme. “They have my phone number,” she said.

But Barroso was more vague at the news conference last November when asked whom U.S. President Barack Obama should call if he wanted to speak to the EU. He pointed out that the EU was not one country, like the United States, China or Russia — implying they each had one clear leader. He seemed to be saying that the person you have to call depends on circumstances or the nature of the problem a foreign leader wishes to discuss.

So who did Obama call when he wanted to discuss the debt crisis threatening the group of 16 EU states that use the euro?

It wasn’t Ashton — as a Briton, she is not from a euro zone country and anyway this was a call about economics, which is not in her brief.

It wasn’t Herman Van Rompuy either, even though he too could stake a claim to be the face of Europe as the bloc’s first full-time president.

EU vote result adds to Turkey’s membership woes

The results of European Parliament election have caused deep concern in European Union candidate Turkey, where gains made by conservatives and some far-right parties have been read as a  clear win by the “No to Turkey” camp” and thus a blow to Ankara’s already troubled EU membership quest.

Trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, Turkish  Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan dismissed the vote as a “futile effort by those who cannot digest Turkey’s enormity and strategic importance”. He said politicians who vilified Turkey to win votes in the short term would be judged by history.

Erdogan was probably referring to anti-immigration parties  that have openly campaigned against predominantly Muslim Turkey’s accession bid, among them the Dutch Freedom Party of  Geert Wilders who promised that Turkey would not join the  union: “Not in 10 years, not in a million years.”

from Africa News blog:

France and Africa. New relationship?

Before Nicolas Sarkozy was elected president in 2007, he made clear he wanted to break with France’s old way of doing business in Africa – a cosy blend of post-colonial corruption and patronage known as “Françafrique” that suited a fair few African dictators and the French establishment alike.

He has made the same point during his past visits to the continent.

“The old pattern of relations between France and Africa is no longer understood by new generations of Africans, or for that matter by public opinion in France. We need to change the pattern of relations between France and Africa if we want to look at the future together,” Sarkozy said in South Africa early last year.

This week he is back in Africa for a visit on which France’s business interests play a very prominent role.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sarkozy called on the country to work with former foes Rwanda and Uganda in a partnership based on exploiting the region’s natural riches.

Another stop was in neighbouring Congo Republic to see President Denis Sassou Nguesso, an old friend of France who seized power in the oil-producing state in 1979, lost it in a 1992 election and then returned five years later via a civil war. In the past, Congo Republic symbolised as much as anywhere the old style of diplomacy.

After the Congos, the schedule takes Sarkozy to Niger, a particularly important country for nuclear power dependent France because of the uranium mining interests of French state-controlled nuclear energy group Areva. It is building a huge new mine in Niger, where the government is fighting Tuareg rebels who demand more of the region’s wealth.