French police are banning a street party whose organizers planned to serve alcohol and pork-based sausage in a heavily Muslim Paris neighborhood.
Police said Tuesday that the party, called “Sausage and booze,” was banned because it could have been viewed as a provocation in the Goutte-d’Or neighborhood of northern Paris, where Muslims pray on the streets on Fridays because there are not enough mosques. Alcohol and pork are banned in Islam.
Organizers said they were organizing Friday’s party to protest Islam’s encroachment on traditional French values in the neighborhood. The party was backed by several extreme-right associations. Muslim groups had announced a counterparty serving halal food.
Associated Press, 15 June 2010
See also AFP, 15 June 2012
Update: See also Reuters, which reports that after the ban was announced supporters of the event wrote on the Facebook page that they would still gather in Goutte d’Or on Friday. “It’s official – Muslims can pray in the street but we don’t have the right to eat pork there. France is now ruled by sharia,” one supporter wrote. The Reuters report adds: “The Paris event page also carried announcements of similar ‘sausage and wine’ parties in Lyon, Toulouse, Brussels and London, where the event is called a ‘bacon and beer‘ party.”
The top councillor in Brent has said a protest against a Muslim peace conference in Wembley is “not welcome”.
Anti-racism activists have condemned plans to hold a “pork sausage and wine” party in a multi-ethnic Paris district to protest against what the organisers call the area’s “Islamisation”.
A protest group that tours the country staging “anti-jihad” demonstrations is planning a rally in Wembley against a Muslim peace conference.
