France anti-separatism law

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https://www.france24.com/en/video/20210 ... -community

I am totally for it.

Rad Islamists should either cope with the host country or leave, there's no way to reason with them.

France’s controversial ‘separatism’ bill: Seven things to know

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/2/1 ... -explained

Agreed.

I agree with that sentiment in principle, but I think these types of laws can still be problematic because of selective enforcement, or disproportionate media attention to the wrong facets of the issue (there's no escaping the fact that A LOT of people will interpret it as official validation for "fighting back against Muslims" in general rather than "fighting back against fundamentalists, of any kind"). The devil really is in the details. So, in practice, I can't say if I agree or disagree.

I think a big part of the problem in France is that there seems to be a sort of obsessive and contradictory anti-religious culture in the name of religious freedom, and the government seems really tone-deaf with the way it responds to religiously-motivated violence. The government argues or responds as if it's all the same thing whether it is with Muslims today or the Catholic church in the past, but it isn't. The church was a powerful oppressive institution, while today's French Muslims are in large part a legacy of past colonialism by France.

Things that apparently are normal in France, like banning headscarves in public for example, seem totally baffling, absurd and unnecessary to me. It's hard to imagine that Muslims wouldn't feel targeted, considering how religion seems to play a larger cultural role is Islam today than in Catholic communities. And that's even giving legislators the benefit of the doubt and assuming that Muslims actually aren't being targeted. It's fertile ground for extremism. I think as long as France fails to recognize that, the problem will keep getting worse, and fighting against the symptom alone (extremism) without addressing root causes always has the potential to not only fail, but actually backfire.

As remember, this type of anti-religious view against Jews in Europe didn't work out so well. Why do you think anti-Islamic sentiment will work better?

For all its failings, I think Lebanon itself has done a much better job at it than France, by actually acknowledging that the country has a diverse set of religious communities instead of just pretending that it doesn't.

Btw, I won't say "I hope your country is doing well" because I know it just can't be, but I hope you at least are.

Irrational comparison.

Pointless comment.