Turns out the tolerant French aren't exactly wild about Islam

The globalism loving, open borders crowd in France who support the European Union and “cultural integration” might not be as much of a dominant force as they thought they were. The Daily Caller picked up the results of an Ipsos poll over there which produced at least one eye opening statistic. When asked if they thought that the religion of Islam was “compatible” with French society and culture, the answer came back with a resounding Non!

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A strong majority of French adults say Islam is incompatible with their society.

A new Ipsos poll finds that 61 percent of adults say Islam is incompatible with French society, compared to just 17 percent who say the same about Judaism and 6 percent who believe Catholicism is incompatible with French society.

The number of those who believe Islam is incompatible is trending upwards and has jumped 8 points since peaking in January 2015, when 47 percent of Frenchmen said Islam is compatible with French society.

It’s not just the existence of the religion in and of itself which concerns large portions of the French population, but also much of the accoutrements which go along with it. 77% want the burkini banned at swimming areas and 79% said they would like head scarves to be banned at universities. The burkini I can kind of see because they’re rather ugly, but a head scarf ban on campuses sounds like an idea you couldn’t even sell in most of the United States. But then again, we have a lot more freedom of expression, religion and speech than most of Europe so we tend to be more forgiving of such things unless the clothing in question causes a security concern.

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If these results are solid (and Ipsos tends to a reliable outfit) one has to wonder why Marine Le Pen isn’t doing even better in the polls than she currently is. This has pretty much been a cornerstone of her campaign, along with a general distrust of the European Union and opposition to the erosion of traditional French values and culture. On a related note, her recent trip to Russia to visit Vladimir Putin seems to have the European media up in arms. During an interview with the BBC this week she pretty much blew up at a reporter who asked if she could be tough enough on the Russians. (HuffPo)

Le Pen, who heads Front National and is leading the French Presidential race, went into a furious rant when asked if she would protect the Baltic nations that straddle Europe’s border with Russia.

“You want war at all costs,” she raged at Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis in an interview on Tuesday.

“What is your problem? You want to go to war. Do you like war? You want conflicts – you want us to start World War Three!

“At the moment, no-one wants to go to war with anyone. I’m happy to go into all the hypotheticals, but no-one is going to war with anyone.

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It’s certainly a lively show in the political circus in France these days and since they will no doubt be heading into a run-off election there’s well over a month left to go. Things are starting to calm down (at least in some ways) here in the United States after the last election, but in France it’s clearly still 2016.

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David Strom 6:40 PM | April 18, 2024
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