Mohamed Latreche, who led a Paris protest last Saturday against a planned ban on Muslim headscarves in state schools, branded Israel a racist country and equated Zionism with apartheid in a speech to the marchers.
Ten thousand people, mostly Muslim women, marched in protest through Paris on Saturday. Similar demonstrations by Muslim women took place in other cities in Europe and the Middle East. Two thousand people turned out in Stockholm, 2,400 in London, 2,500 in Beirut, 300 in Nablus, about 100 in Washington, D.C. A typical chant: “My scarf, my choice.”
The demonstrators were protesting the French proposal to ban all “conspicuous” religious garb of students in its public schools, including the headscarves of Muslim women and girls, yarmulkes and crosses “of manifestly excessive dimension.” The purpose, French President Jacques Chirac says, is the protection of French secularism.
France is ready to open a new chapter in its strained relations with the United States but without changing any of its foreign policy objectives, government officials say.
A series of official comments and news analyses point to a strong desire to end the sniping that has marred the trans-Atlantic relationship for most of last year.
Je suis Alicja et j’habite en Pologne, a Varsovie. Moi, j’adore le francais, la France. Mon reve, c’est apprendre le francais plus, (puisque je ne parle pas bien) et trouver qqn qui sera mon "e-friend". Qui voudrait m’aider? mon e-mail: hoiko@wp.pl
Les Halles is an area of Paris, located in the 1er arrondissement. It is named for the large central marketplace, which was demolished in 1971 to be replaced with an underground modern shopping precinct, the Forum des Halles. Special is that the open air center area is below street level, like a pit.