A Muslim political party will be contesting seats at next month’s regional elections in France, standing on a platform which includes promises to expand the halal industry and allow girls to wear the burqa. Critics have called the Democratic Union for French Muslims a “catastrophe”, claiming that it flies in the face of France’s secular history, but it’s founder insists that his party promotes religious tolerance.
10 percent of the French population is Muslim, giving the party a potential support base of around 6 million voters. “Muslims don’t feel well served by any of the traditional parties,” the party’s founder, Nagib Azergui, a 38 year old technology consultant, told the Sunday Times.
Yet Azergui has admitted that, following the attack by Islamists on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in January and a recent copycat attack in Copenhagen, support has been hard to come by. “Some of our candidates decided to withdraw — they were afraid for their families,” he said, adding that some financial backers had also decided to pull out. “I knew things would be complicated. But I had no idea we’d be so stigmatised.”
The party, launched in 2012, had been planning to field candidates in eight regions, but has now decided to focus on Marseilles where a large Muslim population resides. It will also field a challenger to President Francois Hollande in 2017. But Azergui has blamed it’s recent problems on “Islamphobia”.
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