Another French actress has landed in hot water with government authorities in connection with the country’s Muslims — this time well-known singer and actress Marie Laforêt (as seen in 1973, left). Her trouble began when she advised potential Muslim employees that she had a dog that might offend them should they work for her.
That’s the latest from France, where Muslims have, over the past several years, repeatedly sent actress Brigitte Bardot to the doghouse because of her comments about Muslim immigrants.
Dogs Unclean?
According to The Local, Marie Laforêt faces legal trouble because she ran on a website an advertisement for a handyman, which contained a warning that she owned a dog. She included the warning because she knew that Muslims consider dogs “unclean.”
So she is now accused of “discriminating” against Muslims for telling them they might not want to work for her because she owns a Chihuahua, even though she included the warning because she respects Islam.
72-year-old Laforêt, who first found fame as an actress in the 1960s, placed an ad on an internet site looking for someone to carry out some work on her terrace in 2009, reported daily newspaper Le Parisien on Thursday.
She specified in the ad that “people with allergies or orthodox Muslims” should not apply “due to a small [C]hihuahua.”
Laforêt claimed that she made the stipulation because she believed the Muslim faith saw dogs as unclean.
The case was taken up by anti-discrimination organization [Movement Against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples], which lodged a complaint against the internet site which ran the ad.
Her lawyer said the idea that “Marie Laforêt is racist is just stupid," the Local reported. Laforêt, the lawyer said, "has always shown her interest and admiration for the Muslim faith."
“She knew that the presence of a [dog] could conflict with the religious convictions of orthodox Muslims. It was a sign of respect.”
Unsurprisingly, “experts” on Islam disputed the truth that Muslims think dogs are unclean, despite mountains of evidence — not least the many passages about dogs in the Koran and other Muslim holy books — to the contrary. Islam considers dogs “ritually unclean” or “najis,” the Islam Q&A website says.
As The New American reported in October, quoting the Husdon Institute website, officials in Lérida, Spain, are investigating a spate of dog poisonings thought to be the work of Muslims.
According to Soeren Kern, “Residents taking their dogs for walks have been harassed by Muslim immigrants opposed to seeing the animals in public. Muslims have also launched a number of anti-dog campaigns on Islamic websites and blogs based in Spain.”
Such is the Muslim anger about dogs in the Catalonian town, about 100 miles west of Barcelona, that dog lovers have created six-man patrols to escort people walking their dogs.
Wrote Kern, “In July, two Islamic groups based in Lérida asked city officials to regulate the presence of dogs in public spaces so they do not ‘offend Muslims.’ Muslims are demanding that dogs be banned from all forms of public transportation including all city buses as well as from all areas frequented by Muslim immigrants."
The New American has not been able to determine the outcome of Laforêt’s case. She was supposed to be in court on December 1.
Islam Is Clear: No Dogs
Given Laforêt’s dog business and other incidents, it is worth considering the truth about Islam and man’s best friend. Writing at National Review Online, Canadian columnist Mark Steyn, opened his column about the legal travails of the French actress thusly:
You may have noticed in recent years various foot-of-the-page news stories about Muslim cabbies at Minneapolis Airport refusing to allow seeing-eye dogs in their taxis, or a dispute between Dutch dog-walkers and a local mosque, or a mysterious spate of dog poisonings in heavily Muslim parts of Catalonia, or the decision by the British police to make sniffer dogs wear booties to avoid offending Muslims, or Anwar Sadat’s daughter suing Dreamworks for naming a dog after her father in the film I Love You, Man, or the introduction of the seeing-eye horse for blind Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan. And you might have concluded, as a sensitive multicultural type, that Muslims aren’t quite so keen on man’s best friend as your average infidel.
The story from Minneapolis by ABC News in 2007 was particularly disturbing. At the time, at least, 675 of the airport’s 900 cab drivers were Somalis who would not transport passengers carrying alcohol or accompanied by dogs. It quoted one cab driver thusly: "It is against our faith and the airport is discriminating against Muslim drivers." The airport, ABC reported, was punishing drivers who refused fares. ABC had reported that cabbies turned away 5,400 fares between 2002 and 2007.
“Some had guide dogs or pets, others were carrying cases of wine from California, or liquor from duty-free shops,” ABC reported, although the number had declined. "There are times where cab after cab will refuse service, and passengers can be waiting for 20 minutes," an airport official told the network.
A story in the Chicago Tribune about “seeing-eye horses” in Dearborn, Michigan quoted a spokesman from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), who explained that Muslims believe dogs “violate ritual purity.” That’s why blind Muslims need “seeing-eye horses.”
Bare Naked Islam links to more than a dozen articles on Islam and dogs.
In other words, Islam is clear: Dogs are unclean.
No Moderate Islam
In something of an irony, a minister in the French government has said that “moderate” Islam is a figment of the liberal imagination. And it wasn’t just any government official: the minister is a woman of Arab descent.
Jeannette Bougrab, the Secretary for Youth and Community Issues, flatly stated last week that “moderate” Islam is non-existent, Le Parisien reported.
The raven-haired beauty, speaking as a “French woman of Arab origin,” told Le Parisien that the triumph of Islamic political movements in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia is “worrying.”
“I don’t know of any moderate Islam,” she told the newspaper. “There are no half measures with sharia,” the socialist campaigner against racism added. “I am a lawyer and you can make all the theological, literal or fundamental interpretations of it that you like, but law based on sharia is inevitably a restriction on freedom, especially freedom of conscience.”
Muslims in France a Problem
But squabbling over chihuahuas isn’t the only problem in France. Stifling political discussion is another, as actress Brigitte Bardot has learned.
French authorities have prosecuted the former screen siren five times for "hate speech," fining her tens of thousands of dollars because she has criticized the ritual slaughter of animals by Muslims in France and complained about Muslim immigration: “My country, France, my homeland, my land is again invaded by an overpopulation of foreigners, especially Muslims,” she said. And she also fretted about the number of mosques in the country, “while our church bells fall silent for want of priests.”
The same group that filed a complaint against Laforêt also persecuted Bardot.
Beyond that, Muslim “youths” have twice rioted over perceived slights from the French government. In August 2009, Muslims set fire to the “no-go zone” of Bagnolet, while the city of lights famously went up in flames in 2005. Muslims in Paris have created 751 no-go zones around the city. The French call them “sensitive urban zones.”
The lunacy that has engulfed France might be one reason French President Nikolas Sarkozy joined British Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to confess in February that multiculturalism in France hasn’t worked.
Said Sarkozy, “It is a failure.”
