Bruno Le Maire stated:
“There is terrorism, yes — the crime that must be judged and condemned….And there is the ideology that is at the root of terrorism and which is more insidious — political Islam, which has had its accomplices for years in France.'”
And that is precisely the same ideology that declares women to be inferior; yet those who seek to advance the Sharia present female coverings or segregation in the West as merely a matter of modesty.
(Quran 24:31) And tell the believing women to reduce of their vision and guard their private parts and not expose their adornment except that which appears thereof and to wrap [a portion of] their headcovers over their chests and not expose their adornment except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands’ fathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers, their brothers’ sons, their sisters’ sons, their women, that which their right hands possess, or those male attendants having no physical desire, or children who are not yet aware of the private aspects of women. And let them not stamp their feet to make known what they conceal of their adornment. And turn to Allah in repentance, all of you, O believers, that you might succeed.
(Quran 33:59) O Prophet, tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to bring down over themselves of their outer garments. That is more suitable that they will be known and not be abused.
Under such provisions, women must swim separately from men. But in Western culture, as opposed to Sharia, women are equal to men, and it would be discriminatory to bar men from swimming at certain hours because women won’t be fully covered. In Western culture, there is no gender segregation based on shame and/or inferiority; nor should there be. Le Maire is right.
“French minister accuses mayors of giving in to ‘political Islam’ over swimming pools,” by Elisa Braun, Politico, October 23, 2020:
PARIS — France’s finance minister on Friday accused some mayors of giving in to “political Islam” because they allow women-only hours at local swimming pools, underscoring a harsher tone in the aftermath of a schoolteacher’s beheading.
“There is terrorism, yes — the crime that must be judged and condemned,” Bruno Le Maire told Europe 1 radio. “And there is the ideology that is at the root of terrorism and which is more insidious — political Islam, which has had its accomplices for years in France.”
Referring to differentiated hours at municipal pools, which are accused of being discriminatory, he called such moves “cowardice, small renunciations and unreasonable accommodations” which “constantly fuel political Islam.”
The comments fit in with members of President Emmanuel Macron’s government who have been speaking out more harshly against radical Islam and so-called “separatism” by religious groups in the wake of the attack — including Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin’s complaint earlier this week about religious food aisles in supermarkets.
In a separate interview granted to conservative newspaper Le Figaro, Le Maire called on business leaders to help grapple with religious separatism.
“The project of political Islam is simple: to destroy the French nation, destroy its values, sully our national memory and undermine our history,” Le Maire said. “For years, political Islam has engaged in a continuous harassment of our nation.”
He also urged “business leaders to realize that they, too, can contribute to public peace and to the fact that separatism can be fought against.”
It’s not just conservative ministers in Macron’s cabinet who are speaking out. Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer, who comes from the left, has also criticized so-called “leftist Islamism” — an expression often used in far-right circles to accuse progressive advocates of bowing to radical islam.
In early October, Macron gave a long-awaited speech on what he described as the ways radical Islamism infiltrates French society.
But the recent murder of Samuel Paty, a history teacher beheaded for showing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, forced him to adopt an harder stance….