It seems clear that concerns at rising Islamophobia in Europe are justified. As the EU's economic problems continue and as it remains far from clear that the euro single currency is really going to survive the extreme financial strains imposed upon it by governmental improvidence in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy, vicious right-wing extremists continue to come out of the woodwork. The worry is that this bigotry is overflowing from right-wing parties such as France's National Front and taking to the shadows, where lurk individuals ,whose ignorance is only matched by their hatred of Muslims. Incidents of hate crimes against Muslim targets are on the rise. The latest evidence of this trend comes with the arrest of a French serviceman, who is alleged to have been planning at attack on worshippers in a mosque during Eid Al-Fitr celebrations. Police believe that the planned assault in Lyon by the man would not have been his first crime. They suspect that he was also responsible for an attack last year on another mosque in the Bordeaux region. Following the arrest of the suspect, French officials took the opportunity yesterday, of asserting that they had zero tolerance for such hate crimes. Yet the irony is that right-wing fanatics clearly feel themselves empowered in their loathsome views, by the fact that the French state itself has laws that effectively endorse the singling out of Muslims for intolerant treatment. Since September 2010, the wearing of any sort of veil has been banned by law, thus depriving Muslim women of the choice to cover up if they wish to. The legislation was protested not simply by the large Muslim minority in France, but also by liberals who rightly labelled the ban as an infringement of civil liberties. The law remains a simmering issue and has been behind several outbreaks of rioting among young Muslims, who feel that it is symptomatic of a wider assault of their Muslim values and way of life. Yet despite his supposed liberal principles, since defeating the right-wing Nicolas Sarkozy last year, socialist president Francois Hollande has made no move to repeal the controversial ban. It may indeed be, as his aides argue, that the president is almost entirely taken up managing France's economic crisis. Yet there will be many who believe that the socialist leader dare not risk voter wrath by doing what is clearly the right thing. In the first round of the presidential elections last year, Marine Le Pen leader of the far right National Front amassed for her party a record 18 percent of the votes cast. Given that much of Le Pen's electoral support is drawn from the working class that has traditionally been the bedrock of left-wing parties in France, the message Hollande seems to have taken home from the result, is that he should not undermine his electoral base further by overturning what is clearly popular legislation, however odious the ban may be to decent French people, not least French Muslims. Unfortunately appeasing the bigots is not going to make them go away. Nor are sonorous protests that prejudice will not be tolerated, going to cut any ice. The plain fact is that with the ban on the veil, France has embodied within its legislation a law that is of itself deeply intolerant and prejudiced. If Hollande is serious about cracking down on right-wing fanatics, he should scrap the ban and let Muslim women wear the veil if they choose to.
