France/Islam: Halal slaughter becomes political issue in France
連餐飲業Halal肉在法國都能成為政治問題，不簡單。
PARIS, 29 Rabi al-Awwal/21 Feb.(IINA)-A TV
documentary’s revelation that slaughterhouses around Paris have switched meat
production entirely to halal methods has stirred a political storm in France,
where attitudes to Europe’s largest Muslim minority are a subtext in a
presidential election campaign.
The France 2 documentary last week said all of the abattoirs in the greater Paris region were
producing only halal-style meat, selling some without labeling it as such to
avoid the cost of running separate lines for halal and non-halal customers.
Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen – who is
hoping to win voters away from center-right President Nicolas Sarkozy ahead of
the two-round election in April and May – has seized on the issue.
In a country known for its obsession with the
provenance of its cuisine, the issue could play with a wider audience than the
far right, including animal rights groups, consumer advocates and food industry
professionals.
Some European animal rights campaigners say
that the Islamic halal and Jewish kosher rules for ritual slaughter are less
humane than standard European practice, because they ban the practice of
stunning animals before they are killed.
“This polemic requires us to call for more
transparency,” Frederic Freund, director of a group called Aid to Animals in
Abattoirs (OABA), told RTL radio during a call-in program.
Halal meat, slaughtered according to Islamic norms,
is a booming market in France and growing demand for it on school, hospital and
company canteen menus has already caused tension and misunderstandings between
Muslims and non-Muslims.
Officials say most of the meat consumed in and
around Paris is slaughtered outside the region and much of it still comes from
slaughterhouses that use non-halal methods.
The French state is strictly secular, and
politicians have intervened against the spread of some Muslim traditions in
ways that critics say is populist and xenophobic.
Sarkozy and his predecessor Jacques Chirac both
won support among right-wing voters for banning Muslim full-face veils in
public and headscarves in school.
Like kosher slaughter, the halal rite
requires the butcher to kill the animal by swiftly slitting its throat.
Stunning it first to lessen its pain, as recommended in a European Union
directive, is not allowed.
France’s large Muslim and tiny Jewish minorities
make up only about 10 percent of the population and not all of them eat only
meat slaughtered according to their religious traditions.
But eating halal has become an identity marker,
especially among younger members of the 5 million-strong Muslim minority. The halal market is now twice as large as that for organic
foods and is estimated to grow at 20 percent annually.
“This explosion of halal is one of the most
significant phenomena in the transformation and identity affirmation of Islam
in France in the first decade of the 21st century,” wrote Islam expert Gilles
Kepel in a new study of Muslim life in the suburbs of northern Paris.
Much of the meat Le Pen referred to would probably
not pass muster if checked by strict halal certifiers, because the animal would
probably not have been pointed toward Mecca or blessed with a short “bismillah”
(in the name of God) invocation before being killed by a Muslim butcher.
Jean-Francois Hallepee, who heads a group
representing local cattle farmers, said it had just conducted a survey in the
greater Paris region and found “100 percent of slaughtering is halal.”
After meeting demand for halal meat, slaughterhouses
usually sell the surplus unmarked through the regular food chain, said Freund,
the animal rights advocate.
“That keeps the cost of halal and kosher down,”
he said.
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