On 11 September 2001, journalist Carine Azzopardi was covering the attacks in New York, where she happened to be. On 13 November 2015, her partner and father of their children, music journalist Guillaume Barreau-Decherf, 43, was murdered at the Bataclan. In her book “Ces petits renoncements qui tuent” (Plon), Carine Azzopardi gives the – anonymous – testimony of a French teacher, confronted on a daily basis with the vindictive Islamism of some of his pupils. He refuses to give up and remains hopeful.
Rejection of secularism, denial of science and conspiracy… Teachers in the national education system find themselves confronted with a challenge not only to the republican model, but also to the Enlightenment, against a backdrop of a general decline in the level of students. Understaffed, teachers do not feel supported by their superiors, who seem to be out of touch with reality.
On 18 November 2022, the Brussels Court of First Instance condemned an Internet user, considering that his comment published on the social network Facebook seriously called into question my honour and reputation, which are rights guaranteed by Article 8 of the European Court of Human Rights. The court found that the comment called into question my ethics and my competence as a teacher “by imputing to her a subjectivity and xenophobia that would not allow her to give exams without an assessor by her side”, without presenting any verifiable factual elements.
In the first part of this “observatory of teachers faced with the expression of religion in schools” (IFOP survey for WATCH SCREEN, published on 9 December), 45% of teachers admitted to censoring themselves in their lessons in order to avoid possible incidents provoked by certain pupils. In this second survey, one teacher in five said that he or she had been the victim, at least once in his or her career, of a religious or identity-based attack. This undoubtedly explains this!
In the photo, the man is posing between his two wives whose faces are masked by a pink heart, as a matter of modesty. He married them on the same day and is called Rachid. He is a “Skikdi”, an inhabitant of Skikda, which has earned him the nickname “Skik-deux” on social networks, further proof that Algerians can lose everything except their sense of humour! The wedding announcement is adorned with the Koranic verse that justifies marital diversity: “It is permitted to marry two, three or four of the women you like, but if you fear that you will not be fair to them, then only one, or slaves that you own”.
After the headless (Islamist) models, here is the documentary without hair! Presented in a special screening at the last Cannes Film Festival, “Salam” by the former rapper Diam’s (co-directed with Houda Benyamina and Anne Cissé) is a Salafist propaganda film strictly framed by the standards of the most rigorous Islamism.
In her latest book “Islamophobia, My Eye!”, Djemila Benhabib borrows a formula from Salman Rushdie that sums up the extent of the deadly fraud orchestrated by the proponents of political Islam, which the secular and feminist activist of Algerian origin intends to denounce through this lucid and poignant work, halfway between a political essay and an autobiographical testimony: “A new word had been invented to allow the blind to remain blind: Islamophobia”, says the author of “The Satanic Verses” who knows better than anyone the intellectual deceptions of the Islamist inquisition.
Under the pretext of fighting against compulsory vaccination, gangs have been extorting money from businesses in Guadeloupe. You had to pay not to have your shop or supermarket burnt down. Suddenly, Paris discovered that the French departments of the West Indies are gangrenous with organised crime, and that this type of crime even has the best relations with local elected officials. And this is not the only evil from which these islands suffer. The proof: as soon as you arrive at Pointe-à-Pitre airport in Guadeloupe, posters warn of “violent radicalization” and “jihadist recruitment”.
In the photo illustrating her latest book, Djemila Benhabib has a sparkling eye, the eye of challenge. In fact, it is in the title: “Islamophobia, my eye” (Kennes Editions). A lucid look at this political scam that forbids free criticism of Islam. The essayist has herself paid the price, being dragged before the courts in Quebec on several occasions for her courageous interventions against obscurantism. Djemila, who is named after a beautiful site in Algeria, dear to Albert Camus (“The Wind at Djemila”), grew up in this beautiful and bloody country until she was exiled to France in 1994 after being sentenced to death by the GIA, the armed Islamic groups. She was barely 22 years old. Since then, she has been fighting, leading her life “Against the Koran”, the title of the book that has earned her the most admiration and hatred.
Summer is just around the corner and the perennial question of the burkini is coming back like a yearly boomerang, just like the Latin beat that should accompany summer people on the beach. However, if musical successes are never predictable, the headlines, comments, condemnations and other resurgences on the legitimacy or banning of this “beachwear”, an extension of the hijab, will certainly be at the heart of the debate.
