Last week, the Paris police issued a prohibition on the distribution to the homeless of soup containing pork meat or fat. According to the police authorities – the same ones who are incapable of restoring law and order in the Paris suburbs – distributing soup containing pork or lard is a racist offence since some people in need might be Muslim and hence not allowed to eat pork. Yesterday, however, an administrative court of first instance in Paris ruled that distributing pork soup is not racist. Today Bertrand Delanoë, the Mayor of Paris, told the Paris police to appeal the court ruling.

Pork has been on the European menu since time immemorial. In the winter of 2004 Solidarité des Français (SdF), a charity organization running a soup kitchen, began to distribute “soupe au cochon” (pork soup). SdF is a private organization and is said to be closely allied with “islamophobic” groups. According to critics it put pork soup on the menu to exclude Muslims. The organization says that the soup is a traditional French recipe with origins dating back to Gallic times. Even Asterix and Obelix ate pork soup.

On 28 December the Paris police prefecture issued a prohibition on the distribution of the soup, denouncing the “xenophobic character of a charity that excludes people of Jewish and Muslim confessions.” Paris police officers had to enforce the prohibition. This time the policemen did not need to enter certain Paris suburbs because the ruling sharia authorities in those no-go areas ensure that no pork soup is served there.

Yesterday’s court ruling, which again allowed the serving of pork soup, was criticized by Bertrand Delanoë. The Paris mayor said he was “astonished” to learn that the court tolerates an initiative which “knowingly excludes Jews and Muslims.” “Confronted with this xenophobic initiative, I want to express again that the city denounces and opposes every form of discrimination, racism and anti-Semitism,” the mayor said. He asked the police prefecture to appeal the verdict.

Frédéric Pichon, the lawyer of SdF said: “There has never been any discrimination. No-one has been denied the offer of soup on the basis of his clothes, appearance, religion or race.”

Mayor Delanoë is a Socialist and an outspoken homosexual. Religious Muslims oppose homosexuality at least as much as they oppose pork soup. If the mayor considers it a racist hate crime for a private organization to offer the homeless pork soup when some of the homeless might be Muslims, he may ponder the question whether it is not a racist hate crime for a city to have a gay mayor when some of the city’s citizens are Muslims.

As Molière said: “Je vis de bonne soupe et non de beau langage” (I live on good soup, not on fine words).



Update:

Victory for Pigs: France Prohibits Soup, 8 January 2007