He's young, good-looking and he has a cause!

Charles Aslangul (21) is a City councilor in Bry sur Marne* (UMP) and president of a new movement baptised "Ordre Republicain".

His mission?

Prevent the fast food hamburger joint called QUICK from serving Halal burgers.

What's Halal? It's like Kosher but for Muslims.

QUICK, a for-profit fast food chain, noticed an opportunity. France has six million Muslims that will spend $5.7 billion dollars this year on Halal food--that's twice the organic market (Halal Food Takes an Upscale turn in France-NYT).

So QUICK did a test. Eight outlets served Halal for six months. Conclusion: sales took off ! Clients liked Halal! The number of restaurants was expanded to 22.

The mayor of Roubaix, a city in northern France with a large Muslim population, filed a complaint : discriminatory! sectarian! no pork! (France has a huge pork industry)

But, as happens in capitalism, clients voted with their feet (um, mouths).

I didn't really pay attention (despite writing about discrimination in Sorbonne Confidential) until QUICK went Halal on the edge of my town, and otherwise reasonable people went ballistic.

"We will not tremble before the multinational QUICK!" young Aslangul thundered. He bravely put up posters saying: "Only Halal? No thank you!" And he was not alone.

What's so terrible about a restaurant serving only Halal meat? I wondered. The taste? The cost? The fact that junk food's terrible for you?

No! he explained in an interview. "It's a question of the "principles of secularism, equality and individual liberties" It's about fighting discrimination !

What's wrong with letting the individual consumer choose freely between QUICK's Halal junk food and McDO's patriotic junk food?

"To fail to offer a choice and to impose Halal food is discriminatory and at the same time closes Islam on itself!"

Since when did American style junk food become a core French value worth defending in court?

I should have the right, a young mother told me, to take my kids to QUICK without forcing them to eat ritual religious food!

French people fighting for the right to feed their kids American-style junk food processed with industrial pork?

As silly as this looks -- defending patriotic McDO-style junk food instead of QUICK Halal junk food--this is a debate to follow.

How will McDo (as McDonald's is known here) respond? With French patriotism? Organic? Kosher? More pork? Or a Halal offer of its own?

There's a lot of irony in seeing French politicians equate crappy American-inspired junk food with democratic freedoms. (see Quick Halal: vive la malbouffe pour tous!") But let's not laugh too soon: as a nutcase pastor in Florida promotes "International Burn a Koran Day", can France be far behind?

The violent emotional reaction by French pols and otherwise reasonable housewives should not be underestimated. What's really being expressed here is fear. Not of porkless meat, but of the growth of the Muslim religion in France.





***********************

*Bry sur Marne is the quaint and peaceful town of 16,000 I immortalized in Sorbonne Confidential as "Beauté sur Marne".

