Muslims in France feel the sting of discrimination
Devorah Lauter, Los Angeles Times, July 21, articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/21/world/la-fg-france-muslims-20100722
The relatively uncommon burka is just one of the issues making things tense. ‘It’s like the Jew before,’ one businessman says of the prejudice. ‘It’s dangerous.’
“Be patient. This is just a phase. It will all blow over eventually. “That’s what Abdel Basset Zitouni tells the young people who come seeking his advice on getting a job or starting a business. But Zitouni’s counsel isn’t just in response to questions about finding work in a depressed economy. Many of the people who knock on his office door are Muslims from the housing projects in this city west of Paris who have felt the sting of discrimination. They tell of an unwelcoming professional world, with regular bank rejections for business loans, or months without a callback for an interview. Zitouni, who presides over the nonprofit National Assn. for Young Entrepreneurs here, says it is common to hear of employers asking new hires to change their names to something more “French-sounding” and less Muslim, apparently to appease touchy customers.
Issues causing “concern and misunderstanding” among Muslims, according to the French Council of the Muslim Faith, include the proposed outlawing of the burka. “It doesn’t matter if most of us practice our religion in private or not,” said Faycal Douhane, a left-leaning activist and secular Muslim who promotes diversity in French politics. “People feel trapped because [politicians] project this false identity onto Muslims, and we then have to apologize for that.”