Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Sweden must copy France’s approach to Islamic intolerance

There are 960 miles as the crow flies between Paris and Stockholm, but when it comes to dealing with Islam they are separated by light years. In France this week there has been something of a kerfuffle caused by a Gap back-to-school campaign that features a young girl in a hijab. One female MP from Emmanuel Macron’s ruling La République en Marche party said the campaign left her ‘sickened,’ while Marlène Schiappa, the gender equality minister, has demanded an explanation from Gap, saying: ‘You don’t choose to wear the veil at nine to ten years old.’

Incidentally, France has looked on in bemusement at Boris Johnson and his comments about the burka. The controversy that captivated Britain for a week made the periphery of the French press but there was little in the way of in-depth analysis. France had that discussion in 2010 when it banned the burka and the word most closely associated with the garment in France today is ‘séparatisme’. That needs no translating, and as recently as March this year 100 prominent intellectuals wrote an open letter to Le Figaro warning that the Islamists’ strategy of creating separate societies within France was still very much alive. The difficulty that the extremists have is France’s strict laïcité law, the shield that protects people of Muslim faith from the Islamists whose ambition is to intimidate them into following a more hardline interpretation of their religion.

Which brings me back to Sweden and the decision of the country’s labour court to find in favour of Farah Alhajeh, a 24-year-old who failed an interview for an interpreter’s job because she refused to shake the hand of her male interviewer on religious grounds. The court ruled that Alhajeh had suffered discrimination and the company was ordered to pay her 40,000 kronor (£3,420) in compensation.

In an interview with the BBC after the judgement Alhajeh said: ‘I believe in God, which is very rare in Sweden…and I should be able to do that and be accepted as long as I’m not hurting anyone.’

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