Halal burgers raise French hackles
Quick’s experiment has triggered a storm of protest from politicians, who say the company is breaching the country’s secular tradition
Ben Hall
Paris — FT.com
Friday, Feb. 19, 2010 1:47PM EST
Achain of French fast-food restaurants has got itself in a pickle after it said some of its branches would serve only halal beefburgers to attract more Muslim customers.
Quick’s experiment has triggered a storm of protest from politicians, who say the company is breaching France’s secular tradition. In eight restaurants it is serving only beef from cows slaughtered in accordance with Islamic practice and all pork products have been removed.
The row has once again focused attention on French sensitivities about living with a population of 5m Muslims, the largest in Europe.
In Roubaix, northern France, home to one of the outlets concerned, the town council said on Thursday it would take legal action against the fast food chain for discrimination.
The socialist-run council accused Quick of “subordinating the supply of a good, the hamburger, to belonging or not belonging to a particular religion”.
The centre-right mayor of Marseille urged Quick to offer regular as well as halal beef in the two restaurants in the city that were part of the experiment.
Bruno Le Maire, France’s agriculture minister, waded into the row, accusing the chain of “communautarisme” – which translates loosely as dividing the country up into separate ethnic communities – and of acting “contrary to the principles and spirit of the republic”.
Some right-of-centre members of the national assembly have called for a boycott of the fast-food chain.
Quick’s marketing ploy has become the latest topic in an increasingly shrill debate about French national identity launched by the centre-right government last year.
The debate has centred on the effects of immigration and its potential impact on national unity.
At the same time as discussing vague notions of national identity, French politicians have been considering a ban on the full-face veil or niqab, which a large majority of politicians regard as an unwelcome sign of the spread of fundamentalism in some Muslim quarters.
Critics say the national identity debate was launched by President Nicolas Sarkozy last year and deliberately steered on to the issue of immigration as a way of shoring up support among rightwing voters ahead of difficult regional elections next month.
It is no coincidence, the critics add, that Quick’s halal experiment was first criticised by the far-right National Front.
Some political voices have called for greater restraint when discussing such issues. Christian Vanneste, a centre-right deputy from northern France, said he wished “these anecdotes were given the importance that they deserve, which is bordering on zero”.
He added: “There have been halal butchers and kosher grocers for a very long time without anyone making a big fuss.”
The growth of halal food is big business in France. According the consultancy Solis, the market in halal meat in France will be worth €5.5bn this year, double the size of the market in organic food.
The mayor’s decision to take Quick to court over its menu change has sparked a debate in the Juvigny family, who were lunching in the Quick restaurant on the Champs Elysée in the centre of Paris on Friday. ”I think he is going too far in taking legal action,” says 18-year-old Clement, a music student. ”He should have talked to the manager first.”
But his father, Claude, believes the mayor was right to do so, though he argues it has nothing to do with questions over the role of the Muslim community in France. ”I am OK with the restaurant serving halal meat, as long as people have a choice. If we go to a Quick, we should be able to choose. They should not impose the choice on us.”
As for whether the Juvigny family would be prepared to eat halal, there seemed little debate. ”It is only a question of how the animal is killed,” says wife Sabine. ”If it tastes the same, why not?”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010.
