The New Leviathan Blog

Pig soup: the failure of xenophile power

The decision, taken on Friday, curiously went almost unnoticed. Curiously given the current media and political excitement around the issue of homelessness. Curiously also given its character as a snub for the authorities. They have just been condemned for having in the past banned the distribution to the most deprived on public roads of a “pig soup” prepared by far-right charitable associations. These unique charitable operations began in the winter of 2004 in the heart of Paris, in the dilapidated surroundings of the Gare de l’Est and Saint-Lazare stations, then spread to the provinces, to Nice for example. Set up by an association called “SDF-Solidarity of the French”, close to far-right identity movements, they consisted of distributing to the homeless a “Gallic” soup kitchen : knowingly prepared with pork bacon, which amounted to de facto exclude the poor of the Jewish or Muslim faith. The use of this ingredient was justified by its “predominant place in traditional French food” . And claimed as a means of denouncing the fact that “the French State, while it subsidizes a staggering number of associations helping the poor around the world, forgets that most of the homeless in our country are of European origin “ These soup kitchens had been tolerated in Nice (a city led by a UMP mayor from the FN) on the grounds that “no law prohibits the distribution of food aid to people in need” . On the other hand, they ended up being banned in Paris, where, after numerous political and associative protests and even anti-fascist demonstrations, they were considered to be an attack on public order. The Paris Council even voted for a vote condemning this “discriminatory and xenophobic” initiative . On Friday, however, as the daily newspaper “Le Parisien” reported on Wednesday in its local pages, the Paris administrative court annulled the latest banning order taken in this matter by the police headquarters, considering that these pork soups were not constituted neither a serious disturbance of public order nor proven discrimination. The prefecture was also ordered to pay legal costs. “If a person of color was refused access to the soup, there would be a criminal offense ,” commented the lawyer for “Solidarité des Français” yesterday. “But it is not up to a police prefect to assess the conformity of an association with religious prescriptions foreign to the laws of the Republic.” (Source: la Libre 12/29/2006)

This affair is symptomatic of a set of current abuses.

First, because it is not up to the State to prohibit any gathering whatsoever, except in extreme cases, any more than it must dispose of it as it wishes, and as if it was the owner of a public space that belongs to everyone. We can clearly see here the absence of a counterweight to bureaucratic abuses, despite the final position taken by administrative justice. Then, because the current power – whether “right” or “left” – has put in place throughout Europe a repressive arsenal which, under the pretext of fighting against discrimination and racism, has not aimed only at curbing the reactions of the native population to its migration policy. However, this population clearly feels that, given the numbers involved and the extremely rapid nature of migrations, it is in the near term threatened in its culture, its cohesion, its biology and its survival. That she can express herself on the subject is part of the democratic freedoms which, moreover, this same power does not hesitate to claim.

That this pork soup targeted its audience was not shocking: it means either that minorities must conform to the morals of the majority, or that in the current multi-ethnic context the majority also behaves like one among the minorities.