-Yesterday, Wednesday, March 2, 2011, the Prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes decided to prohibit the “Apéro Porchetta Vin rosé” event, citing the reason that the authorization request was submitted after the deadline by its organizers.
Upon the announcement of this prohibition, NISSA REBELA announced its intention to reschedule “the apéro” to Saturday, March 5, 2011, at 2:30 PM, still in front of the prayer hall on Rue de Suisse.
SOS Racisme 06 reiterated, as expected, its request for the prohibition of the said event to the Prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes due to the serious and significant risk of disturbance to public order it is likely to cause (see SOS Racisme 06’s communiqué from March 1, 2011).
SOS Racisme 06
-FOR AN ALTERNATIVE on the LEFT
Ecology, Citizenship, Solidarity
We, the candidates of the Left Alternative in the cantonal elections in the Alpes-Maritimes, defend solidarity and citizenship.
We assert that Niçoise culture cannot be defended by racist groups and regular Islamophobic provocations.*
In a society marked by precariousness, social and economic insecurity, people need political responses that unite, that give hope for the future, that uphold the principles of equality and fraternity that include the rights to free movement and the rights to practice one’s religion.
The stigmatization of the Foreigner, the undocumented, the Muslim, the travelers, the unemployed… this is a strategy of constantly seeking scapegoats. This strategy aims to make people forget the real problems.
At the crossroads of Europe and the Mediterranean, our country has been marked for over 1000 years by true cultural diversity.
That is our strength!
We will continue to fight against racism in all its forms and expressions and to express our support and solidarity to those who are victims of it.
The candidates “For an Alternative on the Left” and “The Alternative on the Left” in the cantonal elections on March 20 and 27. The Alternatifs, FASE, Left Front (PCF, PG, GU), NiCEA, NPA
*We find it extremely concerning that the “identitarian” racists’ event was banned only for procedural reasons (it wasn’t declared on time) and not for its hateful, xenophobic, and racist content.
-According to AFP, the Rue de Suisse is in a “Muslim neighborhood” ::
Agence France Presse, the country’s main news agency and as such a major purveyor of information and inspiration for the media, published in the late afternoon a dispatch titled “A porchetta-rosé event in a Muslim neighborhood of Nice declared illegal”.
The report was immediately picked up by numerous websites (more than 4 pages of results based on this title on the search engine Google), including the websites of the journals Les Echos, L’Express, Orange, and Nice Matin.
Dozens of media outlets repeated this information in a chain without clearly questioning the content of its title. In its dispatch, AFP declares the Notre-Dame neighborhood, where rue de Suisse is located, as a “Muslim neighborhood”! This title tends to develop the idea that it is the nature of this neighborhood that makes our porchetta-rosé event a “provocation,” rather than the gathering itself. It seems this is also the opinion of state services that informed us they could view our authorization request more favorably if the event took place somewhere else.
Clumsily, AFP and all the media repeating its dispatch have just revealed a truth: the existence of a real community, ethnic, religious ghetto in the heart of Nice.
We chose “Halal neighborhood enough!” as the slogan for this gathering because we want to denounce the Islamization of this corner of our city, right in the center and on the direct border of avenue Jean Médecin, which now seems to have almost constituted an autonomous zone. With prayers blocking the street, halal butcher shops everywhere, many other ethnic shops including an Islamic bookstore, illegals squatting all day, street vendors selling all types of products… Yet, there are still in this neighborhood, in these streets, many families who have not decided to live by the rhythm of five daily prayers or to consume halal. It is for these people, to denounce an intolerable situation, that we have initiated our action.
Yes, it’s true, the identitaires do not want a “Muslim neighborhood” in their city but Niçoise neighborhoods!
We do not yet know if Prefect Lamy will deem this claim outrageous enough to prohibit our gathering on Saturday.
