A restaurateur in a suburb of Paris is in the hot seat today after allegedlyrefusing to serve two Muslim women who tried to go to his restaurant Saturday night, and the whole thing was caught on video.
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This latest incident had some users on social media suggesting that Muslims in France were becoming second-class citizens.
One of the women tells the man at one point that they “do not wish to be served by a racist”. However, the manager continued to lash out at them.
The incident, filmed and shared on social media, caused outrage after the man told the women: “Terrorists are Muslims and all Muslims are terrorists”.
He further said, “Madam, terrorists are Muslims and all Muslims are terrorists”.
On Sunday angry members of the local Muslim community challenged the restaurant owner over his words with one saying: “You are surrounded by Muslims”. He also added, “I don’t want people like you at my place. This sentence says it all, analyze it”, the man can be heard speaking in French in the footage.
In a message on Twitter, Laurence Rossignol, the French minister for families, children and women’s rights, said she had ordered an investigation and called for sanctions against the “intolerable behaviour” of the restaurant’s owner. The manager apologized and the local police opened up an investigation. He explained that he lost control due to the current tensions surrounding the burkini ban debate but also because he had a friend who was killed in the Bataclan terror attack.
Women join a demonstration organised by “Stand up to Racism” outside the French Embassy in London on August 26, 2016 against the Burkini ban on French beaches.
On Friday, the controversial measure which prevents women wearing Islamic looking swimsuits, or any other dress that might be considered religious, was overturned by a Paris appeal court.
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France’s anti-Islamophobia organisation CCIF said the event was “the umpteenth Islamophobic incident which. led to the humiliation of two young Muslim women”.
