In the early 1990s, an underground organisation was launched called the Barbie Liberation Movement (BLM). Its mission statement was a \u2018commitment to challenging malign systems\u2019, by which it meant the patriarchy.<\/p>\n
The BLM was inspired by a talking Barbie doll, launched in 1992, who had 270 platitudes, one of which was \u2018math class is tough\u2019. Outraged feminist groups forced Mattel Inc, the makers of Barbie, to remove what they described as a sexist slur. <\/p>\n
Now, though, may be the hour for the Barbie Liberation Movement to reform and once more fight the patriarchy. This time, however, the patriarchy is different. It no longer consists of ageing white men with their outdated views that science and maths are subjects best left to boys; it\u2019s Islamists, whose view on women make the men of Mattel in the early 1990s seem positively progressive.<\/p>\n
\nThe Islamists haven\u2019t mellowed since 2016. Quite the opposite<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Last week, an Islamist mob forced the mayor of Noisy-le-Sec, a Parisian suburb run by the Communists, to cancel a screening of Barbie, the Hollywood blockbuster starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling. They liked neither the feminist nor the homosexual elements in the film and threatened the mayor that there would be trouble if the open-air screening went ahead.<\/p>\n
The mayor succumbed to the threats, provoking an angry backlash among France\u2019s political class. Aurore Berg\u00e9, the minister for gender equality, said it was more than just a thuggish threat from a group of young men: it was an attempt by Islamists to \u2018infiltrate\u2019 society and impose their values at the expense of the Republic\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Bruno Retailleau, the interior minister, also used the word \u2018infiltrate\u2019 and said the objective of the Islamists is \u2018to tip the whole of French society under sharia law\u2019. In the face of such dedicated fanaticism, said Retailleau, \u2018the slightest retreat\u2026is unacceptable\u2019.<\/p>\n
The mayor of Noisy-le-Sec has promised to show the film \u2013 which was requested by residents of his district \u2013 at a later date; but rather than admit he was wrong to cave in to the Islamists, Mayor Olivier Sarrabeyrouse has tried to blame the furore on his political adversaries. At a press conference he declared: <\/p>\n
\nWhile I continue to condemn in the strongest terms the acts that I have described as obscurantism and fundamentalism, I condemn even more strongly the political exploitation and speculation, the racist and Islamophobic hatred that has been pouring out of the right and the far right.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Sarrabeyrouse also pointed a finger at journalists, suggesting there were more important matters in the world than Islamists curtailing freedom of expression. <\/p>\n
\nI regret that you journalists are still arguing about our local issue, even though a few days ago, several of your colleagues were cowardly murdered by the Israeli army.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Sarrabeyrouse doesn\u2019t appear to understand what is at stake; or perhaps he does and he knows, like others on Europe\u2019s political left, that pandering to elements of the Muslim vote is the only way to be re-elected, as they have long since lost the support of the white working class. The French call this \u2018client\u00e9lisme\u2019.<\/p>\n
In June this year the official magazine for all France\u2019s elected mayors published a warning ahead of next May\u2019s municipal elections. Headlined \u2018Muslim Brotherhood: the risk of \u201cclientelist deals\u201d in municipal elections\u2019, the article relayed the key findings of a recent government report about the Muslim Brotherhood in France. The secretive Islamist organisation had embarked on a new strategy, warned the report, which they described as \u2018municipal Islamism\u2019. The Brotherhood would stand some of its members in next year\u2019s elections while also organising \u2018\u201dclientelist transactions\u201d aimed at satisfying certain specific segments of the Muslim electorate\u2019.<\/p>\n
Mayor Sarrabeyrouse will have a hard time trying to convince France that his critics are \u2018Islamophobic\u2019; the threats made against Barbie are just the latest in a series of ugly incidents this summer. In June, a pop-up store opened in Lyon selling Islamic clothing. Stating that it catered to \u2018modest Muslim women\u2019, the shop refused entry to any customer whose head was uncovered.<\/p>\n
In July, a cinema in Saint-Ouen, just north of Paris, cancelled at late notice a documentary about freedom of expression inspired by the murder of the Charlie Hebdo staff a decade ago. It was reported that the cinema felt that the film violated its \u2018welcome charter\u2019, which \u2018prohibits political events\u2019. This hadn\u2019t prevented the cinema from showing a film a week earlier about environmental activism.<\/p>\n
At the end of July, a 28-year-old woman was beaten up at a station south of Paris by a man who called her a \u2018dirty whore\u2019 for wearing a short skirt. The man\u2019s wife, who was wearing a North African djellaba, joined in the attack.<\/p>\n