The policy embraced Sunday by thousands of members of the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party meeting in Stuttgart also called for a ban on the Islamic public call to prayer, minarets, and the wearing of headscarves in public schools. “Islam is not part of Germany” is a direct response to an assertion by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, voiced on various occasions including in a speech last January amid a series of anti-Islamization protests, that “Islam is part of Germany.” The development comes as a new opinion poll finds that large pluralities of respondents in both France (47 percent) and Germany (43 percent) view Islam as a threat – an increase of five and three percent respectively since 2010.
The survey (in French), conducted by the IFOP polling company for the French daily Le Figaro, also found that 63 percent of respondents in France and 48 percent in Germany regard Islam as too visible and too influential in their societies. Fifty-two percent of French and 49 percent of Germans respondents said they opposed the building of mosques, and opposition to the wearing of headscarves in public schools was measured at 88 percent in France and 75 percent in Germany. (Headscarves and other religious garb have been banned in French public schools and government offices since 2004.)
Another finding in the poll: 67 percent of French and 60 percent of German respondents blamed a perceived failure by Muslims to integrate into society on a refusal to adapt to local customs and values. France and Germany have the largest Muslim populations in the European Union – 4.8 million in Germany comprising 5.8 percent of the total population, and 4.7 million in France, or 7.5 percent of the population, according to the Pew Research Center.
MORE
Reply With Quote
