Conversation with a Chimera

France’s prime minister has urged Muslims and Jews to consider scrapping their halal and kosher slaughter laws as president Nicolas Sarkozy and his allies stepped up their efforts to woo far-right voters.

Prime minister François Fillon made the suggestion after Mr Sarkozy called at the weekend for butchers to clearly label meat slaughtered according to religious laws and his allies warned immigrants might impose halal meat on French schoolchildren.

François Fillon has raised a nutty, nutty point that helps to point out that France’s collective notion of laïcité has absolutely nothing to do with anything it takes up in a discussion of laïcité.

"There is something unpleasant, humiliating, and contrary to our republican tradition", said the community leader about the return of Francois Fillon.

On the proposal of Nicolas Sarkozy to label meat "according to the method of slaughter", the head of CRIF said: "It seems that the candidate Sarkozy has not quite the same positions as President Sarkozy. I see. "

Of course the terminally infantile press corps has framed the whole thing to be (unsurprisingly) the story of them uppity Jews asking for something again, but a zoo visitor can easily identify something different: strange factional politics, a tribal world view, and a picky, nutty, government rulemaking that even the center-right struggles with.

Otherwise those who can’t avert their eyes from French public polity can always have the ritual slaughter of decency to look forward to.