To not see the big deal about Jewish and Muslim dc wearing red disks

[BrandNewAndImproved]

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/french-school-forces-muslim-and-jewish-pupils-to-wear-coloured-discs-a6669396.html

So basically it stops dc being given food they can't have at lunchtime and no way imo can it be compared to the yellow star.

I might be biased in that I am a school cook and before that a nursery cook where every dc had a placemat with their photo and dietary preference. Schools don't do this instead we have a list with photos on and what they can't have but we have had near misses with jelly for example. A child who couldn't have the jelly asked for the jelly knowing they couldn't have the jelly and luckily as soon as the server put the jelly on the plate the child said but I'm not allowed this it's not halal and she had a fresh new plate of food.

Something for the cooks to see in primary schools to avoid mix ups is a great idea. The only problem I see with what the French have done is not to do it for all dietary requirements like allergies and intolerances

*other not their

It isn't racist not to want to eat (or my child to eat) Halal meat.

Posters are defending this?

Fucking hell.

Reading the link re the French school - I think it is the media who is making it into a religious reason, rather than a practical one. It doesn't say Muslim and Jewish children are labelled. It says that those who eat Halal (red) and those who eat vegetarian (yellow) have the discs.

BrandNewAndImproved - our infant school has cards and they do work for us. The lead lunchtime supervisor has a list with the registers on with the food choices for that day. The cards are handed out as the class lines up for lunch. They are then handed in to the serving lunchtime assistant.

I do think cards are more discrete than badges and disks. Many young children would quite like the wrist bands ime though. But many schools DO need a system.

FWIW my DS is in a French nursery. There's a board up in his room indicating which kids don't eat pork and which are veggie.

Btw I wandered off topic a bit - but I think the disc idea isn't a good one - it jjst reeks of ......well you know full well.

A dlist on the wall is fine. But you can't put disks round kids' necks to show which relgion they belong to ffs!

It's not just about racism but about what the French call "republican values", ie in a secular school you don't single out children on the grounds of religion.

There's a difference between a list on a wall and a child being emblazoned with something that identifies their religion.

Exactly Maud

Hula I think it's a environment health matter tbh. Our hands are washed before serving food, if we leave the kitchen to get something from the dining hall we wash our hands again if we use our phones to ring the main kitchen we wash our hands again. Touching all the cards that the children have touched, sucked, stuck up their noses never mind all the little ones in the line with a finger in their mouth or nose then touching food is a breeding ground for food born illness. If someone is carrying ecoli for instance sticks their finger in their nose touches the card then the cook picks up the card serves that person then serves the next s/he would be spreading the ecoli virus.

That's not being over the top that's how food born illness happens. If we had something like ecoli we would have to have clear stool samples and be signed back to work from the Dr. Children in school don't have the same regulations as the cooks do, we would end up paying a huge fine and or jail for spreading viruses around.

I wasn't aware that there was anything so shameful about eating halal meat or being vegetarian that anyone would need to be discreet about it. You live and learn. Seems a shame to encourage young children to feel the need to hide their 'differences' though, I doubt any of them care who eats what amongst their peers.

Out of interest, those who don't want to eat (or want your child to eat) halal meat?. Why?.

I'm not suggesting it's racist but I don't understand why people people have an opinion on this. Unless because they think it's a 'more cruel' form of slaughter.

And all slaughter of animals is cruel by its very nature. It always involves suffering in animals. And you either care about animals enough to not eat them or you're vegetarian.

And as I said, I eat meat but I accept my desire to eat meat causes distress to animals. There is no such thing as 'humane killing' of sentient beings bred, developed and slaughtered for human consumption/gain.

Typo - care enough about animals not to eat them so you ARE vegetarian.

Icould if you had to die, now, would you rather it was by having your throat cut or a bolt through your brain? I know what my choice for myself would be, if I had to make it.

The bolt through the brain isn't to kill, it's to stun. The animal still dies by having its throat cut, and bleeding out.

Well.... I have jewish friends who used to come to my basically vegetarian household to eat bacon - which they would bring with them! - dietary choices are hard. Once the kids are old enough to understand I would leave them be, myself.

Isn't it:

would you rather:

(A) have your throat cut
(B) have a bolt through your brain, after seeing the same thing done to umpteen people beforehand

In any case, 84% of halal slaughter in the UK involves stunning.

Given that in the French context, it is seen as controversial that Muslim families refuse to eat pork and that some people are campaigning to remove the meat-free option from school meals to leave those poor kids with no lunch, I think it is once again a sign that France is going down the fascist path fast. I can't believe the crap I read daily in French media about how cities welcoming refugees should be 'denounced' and French Muslims 'sent back' (to where I am not sure). As it happens my kids have North African ancestry from their dad's side, and I can't bear to think what would happen if I had to raise them in France. It is certainly not a 'secular' country where people from all religions and ethnicities would be treated equally, it's a country where you are alienated if you don't conform to the mould. There is a total obsession with marking out Muslims and targeting children in particular, and it is just disgusting. By the way, I worked in a French nursery and almost fed non-kosher meat to a Jewish child because nobody had informed me of any dietary requirements (apart from allergies), and staff didn't give a hoot about religious diets, so I find it quite ironic that they would now want to 'mark' children. Had this happened in a different place, I might have seen the benefits of identifying what children eat what, but in France, just no.

ouryve - That's the thing though, animals wouldn't 'have' to die through having their throats cut or a bolt through their head if humans didn't like eating them.

So they wouldn't 'have' to die at all if I, and many other people didn't fund and support an industry which causes their death.

So to my mind, if I REALLY cared about how they died. I wouldn't eat them and perpetuate a system which requires them to be killed. I can't think I'm somehow more caring for being more comfortable with animals being killed in a different way.

And whether Halal or not - slaughterhouses are places full of fear, death, noise and blood which cause distress to animals.

Any visit to one or viewing a film of one shows us that.

Are you in the south coast malaguena? Lots of nasty racist councils down there :( It's not like that everywhere though, I find people pretty accepting here (rural SW). And FWIW it doesn't sound like this is the racist story it's been blown up into (at least this school did offer pork-free meals which not all do).

This isn't a debate about the rights and wrongs of halal meat, it is about the labelling of children and as somebody whose parents wore yellow stars I am absolutely appalled at the insensitivity both of the school and the ignorance of people who seem to think that it is ok

No mistigri I was in Paris, and you would expect people to be more tolerant...In fact I knew lots of supposedly 'leftist', 'open-minded' people who would make really offensive stereotyping comments and not get what the problem was. I am certainly not going back there in a rush, and I can't imagine how it must be on the South coast and in the FN cities. I am constantly amazed at how socially acceptable it has become to make racist comments and talk about the "white race" and what not. I will watch French TV for 5 minutes and feel sick. Glasshouses is very right, it is about labelling children as different, and then we wonder why those kids don't feel French.