From protest to power

Build your mosque somewhere else, says Mr Nauth

THE neat rows of polished headstones and potted geraniums in the municipal cemetery of Mantes-la-Ville speak of fresh memories and civic diligence. Yet the solemn calm masks its place in a sour struggle following the election as mayor 18 months ago of Cyril Nauth from the National Front (FN), France’s far-right party.

Previously run by Socialists and Communists, Mantes-la-Ville long supplied workers for a giant power station and car factories on a stretch of the Seine valley between Paris and Normandy. Today the industrial certainties of the past have given way to disquiet, and to votes for xenophobes. The new mayor’s preoccupation is stopping local Muslims, who make up an estimated third of the town’s population, from buying a disused tax-collection office, which sits next to the municipal cemetery, to turn it into a mosque.

“Lots of people are hostile,” declares Mr Nauth, a 33-year-old teacher with the cautious manner of a political novice. “They understand the right to a place of worship,” he says. “But they don’t want it near them.” Instead, he proposes to...

from The Economist: Europe http://ift.tt/1hXdTfX