Is Nicolas Sarkozy an Islamophobe?
Is Nicolas Sarkozy an Islamophobe? Saturday January 9, 2010#spacer{clear:left}#abc #sidebar{margin-top:1.5em}zSB(3,3) Easy Now: French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants Muslims to practice their faith with humility and discretion. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images) Lost in the noise over the Swiss referendum last November banning the building of minarets in that once-tolerant nation was an arresting column in Le Monde, on Dec. 9, by Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president. Nowhere does he condemn the vote. But he condemns those who criticized it as an “extreme, and at times grotesque” reaction that reveals a “contempt for the people” who participated in the Swiss vote. Very cleverly, as he usually is, Sarkozy recast the issue: the vote wasn’t contemptible. The manner of its criticism was. But why does Sarkozy find