Starting today, praying in the streets of Paris is against the law. The French interior minister warned that police will use force if anybody disobeys the new rule to keep the French capital’s public spaces secular. However, people have been defying the law all morning.

The undertone of this is that the French are still unhappy with their five million strong Muslim population.

The minister, Claude Guéant, said that the ban could later be extended to the rest of France, in particular to the Mediterranean cities of Nice and Marseilles, where “the problem persists.”

He explained to Le Figaro newspaper:

My vigilance will be unflinching for the law to be applied. Praying in the street is not dignified for religious practice and violates the principles of secularism. All Muslim leaders are in agreement.

He also promised that the new legislation would be strictly adhered to because it “hurts the sensitivities of many of our fellow citizens,” and a countrywide ban may come “within months”, because the “street is for driving in, not praying.”

Yesterday, Mr Guéant claimed the prayer problem was limited to two roads in the Goutte d’Or district of Paris’s eastern 19th arrondissement, where masses of people flow onto the street every Friday because the mosque they attend is too small to accommodate all the worshipers.

For the time being, the premises of a nearby fire station will be used to help alleviate the problem, though, Sheikh Mohamed salah Hamza is not impressed and said, “We are not cattle.”

Reports out of Paris earlier indicated that mosques are still overflowing today.

[Source: Telegraph]