Far-right cooks accused of serving up race hate

TROUBLE is brewing in France over a broth of pig’s tail, pig’s feet and other pig parts, all tossed into a pot with turnips, carrots and onions, perfumed with bacon and served hot.

Small groups linked to the extreme right are ladling pork soup to France’s homeless. Critics and some officials denounce the charity as discriminatory: because it contains pork, the soup is off-limits for Muslims.

Critics view the stew - dubbed “identity soup” by its cooks - as a cynical far-right ploy to penetrate the most vulnerable level of society while masking their intentions as humanitarian.

The associations offering the soup are satellites of Bloc Identitaire, extremists which defend the European identity and, as its leader Fabrice Robert said, “the rights of the little whites”.

France is home to about five million Muslims.

The associations deny any ties to the far-right National Front party, which opposes Muslim immigration and built its reputation around the theme of “French first”.

The group says the soup is no more than traditional French cuisine and deny they are serving up a message of racial hatred - a crime in France - or that they would refuse soup to a hungry Muslim or Jew.

In Paris, police have been averting racial tensions by shutting down such soup kitchens on the grounds the groups don’t have a permit.

This is the third winter “identity soup” is being offered in Paris. But its spread to Nice, Strasbourg and Nantes as well as Belgium is raising eyebrows.

The Movement Against Racism and for Friendship Between Peoples has urged a national ban on pork soup giveaways.