Radical Feminists have stripped off and taken to Paris’s streets in protest against radical Islamists. Urging “infidels” to “speak out” and “rise up”, the women wore scarves to cover their faces as they marched through the streets sporting plastic flowery rifles and shouting into megaphones. They launched their protest at the top of the Champs-Elysées whilst bemused tourists and shoppers looked on.
“French and American citizens and all those who are threatened by Isis jihadists, show your hostility towards Isis’s ideas,” shouted one of the women. “Don’t be scared of being politically incorrect or intolerant. It’s only by criticizing them publicly that we can destroy them. Infidels, rise up against Isis,” she exhorted.
The protest followed the beheading of a French tourist in Algeria at the hands of jihadist yesterday. An ISIS spokesman earlier this week urged militant Islamists: “If you can kill a disbelieving American or European – especially the spiteful and filthy French – or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then [do so].”
The jihadists had vowed to kill the French tourist if their demands, including the withdrawal of French military personnel from taking part in the US-led airstrikes in Syria and Iraq within 24 hours, were not met.
The ten women involved in the protest were all part of the feminist group ‘Femen’. The group has gained notoriety in recent months by staging protests against world leaders, usually conducted wearing just black trousers or tights, and with slogans painted across their bare chests. Last year they pounded a bell in the Notre Dame Cathedral, bearing the slogan “Pope No More” in protest against the Catholic Church’s opposition to gay marriage.
And last December members of the group publicly urinated on photos of Ukranian President Viktor Yanukovych outside the Ukranian embassy in Paris to condemn a crackdown on protestors decrying his rejection of an EU deal. More recently, in June one of their members, sporting the slogan “kill Putin” written backwards in red ink across her chest stabbed a wax-work of President Putin on the day he was due to arrive in France for D-Day anniversary events.
The ten women involved in this latest protest stood in front of a pink banner and waved pink flags emblazoned with the words “Infidels’ State”. They also sported a fake AK-47 and Uzi covered in brightly coloured plastic flowers, as well as bright pink handguns tucked into their trousers.
Commenting on the threats by ISIS, France’s interior minister insisted that his country is “not afraid”.