French President Francois Holland Cancels Lunch After Iranian President Asked Not To Share Wine During His Visit To France

 

French President François Hollande decided having wine with lunch is more important than breaking bread with Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani during an official visit to Paris.
Hollande scrapped the lunch at the Élysée Palace after Rouhani asked for a halal menu in keeping with his Muslim faith, and that also meant no wine at the table during his first visit as president to the City of Light.

“It is not the halal which was a problem but the wine,” France’s ambassador to the United States, Gérard Araud, said on Twitter. “Nobody should constrain anybody to drink or not to drink.”

Hollande’s decision means he’s likely to avoid the criticism leveled at Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi this week.
In Italy, where wine is just as much a part of the culinary routine as in France, officials submitted to the Iranian leader’s demands during a state dinner Monday. Italian officials also erected large boxes around nude statues at Rome’s Campidoglio museum to protect the gaze of officials from the Islamic Republic from falling on artists’ renderings of the human form.
Renzi’s decision outraged critics on the left and right.

“Respect for other cultures cannot and must not mean negating our own,” said Luca Squeri, a lawmaker in former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right Forza Italia party. “This isn’t respect, it’s canceling out differences and it’s a kind of surrender”.

About Faith Irabor 1042 Articles
Welcome on board!!! Faith Irabor is just like your everyday girl next door with strong survival instincts. Am an International Journalist, Events planner and Blogger whose media journey dates back to June 2002 as a TV presenter with the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) Ile-Ife Osun State while I was having my National Diploma in Mass Communication. I left NTA in 2005 to pursue my B.SC in Mass Communication at the Olabisi Onabanjo University OOU Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State and finished in 2008 before joining one of Nigeria's best investigative Tabloids (National Enquirer Magazine & www.enquirermag.blogspot.com). I am very privileged to be trained by one of the industry's bests, my boss and mentor Mr. Tunde Moshood Jr, the former Editor of the defunct Fame Magazine, Publisher of National Enquirer and president Miss Global Nigeria who taught me everything I know in Journalism especially the investigative aspect which is the fulfilment of being a member of the Fourth Estate of Realm (as we journalists are usually officially addressed). My desire to take my journalism practice beyond the Newspaper & Magazine came from the passion I have derived over the years from investigative journalism as Online Media is the best platform to tell a story or news the very minute it’s at your disposal without wasting time. I promise to serve you nothing but exclusive and interesting news, interviews, events, articles from around the world and please feel free to email me on faith.irabor@faithirabor.com on spotted errors as well as ideas that would make me do better as there is no perfect being anywhere except God. Now scroll up, click on any of the stories and please drop your comment!!!!

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