A boom in sales of halal products, including alcohol-free bubbly and goose liver paté approved by Islamic law, is being driven by the emergence of an affluent middle class of young Muslims in France. Known as the beurgeois – a play on bourgeois and the word beur, slang for a French person of North African descent – these new consumers are behind a rapidly expanding and highly profitable market in halal food and drinks.
With spending power worth an estimated €5.5bn a year these under-40s are forcing international food suppliers to cater for their demands. Younger members of France’s estimated 5 million-strong Muslim community - with whom relations have been strained by the recent debate on national identity and threats by Nicolas Sarkozy’s right-of-center government to ban the burqa - are asserting their economic muscle. As one French website put it, halal is “very good business” for French companies.

The problem is not that they buy and consume halal products (besides the suffering animals get when they are slaughtered with halal methods). The problem would be when they would like everyone else to eat the same (pork restrictions or alcohol ban in quarters mostly inhabited by Muslims for example).

Anyway, seeing Shariah Law introducing itself on France because "it is a good business", doesn't make me feel comfortable. It gives me the creeps... really.