les Davey de France

Another reason why some French people are uneasy about the strength of Islam is the weakness of Catholicism in France. This article from the BBC website will tell its own story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4149645.stm

France is really important in reaching Muslims with the gospel. For a start, many North Africans have a working knowledge of French, because of the area's colonial past, and many North Africans have relatives in France. This means that although it is not always possible for Christians to work openly in North African counties, radio stations and internet evangelism can be conducted in France to reach North Africans, and literature can be sent from French cities to reach North Africans with the gospel. Also lots of North Africans come to France to study. If they can be reached with the gospel, then they can go home and reach their own friends, families and neighbours with the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. So it is important for world evangelism that the church in France is as strong and as energetic as possible.

I know what I'll do! I'll do the Islam in France thing in stages. Firstly - How many Muslims are there in France? Good question! Nobody really knows, because the French Constitution forbids the state asking anyone their religion or ethnic origin, so there are no official statistics on the number of Muslims in France. But it is a lot. The largest number of any of the EU countries. Estimates vary between 2 million and 5 million. 5 million would be 1/12 of the population. Why so many Muslims? Because of France's colonial past. France colonised North African countries, and so lots of French people are of Algerian or Morrocan background.

Hi! Happy New Year! I am really sorry not to have posted for a LONG TIME. This is because I think I should post something on Islam in France, but there's so much to understand and to think about and read that it will take a little time to get it done! Meanwhile - learning French. It has to be said that I didn't have a very good start at learning French. The standard of French teaching in my school was dreadful, so at O level some kids got almost all As, and a fail in French. Nobody even passed French first time at O level. I had dropped it, and didn't take a language in school. (I had done well in Latin, but had to drop that for Physics). Then as a grown-up I learnt Welsh. Welsh is GREAT FUN. The sentence structure is really different from English, many words are vastly different and there are whole new areas of grammar to explore (gender, agreements, mutations!) It's quite hard, too, but we had a splendid teacher in Cardiff so I didn't notice how hard it was....