Excerpt:
With just ten weeks to go until the first round of presidential elections in France, Islam and the question of Muslim immigration has become a central issue in the campaign.
France, home to between five and six million Muslims, has the largest Muslim population in the European Union; polls show that millions of French voters are worried about the proliferation in France of "separate Islamic societies" that are ruled by Islamic Sharia law.
Responding to these concerns, French President Nicolas Sarkozy outlined an important part of his re-election platform -- imposing restrictions on Muslim immigration -- during a February 10 interview in the weekend magazine supplement of the pro-government newspaper, Le Figaro.