The competition for the best baguette in Paris won by a Tunisian. But the far right denounces: “He is an Islamist” – Corriere.it

Makram Akrout took first place in the traditional French competition and is expected to provide bread for a year at the Elysée. But he allegedly spread anti-French messages on Facebook. The police investigation

FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
PARIS – The competition for the best baguette in Paris was won last Friday by Makram Akrout, a Tunisian who arrived in France twenty years ago without documents, then became a Frenchman and a baker in the Les Boulangers bakery, nel XII arrondissement.

With the award, Mr. Akrout also conquered the honor of becoming the supplier of the Elysée for a year.

Except that on the eve of the ceremony, scheduled for Saturday 2 October in front of the Notre Dame churchyard, some far-right militants and the newspaper Conversationalist they discovered and disseminated some embarrassing messages that Akrout would have posted on Facebook in the past. The police are trying to find out if he is really the perpetrator.

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For example: France encourages and propagates decadence in our countries to protect its colonial interests and pushes us to move away from Islamic religion and values; We cried for Charlie Hebdo and Notre-Dame, but from France, these dogs do not cry when the creator Allah is made fun of.

In front of the leaders of the bakers’ union, who organize the prize, the baker stated that his account had been hacked, then retraced his steps.

He would still have decided not to go to the ceremony.

The award for the best baguette has been a deeply felt tradition in Paris in recent years won five times by bakers of Tunisian origin and this was seen as the demonstration of a possible integration.

The Elysée had spread on Twitter the congratulations of President Macron to the winner: In the end there is only one left! Bravo to Makram Akrout who won the award for the best baguette in Paris for the year 2021. As tradition dictates, to supply bread to the Elysée for a year.

Authorities are analyzing Akrout’s accounts to see if it is of a provocation by the far right or if it really has positions close to those of the Islamists, which would make it difficult to supply it to the Elysée.

The ritual of the best baguette follows rather precise rules.

The jurors at each tasting give their marks on five criteria: appearance, cooking, consistency, aroma and taste.

At the start, there were 173 candidate baguettes, called to respect a length between 55 and 70 centimeters, a weight between 250 and 300 grams, and a quantity of salt of 18 grams per kilo of flour.

The fact that citizens of Arab-Muslim origin have become masters of this typically French art has a double political connotation: for the proponents of welcome and integration, one of the many proofs of the possibility and richness of living together; for the opponents of immigration, one of the clues that society is being distorted and foreigners tend to take the place of the native French, according to the theory of the Grand remplacement of Renaud Camus relaunched in recent days by the columnist (and probable candidate for the Elysée ) Eric Zemmour.

That’s why, on hearing of Makram Akrout’s award, far-right groups immediately combed through his social media accounts.

The baguette becomes a political issue.

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