As the article states, "The French state has a long history of intruding into minority religious practice, going back to the Napoleonic era. In the name of creating a secular public space, Napoleon promulgated laws that forced Jews to give up their traditional dress, shave, and take French names."

And it appears he is pushing this only as a way to appeal to people's bigotry and xenophobia in order to score political points. Shame on him.

Sounds like France to me.

certainly in Europe, and also in America though perhaps the targets are slightly different.

But right at the moment, the French government are being particularly xenophobic, because the ruling party is in a tight election which they'll probably lose to the Socialists, and their only hope lies in luring right-wing voters to vote for them instead of for the LePen family's nutcase party.

I think a government has the right to require stunning of animals before slaughter:

See page 2 of this RSPCA report: http://www.rspca.org.uk/servlet/Satellite?blobcol=urlblob&blobheader=application/pdf&blobkey=id&blobtable=RSPCABlob&blobwhere=1109267162636&ssbinary=true

They can suffer intense pain for up to 2 minutes without stunning before they become insensible through blood loss. The welfare laws apply to general slaughter; 'tradition', religious or otherwise, is no excuse for an exception to allow unnecessary suffering.

but I am still rather cynical about the reasons why it's being proposed right now, in the run-up to the election, rather than at any previous time.

Yes it's good that foodchain animals suffer as little as possible, but neither regimen is all that much worse than the electric prods to bolt gun routine method.

The way livestock in captivity is often treated most of their living days is of far more concern to me than the last few seconds of their lives.

If - and I really do mean if, because I don't know - ritual slaughter increases the suffering of the animals, then this ban should be a no-brainer. There should be no religious exemptions to animal cruelty laws.

the Halal standards (and Kosher too) allow for stunning the animal before bleeding, I was told.

For Halal the animal must be unmutilated (not castrated or dehorned and sheep must have tails) and a prayer is said before it is stunned. At least in the USDA slaughterhouses all animals are stunned before being bled or killed. With certified humane slaughter of pigs the pigs are put to sleep with CO2 before being killed.