Every day Meryem Belmokhtar turns her tidy sitting-room into a workshop. She lays out the equipment on the table, puts on rubber gloves and dips into various jars to make up 250g bags of sweets. Each packet is marked with her logo, featuring a stick of barley sugar, reports The Guardian.
Belmokhtar, 39, lives in Compiègne, northern France, and manages the Candine Halal website (a pun on candy in English and dine, religion in Arabic), which markets the usual chocolate-coated marshmallow bears, preserved cherries and acid drops, except that hers contain no pork gelatine and are halal. In other words, they comply with Islamic dietary rules.
Becoming self-employed has been an adventure for Belmokhtar. A languages graduate, she used to work as a secretary in a laboratory. This new job is the only way of not having to take off her hijab on leaving home each morning. With a family to feed, she needs to work, but she became so fed up with having to remove her hijab that she resigned. Two years ago she started selling sweets. It allows her to fulfil the ritual obligations and pray five times a day at the appointed hour, rather than having to catch up in the evening.
The French parliament has passed several laws on when and where women can wear headscarves. In March 2004 school staff were banned from wearing insignia or garments displaying a religious allegiance. In April 2007 the rules were also applied to those delivering a public service. There are no specific rules for private firms.
Belmokhtar is no exception, other women of similar background and religious convictions have gone into business on the net. No statistics are available as yet, but it is apparent on social networks that small websites like hers are proliferating.
Two years ago, Oum el-Benette (not her real name), 35, launched Yesmine Shop, marketing clothes mainly for Muslim women. She sells abayas (dresses), scarves, tunics, shawls and woollens. All the garments on her site are long and loose-fitting, in keeping with Islamic rules to preserve modesty. The faces of models are blurred or pictures are taken in such a way as to conceal their heads. She determined to uphold religious tradition which prohibits any representation of humans or animals.
On the Hijab Glam website the faces are blurred too. It is run by Magali Meignen, in her 30s, a Roman Catholic who converted to Islam 11 years ago. She says she first took an interest in Islam with her Muslim friends at secondary school. After gaining a deeper understanding of what this faith involved, she decided to make the change.
Read more of this report from The Guardian.