Jérôme Fourquet, Opinion director of Ifop believes that Dubai is a kind of halal Miami for some young French people. There are 25,000 permanent residents, 138,000 vacationers between January and August 2021.
“The attraction for the emirate is an illustration of what with Jean-Laurent Cassely we call […] the deposit of an oriental cultural layer’ in France, via the Maghreb and Turkish communities. These can be dietary practices (halal, kebab …), recreational places (shisha bars) and, henceforth, places of inspiration for vacations. Dubai is connected to this imagination, ”he explains in an interview with L’Express.
This popular destination has other advantages. “Dubai is a model of hybridization, a kind of ‘Miami halal’: it is both the American dream, a sun destination with futuristic architecture, modeled on ‘skyscrapers with your feet in the water’ , the party, but in a non-American and ‘muslim friendly’ framework, remarks Jérôme Fourquet, stressing that even if the rating of the Emirati city is rising “this destination does not speak to all categories of the French population.
