HERE’S A STORY ABOUT A BIG DEMONSTRATION IN PARIS — and it’s not about the war. Well, not exactly:

PARIS, March 8 — Ten thousand people took to the streets in Paris on Saturday to denounce violence suffered by women in high-rise housing estates around France’s major towns. . . .

Home to many immigrants from the Maghreb, such suburbs have seen a rise in radical Islam that has turned attitudes towards women even harsher. Pressure is mounting for Muslim women to wear veils and forced marriages that snatch girls from college and a career are now commonplace. . . .

Young women who live on some estates have adopted a dress code of baggy pants and puffy jackets, saying that girls who wear short skirts are branded sluts and considered ”fair game.”

Reports of gang rapes have made headlines but statistics do not indicate whether such attacks are on the rise.

Meanwhile, similar protests are going on in Iran:

Hundreds of Iranian women marked International Women’s Day on Saturday with a demonstration demanding equal social and political rights to men, a first in this conservative male-dominated country since the 1979 Islamic revolution. . . .

“How can we celebrate this day when our women are not entitled to choose their husbands, are not allowed to demand divorce and get just half the blood money a man gets?” protest organizer Noushin Ahmadi asked, referring to the practice of giving the family of a female murder victim about half the average compensation paid to a male victim’s relatives.

Interesting.