French politicsmight live uneasily with Islam-battling over burkas, sparring over veils-but French economists are keen to make Islamic finance a crisis buster in Paris. Finance minister Christine Lagarde is trying to attract Islamic banking, which has grown 10 to 15 percent a year since 2003 to become a global industry totaling more than $700 billion today. That's a smart move: the global economic meltdown has made Sharia-compatible finance especially attractive. Islamic banking eschews much of the risky behavior that brought conventional finance to its knees, including speculation; it also prohibits interest, helping to prevent debt spirals.
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