By MAÏA de la BAUME


NANTERRE, France - For years, Anissa Benchamacha bought her meat in a parking lot, from vendors selling near-expired products to Muslims eager to find food that met their religious requirements.

But on a recent afternoon, Ms. Benchamacha stood in quiet wonderment before the tidy rows of packaged meats in Hal’Shop, a new supermarket in this middle-class Paris suburb, a few aisles away from the cans of foie gras and bottles of nonalcoholic champagne ? all of them halal, or permitted under Islam. “I came here on the first day of its opening,” she said. “It’s good that things are changing in this country.”

France has the largest population of Muslims in Europe, and even as they listen to the country debate the terms of their integration , they are having a major impact on the food culture. Whether a reflection of their sheer numbers or the rising incomes of second- and third-generation Muslim immigrants, the market in halal goods is nearly twice the size of the market for organic food.

The expansion of halal has stirred protest, with some government officials denouncing it as spreading “sectarianism” and inviting discrimination against non-Muslims. But others say it is a sign that the blending of religion, commerce and culture has been more extensive than many realize.

“It’s a sign of integration,” said Abbas Bendali, the director of Solis, a market research agency . France’s younger Muslim generation, he said, “no longer lives with the myth of returning to their home country.” In the last five years , spending per household on halal food has grown twentyfold, according to the daily newspaper Le Figaro.

Halal has also moved upscale, from the traditional neighborhood butcher who sold meat slaughtered in accordance with Islamic law, to a significant presence in French food industries, supermarkets and even restaurants.

A number of supermarkets devote entire aisles to halal food , including chicken sausage, paella and lasagna. Even iconic French charcuterie and catering brands like Fleury Michon, Herta and Pierre Martinet have introduced halal lines, while Evian put a halal stamp on some of its bottles to reassure Muslims that the bottles had never been in close contact with alcohol, which would render the water haram, or unclean.

The Hal’Shop bears little resemblance to the blood-stained walls of the halal butcher shops of Paris’s working-class neighborhoods. “Until now, the halal market was reserved to workers over 55,” said the supermarket’s owner, Rachid Bakhalq.

“The products were ‘ethnic,’ like couscous or spices, and badly packaged ? the kind of low-quality products that Muslim customers would have bought in their own home country.” Mr. Bakhalq, 30, sees himself as part of a new generation of halal gourmets, as a member of a social layer often referred to here as the “beurgeois,” a play on “bourgeois” and the word “beur,” a slang word for Arab.

Some stylish Parisian restaurants have begun, discreetly, making their menus halal as well. Les Enfants Terribles in the 12th Arrondissement offers updated bistro cuisine and a fixed menu costing around $37, all of it halal .

While many see the popularity of halal as a sign of tolerance, some have condemned the expansion as threatening and often uncontrollable .

Last year, the mayor of Roubaix, a city in northern France with a large Muslim population, filed a complaint against a fast-food chain called Quick after it decided to offer exclusively halal meat in eight of its restaurants in Muslim neighborhoods .

Brigitte Bardot, the actress and outspoken animal-rights activist, said in a radio interview last month that halal meat “had invaded France.” Yet the debate does not seem to bother Mr. Bakhalq. He is a contented entrepreneur. He compared the new pride in halal food to the Black Is Beautiful movement among African- Americans.

“Those who come to my shop feel proud, proud to find products they care about,” he said. “It boosts their self-esteem, and they feel valued.”