Row over mothers wearing the Muslim headscarf on French school outings splits Emmanuel Macron's cabinet
A rift has emerged within President Emmanuel Macron’s ruling majority over whether women who wear the Islamic headscarf when accompanying children on school outings are contravening France’s strict rules on secularism.
The separation of Church and State is enshrined in a 1905 law in France, where ostensible signs of religion are banned from state schools among pupils and teachers in the name of secularism.
However, nothing in the law stipulates that mothers are not allowed to wear the garment in or outside school gates whilst accompanying classes on outings.
But the issue sprung to the fore this week after the head of the far-Right group of a regional council in Burgundy-Franche-Compté, central France, called for a mother wearing a headscarf to take it off “in the name of the principles of the Republic”.
“It’s the law,” Julien Odoul of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, or RN, told the mother who was accompanying her child on a school trip to the assembly. When the council president declined, he and other RN councillors walked out then posted the incident online.
The government condemned the public humiliation of the mother and education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer said no law had been infringed.
However, Mr Blanquer then added that it was “not desirable” for headscarves to be worn on outings.”It’s not something to be encouraged. What it says about woman’s role in society is not compatible with our values, quite simply,” he said.
Several other centre-Right ministers of Mr Macron’s centrist government backed his stance, with finance minister Bruno Le Maire saying: “The headscarf in itself is not desirable in our society.”
But several disagreed, saying that such discourse precisely tramples on the religious tolerance that "laïcité" (French secularism) is supposed to defend.
Government spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye, said having such mothers take part in outings was “positive”.
As a mother in a high-immigrant Parisian suburb, she said: “The outings I took part in were always rather positive moment because women like me and women with headscarves who don’t necessarily live in the same worlds, can come together and exchange.”
Digital minister Cédric O said he had also taken part in such outings and “they never posed any problems.”
“I never saw any sign of proselytism. We lived together and each respected the other. That’s secularism, in no way the small-minded racism of Julien Odoul.”
Aurélien Taché, an MP from Mr Macron’s ruling LREM party, added: “It is not desirable for ministers to set themselves up as theologians or to start dictating the moral or spiritual choices of our fellow citizens.”
The incident sparked prompted a group of 90 mainly Muslim public figures, including the actor Omar Sy, to post an op-ed in Tuesday's Le Monde asking: "How far will we let the hatred of Muslims go?"
They called on Mr Macron to "publicly condemn the attack against this woman and her son; to say forcefully that Muslim woman, whether or not they wear the headscarf, and Muslims in general, have their rightful place in our society...The future of our country depends on it."
The cabinet split has prompted calls for Mr Macron to speak out on the issue. During his electoral campaign, he said he was against “hounding those who wear religious signs during school outings”.
Presidential aides say he intends to make a speech on secularism soon.
One cabinet minister, however, warned against giving any impression that such a speech would be directed solely to “the Muslims of France”. “Otherwise by mixing the two, one risks creating a form of confusion.”
An Ifip-Fiducial poll this week suggested that two-thirds of French people support a ban on women wearing the headscarf during school outings.
