(Anadolu) France’s interior minister on Wednesday criticized two legal amendments adopted by lawmakers prohibiting parents from wearing visible religious symbols while accompanying their children on school trips and allowing public swimming pools to ban “burkini” swimwear.
Gerald Darmanin said the measures, approved by senators on Tuesday, amounted to “suppression of religious expression.”
The “Republican values” bill is currently being discussed in the upper house, which also approved a third amendment preventing minor girls from concealing their faces or wearing religious symbols in public areas.
Though the text of the bill does not expressly mention the Islamic veil, the contentious issue of prohibiting mothers who voluntarily accompany their children’s school trips from wearing the garment had previously been raised in the Senate on three occasions since 2019 and rejected every time.
