(Arab News) The latest row surrounding France’s ban on religious symbols at school has erupted after a group of Muslim schoolgirls visited the National Assembly wearing hijabs.
Yael Braun-Pivet, the assembly’s speaker and a member of President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Renaissance Party, said the girls’ visit to the public gallery was “unacceptable” under the country’s secularist laws.
But other MPs hit back, accusing Braun-Pivet of Islamophobia and adopting the far-right strategy of using bans on religious clothing to target Muslims.
Students in public schools are banned from wearing religious symbols, including Christian crosses, Muslim headscarves, Jewish kippas and Sikh turbans. Civil servants face similar restrictions.
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