François Bayrou’s government will not take up the proposals to ban the veil for school trip chaperones and university students made by Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, his spokesperson Sophie Primas said on Wednesday.
Minister LR (Les Républicains) himself clarified that “this was his personal position and that this subject, probably not having a majority in Parliament, was not a subject that would be addressed by the government in the current state of the parliamentary majority”, she noted during the report of the Council of Ministers at the Élysée.
Bruno Retailleau estimated Monday in the daily Le Parisien that “accompanists (on school trips) do not have to be veiled”, believing that the veil is “a standard for Islamism, and a marker of the inferiorization of woman in relation to man.
“Exactly what the Taliban are accused of”
“School trips are school outside the walls,” he insisted, calling for a change in the law. He also spoke out in favor of banning the wearing of the veil at university, in both cases attracting strong criticism from the left of the political spectrum.
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Bruno Retailleau wants to “prohibit Muslim women who wear (the veil) from pursuing higher education”, “exactly what the Taliban are rightly criticized for”, declared Insoumis (LFI) MP Antoine Léaument.
An opinion from the Council of State considers that veiled mothers are not subject to religious neutrality when they accompany a class. As for the ban on the veil at university, it was fiercely criticized by Emmanuel Macron in 2016.
