Invited on France Inter, Marine Le Pen criticized the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, for calling for a blockade of her by associating with La France Insoumise (LFI), which she accuses of being close to Islamic fundamentalism. “When I hear Mr. Guiraud, from La France Insoumise, tell us that the veiling of little girls is perfectly legitimate because they are “little women”, I find that appalling,” denounced the RN MP, elected in the first round in Pas-de-Calais. Adding that “These are the people for whom Emmanuel Macron is calling on voters to go to the polls. These are the people that Emmanuel Macron wants to elect massively tomorrow against the candidates of the National Rally.”
Marine Le Pen’s statement refers to a televised intervention by David Guiraud, dated January 16, 2021 on LCI. He himself had shared his intervention on his X account (formerly Twitter).
“This question only targets Muslims”
At the time, the deputies were working on the separatism bill put forward by the Minister Delegate Marlène Schiappa. Against the advice of the government, Aurore Bergé, then a simple LREM deputy, tabled an amendment “in order to prevent little girls from being forced to wear the veil from a very young age”, according to his expression in a press release.
According to the Parisianthe amendments proposed to ban “the wearing of any conspicuous religious symbol by minors in public spaces” et “the wearing of any clothing or garment which would mean to minors the inferiority of women over men”Supported at the time by Marine Le Pen, they were ultimately declared inadmissible.
Asked about this proposal on the LCI set, David Guiraud, then spokesperson for LFI, deplored “very fallacious arguments” from the LREM MP. “If the question is to say that, broadly speaking, children must consent when there are religious acts, what will she do? Will she ban baptism? Is a minor child really consenting? Will she ban circumcision? This question only targets Muslims… She says that we will ban the veil. But it is a marginal problem in France.”
On set, Prisca Thévenot, then spokesperson for LREM, believes that the amendment (which her party does not support) does not specifically target only little Muslim girls. The text would apply to “all religious symbols concerning children” according to her. David Guiraud interrupts him and pronounces the words for which he is now being criticized: “No, about little women.” Which Prisca Thévenot denies, assuring that “No, there is also the kippah that is in it, read the amendment.” “Are we going to ban the kippah in the street now? That makes no sense,” the rebellious spokesperson wonders.
A “language gap” according to Guiraud
Since the broadcast of this program, the extract has often been shared on social networks by accounts supporting the extreme right or hostile to La France Insoumise.
In September 2021, when the journalist from l’Opinion Emmanuelle Ducros had brought the sequence back to the surface on Twitter, accusing the rebel of sexualizing veiled girls. David Guiraud responded to her: “I obviously meant “little girl” and not little woman, you have to be in terrible bad faith to think that it is anything other than a slip of the tongue.” According to this explanation, the rebel simply wanted to clarify that Aurore Bergé’s amendment specifically targeted veiled Muslim girls and not all children.
Contacted by CheckNewsDavid Guiraud indicates that this extract has become “a classic of the extreme right” against him and continues to defend that he expressed himself badly. On the question of the veiling of little Muslim girls, he assures that he has not “never defended that” and so it is “totally false” to say, as Marine Le Pen does, that he finds this practice perfectly legitimate. He considers that “this is not a subject” car “This phenomenon almost does not exist”.
