Fatima E., a veiled mother picked up by an RN elected on Friday, October 11, spoke for the first time since the incident.

Friday, October 11, Fatima E. was violently attacked by a RN elected at the Regional Council of Burgundy-France-County, because she wore a veil. This veiled mother attended, in the public, the Regional Council of Burgundy-France-County, when the elected RN Julien Odul, took it to a party before leaving the meeting with his group. He later publishes the scene on Twitter.

[RT] In the name of our republican and lay principles, I asked @MarieGuiteDufay to remove the Islamic veil from a school counselor present in the Chamber. After the assassination of our 4 policemen, we can not tolerate this communitarian provocation pic.twitter.com/3WzqDEC3nn

- Julien Odoul (@JulienOdoul) October 11, 2019

Fatima E. spoke for the first time since the incident - she had not responded to any media solicitation - in an interview published on the website of the Collective against Islamophobia in France (CCIF).

"I was there without being there"

She gave her version of the facts of the altercation that made controversy. Friday, October 11, she accompanies a group of children from Belfort to Dijon to visit a museum and attend the meeting of the Regional Council of Burgundy-Franche-Comté. "It was not expected that I participate in this outing," said first Fatima E., who wishes to remain anonymous. Her son and friends insisted that she come, just like the teacher who left him "a word in the notebook" to "ask him to participate because no other mother was available".

Once installed in the audience of the regional council, the group plans to stay there "about ten minutes, to watch how it goes," she says. "We were in a corner, I even thought that no one could see us, and there I hear someone say" In the name of secularism ", then I hear people who start to scream, get excited," she explains. Fatima says she was only concerned about the "distress of the children" who were "shocked and traumatized", she said. "I was there without being there," she added. Initially, she does not intend to give in: "If I panic, the children would have been even more traumatized, so I tried to reassure them, telling them that the elected officials did not agree". Finally, when her son "jumps on it crying", she decides to leave the room. "I was shaking from head to toe and I felt like I was falling," she said.

"I'm sure she wanted to physically provoke me"

Outside, she is again taken to task, this time by Karine Champy, a woman who previously belonged to the FN. The altercation is also reported by a member of the Union of Democrats and Ecologists (UDE), Jacqueline Ferrari, in Le Monde . Fatima E. and Jacqueline Ferrari say that the former RN has said "you will see, we will win.The Russians will arrive!", During this lively exchange. "She was gesticulating a lot, and was on the verge of jostling me, and thinking about it, I'm sure she wanted to physically provoke me to react," says Fatime E.

Today, she claims to be "tired" and "afraid of everything". "Sometimes the face of this lady comes back to me, I have chills and I tremble," she also said. "Today, I have a negative opinion of what is called the Republic". According to her, this incident came "to destroy all the work that I was doing indirectly with this class whose pupils of immigrant origin were sometimes in an attitude of thinking that France was against them and that they are rejected. I have always argued against this speech ". Now, she thinks things have changed. "When we left the regional council, they came to me to say:" You see, we told you! They do not like us! "And there I could not even talk anymore, the children came here to learn: what did they learn?"