Maryam Pougetoux, the vice-president of the UNEF during the committee to the Assembly.

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Screenshot / National Assembly

A "bad trial" for some and an "act of communitarianism" for others.

This Thursday, LR deputies and an elected LREM chose to leave a hearing in the Assembly on Covid-19 and youth, to protest against the presence of a veiled student unionist, a "false debate" according to the walker who chaired the meeting.

Parliamentarians participated in the hearing of representatives of student unions as part of the new commission of inquiry "to measure and prevent the effects of the Covid-19 crisis on children and youth", created on the initiative of the Communist Marie-George Buffet (Seine-Saint-Denis) who is the rapporteur.

As a deputy and feminist, attached to republican values, to #laicite and to #women's rights, I cannot accept that a person comes to participate in our work at the #AN in hijab, which remains for me a mark of submission .


So I left this audition #DirectAN pic.twitter.com/6L5PRF2YvX

- Anne-Christine Lang (@AChristine_Lang) September 17, 2020

An "act of communitarianism"

After the speech of the student unionists, the deputy of Pas-de-Calais (LR) Pierre-Henri Dumont, making a "point of order", was indignant at the veil worn by the vice-president of the UNEF, Maryam Pougetoux, considering that it was a "deliberate communitarian act" which violated "the principle of secularism to which our assembly must adhere".

The argument was attacked by the president of the commission, the elected representative of Haute-Garonne Sandrine Mörch, who deplored a "bad trial" by recalling that "no rule prohibits (knows) the wearing of signs religious for those interviewed ”.

The LR deputies who left the room were joined by Anne-Christine Lang (LREM), for whom the “wearing of the hijab” is “incompatible” with his “values”.

"I cannot accept that within the National Assembly, the beating heart of democracy (…), we accept that a person appear in a hijab before a commission of inquiry", she indicated.

A feminist conviction?

"As a deputy and feminist, attached to republican values, # secularism and # women's rights, I cannot accept that a person comes to participate in our work at the # AN in hijab, which remains for me a mark of submission, ”she added in a tweet.

Her colleague Sandrine Mörch replied that she would not let "this false debate around the veil enter this commission supposed to work on the future and present of young people in a very complicated situation".

Maryam Pougetoux was at the heart of a controversy in 2018 when several political figures, including Marlène Schiappa, then Secretary of State for Gender Equality, criticized the UNEF, a left-wing student union, for having appointed a student veiled as a spokesperson.

Society

No, this image does not show veiled women in front of the Sarcelles CAF

Media

A journalist from the "Figaro" associates the veil and September 11, and creates controversy

  • Deputy

  • Secularism

  • Headscarf

  • Islam

  • National Assembly