Marine Le Pen: "Banning the headscarf" in France is no longer my top priority!
Banning the headscarf in public places demanded by the far-right candidate in France, Marine Le Pen, is no longer a top priority in her speech against what she describes as "Islamic extremism", according to what her aides revealed a week before the second round of the presidential elections.
On Saturday, Marine Le Pen, who will face outgoing President Emmanuel Macron in the second session next Sunday, said that the headscarf is a "complex problem", stressing that it is not "limited in thinking" and that this controversial draft ban will be discussed in the National Assembly.
In response to a question about this change in the situation, its spokesman, Sebastian Shawneau, explained to BFMTV channel, Sunday, that in the context of efforts aimed at confronting what he described as “Islamic fanaticism”, the ban on the headscarf in public places comes after containing “the tendency Salafism and the financing directed to it.
He said that if Marine Le Pen is elected to take over the presidency next Sunday, she will assign Parliament to determine the details of this issue, noting that "Parliament will take over this issue and provide practical solutions so that, for example, a woman in her seventies who has been wearing the headscarf for years is not affected by this measure. She is not the target party. We are targeting Islamic militants," according to "Sky News Arabia."
"The veil will be banned in all public buildings and administrations, and we will, of course, also allow company managers to ban political-religious manifestations," Jordan Bardella, vice president of the National Rally led by Le Pen, in turn, told France Inter.
He said that banning the headscarf is "the long-term goal", with a distinction between "the veil of French women who came from the waves of immigration in the sixties and seventies...and the veil, which today has become a pressure card in the hands of Islamic militants and a denial of equality between men and women."
The mayor of Perpignan (southern France) Louis Alliot, who in turn belongs to the "National Rally", explained in another radio episode that the essence of the law requires the protection of women who are subject to "family, social or sectarian" pressures.
The issue of the headscarf ban returned to the fore during the election campaign, while the two contenders in the presidential race are on opposite sides of the issue.
While Le Pen calls for a ban on the headscarf in public places, Macron sticks to the need to defend religious freedoms.
Between five and six million Muslims live in France, according to various statistics, which makes Islam the second major religion in the country and one of France's largest Muslims in Europe.
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