Paris -
The former French teacher, Nchanda (a pseudonym), tells that she suffered from Islamophobia and racism in the schools of France, saying that she gave up the teaching profession that she loves under the pressure of the administration and the bullying of her colleagues, after declaring her Islam and wearing the hijab.
According to her account of Al-Jazeera Net, the frequency of this racist behavior towards her and the restrictions caused her to enter a state of severe depression, before she gave up teaching and established her own project.
And Nshanda, who is of Nigerian origin, adds, "Things were going well at the institute where I teach until I decided to commit to wearing the hijab. The administration's view of me and its behavior towards me changed, and most of my classmates' treatment of me changed after they learned of my religious commitment and noticed my keenness to wear the hijab outside of school."
And the forty-year-old teacher adds, "The principal suddenly stormed into the classroom with flimsy explanations, and at other times he sent someone to watch me from afar, and in periodic meetings he insinuated and declared that the education curricula in France are purely secular curricula, and the administration of the institute never tolerates any professor who tries to influence the students." with his extremist religious ideas or his Islamic dress and behavior.”
Islamophobia attack
Nchanda is not a specific isolated case in French society, but rather a sample of 60% of veiled Muslim women who have been subjected to discrimination and racism in France, according to a study by the IFOP Institute for Statistics on acts of discrimination and racism that French Muslims are exposed to because of their religion. For the Jean Jaures Foundation and published in August 2019.
In the same context, a French investigation conducted by the "Permanent Revolution" website and published last week revealed the frequency of harassment of French high school students of Islamic origins in light of the "spread of Islamophobia and racism" in schools, coinciding with the campaign launched by the extreme right against what it calls the spread of manifestations of Islam within the center. educational.
The investigation indicated that since the beginning of the academic year, Minister of National Education Babe Ndiaye continued the "Islamophobia attack" launched by his predecessor, Jean-Michel Blanquer, adding that the minister adopted the government's policy that "targets Muslim students in schools."
Anti-Islam laws
A 2004 law bans the wearing of what it considers to be religious symbols inside French public secondary schools, such as the headscarf.
The same investigation noted that within this legal framework the government and Babe Ndiaye add to the long list of clothing that would refer to the Islamic religion "cloaks, shirts, and even in some cases headbands".
The characterization of these clothes and costumes as “belonging to Islam” is left to the “discretion” of the directors of the institution, who decide “on the basis of subjective and completely arbitrary criteria the religious character of the dress or not,” according to the expression of the author who conducted the investigation.
According to the investigation, the free discretion of school principals leads to "a real control over clothing and harassment of students who are perceived as Muslims."
To implement these directives, principals apply "somewhat resembling racist or anti-Islamic profiling" and go so far as to question students - who are supposed to be Muslims - about their religious beliefs.
In an interview with Le Monde newspaper last October, Education Minister Babe Ndiaye invoked the religious symbols that should be interpreted by the heads of institutions, and called on them to be "firm" in applying the 2004 law.
The investigation of the "Permanent Revolution" platform concluded that it is more necessary than ever for workers in the field of national education to demand - along with students - the "cancellation of anti-Islamic laws" that seek to "hold Muslim women, men and women, responsible for the deterioration of French schools." .
The investigation also called for the need to condemn "racial profiling" and "state Islamophobia" that aims to "suppress young Muslim women and young men who are subjected to racism," according to the investigation.
In the end, he affirmed that "all these laws that kill freedom are, in fact, just an expression of the racism of the French state."
Attacks on secularism
On the other hand, Education Minister Babe Ndiaye made it clear in an interview with Le Monde newspaper published last October that there was already a wave of wearing clothes that could be considered religious.
Ndiaye stressed that the numbers of attacks on secularism in French schools are increasing, and it is a phenomenon that is transmitted in particular through social networks, as he confirms.
The minister revealed that for last September there were 313 attacks on the principles of secularism, and in the last quarter of the previous year, from April to July, 909 cases were reported, compared to 635 cases between December and March.
Last September, the minister confirmed the increase in attacks on the principle of secularism, noting that 51% of them take place in secondary schools, while in the past universities were the most vulnerable, and the majority of these reports relate to wearing religious symbols and clothing, such as "cloaks that seem to be increasing." , According to him.
On the other hand, French Minister of State for Citizenship Affairs Sonia Bakis stated last October that costumes that bear a religious symbol such as the "cloak" are prohibited in public schools, noting that those who wear them "do this to provoke."
"We have to be pragmatic," Bakis said, asking, "Does someone who is not of the Muslim faith wear the abaya? The answer is no, so there is no place for religious symbols in the school."
Shocking numbers
Figures from the same survey by the Ifop Institute in 2019 showed that acts of discrimination and attacks against Muslims in France are increasing on a daily basis compared to people of other religions.
The survey revealed that 40% of the sample were victims of racist behavior, and that 48% were exposed to some form of discrimination during the education process in schools, and that 13% confirmed that they were discriminated against by the police when investigating them, and 17% were subjected to the same treatment when searching for work, and 14 % have been exposed to racism and discrimination when searching for housing.
On the other hand, the survey showed that women are more vulnerable to discrimination and racism than men, as we find that the percentage of women amounted to 46% compared to 38% of men, in addition to that acts of discrimination against veiled women amounted to 60% compared to non-veiled Muslims, as their percentage reached 44%, especially during the job search journey.
The results of the survey also indicated that 37% of veiled women were subjected to insults, verbal insults and defamation. With regard to professional life, the survey indicated that 63% of Muslim executives suffer from racism, compared to 34% of workers.
The decline of French education
In turn, Khaled (a pseudonym), a professor of mathematics at the "La Cornav" school, explained that the phenomenon of racism and Islamophobia is not new, and it began to emerge since the end of President Jacques Chirac's rule, but it has deepened a lot since Sarkozy's rule and it was only in the street, but in the last decade it entered schools and institutes high school.
He added to Al-Jazeera Net, "Focusing on the issue of religious dress and the principles of secularism, and the harassment of Muslim female students is a fundamentally wrong issue. Today, as a mathematics teacher for 22 years in French schools, I notice the delay and decline in the value of French education in recent years compared to the past. If we take France's ranking in the test and competition International Mathematics, we find that it is very late, after years ago it occupied the first 10 ranks, today it ranks almost 30.
The fifty-year-old professor of Tunisian origin concluded that seeking to hide the basic issues and fundamental problems of education in France - such as the shortage of teachers at the beginning of the school year and low wages - and diverting attention from them to other side issues such as religious dress and preserving secularism, is an attempt by the ministry and the government in order to attract the attention of the media. And creating noise and "propaganda" that obscures the real, fundamental problems in the education sector.
In this regard, a study conducted by the Ifop Institute in March 2021 revealed that 52% of secondary school students support the wearing of religious symbols in secondary schools, and that 43% of them consider secular laws discriminatory against at least one religion.
Shocking stories
Professor Khaled recalls an incident that occurred to one of his students and remained firmly in his mind 10 years ago, as the French teacher asked the student Muhammad of Algerian origin: What do you want to become when you complete your education?
Which majors will you choose?
The 12-year-old answered him automatically: I want to specialize in chemistry and become a chemist. The French professor only said to him in a racist tone, "You want to specialize in chemistry so that you can make bombs in the future."
And the mathematics teacher continues his speech, saying, "Under the horror of the racist answer, the young student came to me after two days and told me the story, and he could hardly understand what his teacher had told him, so I tried to convince him that his teacher was just joking with him."
In another incident, Professor Khaled explained that the director of the institute in which he was teaching in a previous period asked him to write a report on his French student of Algerian origin so that he would be directed to the “SEGPA” system, which is a parallel education system that takes care of students who face problems. In pronunciation, memorization and understanding, according to the professor of mathematics.
He continues, "But I refused the principal's request because I know the student's abilities and distinction, but he is only a lively student who has a lot of movement and questioning, and the principal, under pressure from the rest of his colleagues, wanted to get rid of him, and the strange thing is that this student ranked first in his class since the first trimester, which in the end showed racism." Colleagues and the director towards him only because he is French of Algerian origin, and if this student was French, father and grandfather, they would not have behaved with him like this.