France: The extreme right compared using muslim headscarves or yarmulke to “going naked down the street”

 

September 21, 2012

 

The nationalist right-wing party led by Marine Le Pen proposed a controversial bill banning Muslim headscarves or the religious Jewish yarmulke. They compared its use to “going naked down the street.”

The National Front entered the French Parliament an initiative banning the use of religious habits in public.

Accused of being “liberticidal”, Le Pen argued that “it depends of what is regarded as a freedom”. “You may not walk naked in the street … is that liberticidal?”, she said.

She also called for an end to foreing state funding on French mosques, only temples that receive state subsidies. “I do not care that a state wants to fund a mosque in our country provided that it is not prohibited on their territory funding of churches or any other religion,” she said.

The presidential project proposed by Le Pen banned the use of “religious habits” in “public services dependent on the state, administrative sectors or local bodies.” Now, the National Front wants a project that also includes public transport.