A heavily pregnant woman has been hospitalised in France after being attacked by two men in what her husband described as an “Islamophobic act”.
One of the attackers hit 29-year-old Kedidja, who was wearing the hijab, several times and threw her to the ground as she dropped her two children off at school in the French city of Toulouse, La Depeche reports.
Her husband Munir says they grabbed her hair and pulled at her veil while yelling “none of that here” at the nine-months-pregnant woman who is due to give birth in mid-April.
She is now recovering and her unborn baby is believed to be unharmed, but her husband revealed that she has not stopped crying since the attack on Tuesday morning.
He added: “My wife had just put our two daughters to school, one in kindergarten and one in elementary school.
“Upon leaving, she met two young men. One of them grabbed her hair, pulled on her veil and insulted her.
“After the final few blows and a some more insults – including death threats – the two boys ran away, leaving her extremely shocked.”
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The assailant’s friend allegedly stopped the attack from continuing before the pair shouted Islamophobic abuse and threatened to kill her.
33-year-old Munir described himself and his wife as “Muslims and French”, and said the men were offended by the hijab, even though she was dressed conventionally in tracksuit bottoms and a jacket.
Their local MP Christophe Borgel was outraged after hearing about the attack and claims that it was “without a doubt” racially motivated.
He said: “I was shocked to learn of this attack. This French woman of Muslim faith was attacked because she was wearing the traditional headscarf.
“France does not tolerate any kind of racist attack, France will not tolerate any kind of aggression based on the religion of one of its citizens.
“I condemn this act of extreme cowardice and inhumanity in the strongest terms.”
There was a similar incident in June 2013 when a pregnant Muslim woman was physically attacked in the suburbs of Paris by two “skinheads” for wearing the niqab. The woman tragically suffered a miscarriage.
France outlawed the niqab from all public areas in 2010 after banning the hijab from all state schools in 2004.
But French authorities have been concerned by a rise in Islamophobia since the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris in January.
In the two weeks following the shootings, there were 128 anti-Muslim incidents registered, which is almost the same number as in the whole of 2014.
