The French state has signalled its intention to crack down on Muslim school kids skipping swimming lessons.
Earlier today the government said it would launch an inquiry into absenteeism at school swimming lessons where Muslim schoolgirls are obliged to wear skimpy swimming outfits.
In a statement targeting “religious separatism,” the Minister of National Education, Youth and Sports and the Minister Delegate in charge of Citizenship to the Minister of the Interior, said they would launch an inquiry into the increasing number of suspicious absences from swimming lessons.
Jean-Michel Blanquer and Marlène Schiappa said: “The Government is determined to strengthen respect for the values of the Republic on the occasion of the bill reinforcing the principles of the Republic, currently being examined in Parliament.
“School must not be a breeding ground for ‘religious separatism’ when an act or a demonstration results in a refusal of activity, a specific demand, a challenge to teaching in the name of religious convictions.
“In recent years, there has been an increase in the issuance of certificates by health professionals excusing young girls from swimming lessons. These so-called ‘chlorine allergy’ certificates of convenience cannot be tolerated in schools in the Republic as long as they are not based on medical reasons.
“In order to measure the extent of this phenomenon which seems to have appeared recently, Jean-Michel Blanquer, Minister of National Education, Youth and Sports and Marlène Schiappa, Minister Delegate in charge of Citizenship to the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, will launch an investigation under the direction of the Council of the Elders of Secularism, in order to obtain the most precise information possible on this practice from the actors concerned.”
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French human rights activist Yasser Louati told 5Pillars: “This further confirms that the Macron government with Gerald Darmanin are at war with Muslims, and we should not reduce it to those two individuals but we should also speak about the ideologues surrounding them like the Minister of Education Jean-Michel Blanquer who is a staunch advocate of a violent secularism and to him anywhere where Muslims are visible or attempt to exist socially they have to be hung in the public space.
“So with this question of swimming pools, they want to make it mandatory when Muslims don’t want to go to the swimming pools, but they don’t make it mandatory to have good schools for Muslims in the suburbs or where teachers show up, where teachers have been absent for weeks.
“So make no mistake about it, things will only get worse for Muslims unless they start resisting these measures. And behind these measures there is also the rise of the police state that wants to control people’s beliefs, dress code, their way of life, and at the end of the day French people in general will lose if they are silent when Muslims are losing their civil liberties.”
Over the past few months France has enacted a number of measures outlawing religious separatism in the name of national security.
A few weeks ago 36 NGOs from 13 countries submitted a formal complaint to the United Nations Human Rights Council demanding immediate legal action against France over the violation of its Muslim citizens’ rights.
The complaint also demanded that France rescinds all laws which have systemically entrenched Islamophobia in France.
Over the past few months France has closed down the nation’s biggest anti-Islamophobia organisation as well as the country’s biggest Muslim charity. Paris has done this, it says, to fight extremism after a number of deadly “Islamist” attacks on its soil.
