Paris – Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader of France’s National Front Party, called today for a ban on the public wearing of veils by Muslims and yarmulkes by Jews, thereby inflaming the existing religious tensions caused by the earlier publication of offensive cartoons of Prophet Mohammed in the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Le Pen has said that religious head coverings should be barred “in stores, on public transport and on the streets,” adding that “it is obvious that if the veil is banned, the kippah is banned in public as well,” according to a report in the Le Monde newspaper (http://bit.ly/PPviT4). She also reiterated her position that public prayer and government funding of mosques should be outlawed, and that kosher and halal foods should no longer be served in schools.
President Francois Hollande condemned Le Pen’s remarks, saying, “Everything that tears people apart, opposes them and divides them is inappropriate and we must apply the rules, the only rules that we know, the rules of the Republic and secularism.”
Le Pen’s party won nearly 18 percent of the vote in the first round of this year’s presidential elections.