Religious profiling of Muslim children causes outcry in France

A French mayor backed by the far-right Front National has been accused of racism after using the names of schoolchildren in his town to decide how many were Muslim

A French mayor backed by the far-right Front National has been accused of racism after using the names of schoolchildren in his town to decide how many were Muslim.

Under France’s strict secularism laws, the government does not keep statistics on people’s religion or ethnicity.

The Guardian reported on that Robert Menard, the mayor of Béziers in the southern region of Languedoc-Roussillon, said in a live TV broadcast that his administration had listed the school kids’ names to see how many were Muslim.

Reacting to the incident, Prime Minister Manuel Valls denounced the move, saying, “Shame on the mayor of Béziers. The Republic does not make any distinction between its children.”

And Education Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem has also called for a judicial investigation into Menard’s comments.

Moreover, the head of the country’s National Observatory Against Islamophobia, Abdallah Zekri, criticized Menard’s comments, saying, “I am scandalized, sickened by these comments… Moreover, you can be called Mohammed without being a practicing Muslim.”