Borne and Bompard denounce Attal's plan to ban girls under 15 from wearing the veil

Elisabeth Borne and Manuel Bompard rarely agree. But one man brought together the Minister of National Education and the national coordinator of La France Insoumise (France Insoumise) this Sunday, May 25th: Gabriel Attal. In their Sunday interviews, the two politicians, in different styles, criticized the Renaissance boss's proposal to ban the veil for girls under 15, amidst the debate over the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in France and the right-wing escalation of measures to address it.

A guest on the RTL-Public Sénat -Le Figaro Grand Jury , Manuel Bompard deemed the former Prime Minister's proposal "pathetic and pitiful." "In a way, he wants to take part in the world championship of the most demagogic and the most reactionary," he said. "It's ridiculous. You're going to send police officers into the street to check the identity card of a person wearing a veil to see if they are 14 years and 11 months old or 15 years old. Frankly, that's not reasonable," he added.

The Bouches-du-Rhône MP took the opportunity to criticize the President of the Republic, who convened a defense council meeting on Wednesday to discuss a report on the Muslim Brotherhood aimed at combating Islamist "entryism" in France. When Emmanuel Macron "supports" this theory "because he's holding a Defense Council meeting on the subject, yes, he's a conspiracy theorist," he attacked.

A more measured tone was adopted by Elisabeth Borne, who nonetheless expressed her opposition to Gabriel Attal's proposal. "When we are faced with a serious threat, we must not rule out any avenues, and then we must work to propose rigorous, constitutionally sound, and enforceable measures," declared the former Prime Minister, calling on her successor to "take the time to debate it as well" within the party of which she is a leading figure. "It is a symptom, no doubt, that the little girl is having an education that is not in line with the values ​​of the Republic, but it goes without saying that if we were to ban certain religious symbols, then we would have to ban all religious symbols, ban them in public spaces that are not neutral spaces [like] schools," she elaborated. Before asking: "Then there is a question of applicability: do we imagine that police officers will arrest and fine little girls?"