President Emmanuel Macron’s government has unveiled a wide-ranging draft law to curb the influence of Islamist “separatists” in French society, reports the Financial Times.
The draft legislation, launched on the 115th anniversary of France’s 1905 law separating church and state on Wednesday, includes measures to ban “virginity certificates” for Muslim women and to curb home schooling.
It follows two deadly Islamist terror attacks in October, in which four people were killed. Although the text does not use the words “Islamist” or “separatist” and is called the law “to protect the principles of the republic”, Mr Macron and his ministers have said their aim is to rein in Islamists whom they accuse of imposing puritanical, sexist and sometimes violently anti-republican views on communities across France.
The country is home to an estimated 5.7m Muslims, according to Pew Research Center, the largest such minority in western Europe. Prime minister Jean Castex, presenting the bill after a cabinet meeting at Mr Macron’s Elysée presidential palace, said it targeted “the pernicious ideology known as radical Islamism”.
He said: “This draft law is not a text against religions, nor against the Muslim religion in particular. It’s the opposite — a law of freedom, a law of protection, a law of emancipation in the face of religious fundamentalism.”
The law includes an extension of the principle of “neutrality” in public services to private companies contracted by the authorities: “neutrality” means that those working for the state may not wear ostentatious religious symbols or refuse to work with people of another sex or religion.