Keyword: Bourgogne-Franche-Comté regional council

French mother in regional council headscarf row files complaint

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The woman accompanying a school party who was asked by a far-right councillor to leave a regional council meeting in France because she was wearing a Muslim headscarf, a shocking incident captured in a photo of her distressed son breaking into tears, has decided to file an official complaint with prosecuton services for 'violence of a racial nature'.

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Outrage at call for Muslim mother to remove headscarf at French council meeting

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The distressing scene at a meeting of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté regional council on Friday. The distressing scene at a meeting of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté regional council on Friday.

At a regional council meeting in Burgundy on Friday, a councillor from France's far-right Rassemblement National party (formerly the Front National) demanded that a woman in the public gallery should remove her headscarf or leave. She was accompanying a visiting group of primary school children, which included her son who burst into tears over the humiliation of his mother. A photo of the incident immediately caused outrage as it circulated on social media, and has since developed into a major political controversy, dividing members of government and highlighting the blurring of the boundaries of France’s secular rules and their misuse as a weapon for Islamophobia.