The French government has insisted it will not seek to ban Muslim women who wear headscarves from volunteering to help on school trips after outrage when mothers accompanying pupils were told to remove theirs.
One mother said pupils were distressed and traumatised when a far-right politician told her to take off her headscarf in a regional parliament in eastern France, where she was helping out on a primary school outing for her son’s class.
The incident has reignited a long-running row over French secularism and whether politicians can decide how Muslim mothers should dress when volunteering to take part in school activities.
There is no law banning mothers in headscarves from accompanying school trips; indeed, France’s state council ruled in 2013 that mothers were free to wear whatever they wanted on outings. [The Guardian] Read more
