French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal defended his country’s secularism after the principal of a Parisian school resigned after asking students to remove their Islamic veils on campus.
Attal, a former education minister, said the state plans to sue the student for falsely accusing the principal of mistreatment during an incident in late February.
“The state… will always support these officials, those who are on the front lines in the face of violations of secularism and attempts to infiltrate Islamism in educational institutions,” he said on the evening news of TV channel TF1.
Secularism and religion are major issues in France, home to Europe’s largest Muslim community.
In 2004, authorities banned schoolchildren from wearing “signs or clothing that outwardly indicate religious affiliation,” such as scarves, turbans, and kippas, under the country’s secular law, which aims to guarantee the neutrality of state institutions. was prohibited.
The principal’s resignation comes amid severe tensions in the country following a series of incidents, including the murder of a teacher last year by an Islamist former student.
The head of the Maurice Ravel Museum in east Paris resigned last month after an altercation with a student and receiving death threats online, sources told AFP.
According to prosecutors, in late February he asked three students to remove their Islamic headscarves on school grounds, but one of them refused and an argument ensued. The person responsible subsequently received death threats online.
The principal resigned for “security reasons,” according to a letter sent by the school to teachers, students and parents, and education officials said he had taken “early retirement.”
In a message to school staff quoted by French communist daily L’Humanité, the principal said he had decided to leave the school “for his own safety and that of the school.”
“This is a disgrace,” Bruno Letailot, leader of the right-wing Republican faction in the Senate, told X on Wednesday.
Boris Vallou, head of the Socialist Party parliamentary group in the lower house of the National Assembly, told broadcaster France 2 that he called the incident a “collective failure” and said: “We cannot accept it.”
Marion Maréchal, the granddaughter of far-right patriarch Jean-Marie Le Pen and a far-right politician herself, spoke on Sud Radio about the “defeat of the state” in the face of “Islamist gangrene.”
Maud Bréjon, a lawmaker from President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party, also targeted the “Islamist movement.”
“The power rests with principals and teachers, and we have an obligation to support this educational community,” Brejon said.
Paris’ socialist mayor, Anne Hidalgo, called on the school principal to “assume our full support and solidarity,” adding that her office was “appalled and disappointed.”
The student accused the principal of abusing her during the incident. She told French daily Le Parisien that her principal “hit her hard on the arm”.
The students are adults who attended school for vocational training.
The Paris public prosecutor’s office told AFP on Wednesday that her charges had been dismissed.
At the same time, an investigation into cyber harassment was launched following death threats against the chief.
In a further show of support, the Ministry of Education said in a statement that it will never abandon teachers in the face of threats.
The ministry said “all teams” remained mobilized, adding that the principal’s decision to leave his post was “understandable given the seriousness of the attack against him”.
Education Minister Nicole Berube visited the school in early March and deplored the “unacceptable attack”.
A 26-year-old man has been arrested for making death threats against a school principal online. He is scheduled to go on trial in April.
