A student mother and CIPF activist poses in front of a school in Pantin, to denounce the problem of the veil during school trips.
The new campaign of the Federation of Parents’ Councils (CIPF), defending the right for veiled women to go on school trips, is a “mistake” for
the Minister of National Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer. A statement that angered the first federation of parents of students.
On the occasion of the elections of parents’ representatives, CIPF internally broadcast a campaign poster defending the right of mothers of veiled Muslim students to accompany their children to school trips. “Yes, I’m going on a school trip, so what? “, Says this poster, published on social networks. “Secularism is welcoming all parents without exception to school,” reads a subtitle, next to a photo showing a veiled woman and a girl.
Asked about it on RMC-BFM TV, the Minister of Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, said “regrettable” this campaign. “You have to have a sense of history, this federation of parents of students
was based on secularism so it’s extremely paradoxical, I think it’s a mistake on their part, I hope they will fix it, “he said. The minister then pushed the point: “It’s a little bit disturbing. There are elections of parents in a few weeks, the fact that we now have organizations that try to flatter communitarianism to have votes is not a good thing, “he said, asking CIPF to “correct” this “error”.
“We were many, I think, to be saddened by seeing a federation of parents of students known in our country do a poster campaign around veiled moms at school,” added the minister, a few hours later, traveling to Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. “On the legal level, it is quite possible for a mother to be veiled, however, we never said it was to encourage,” he said.
A reaction deemed “scandalous” by Rodrigo Arenas, co-chair of CIPF. “This poster was sent internally to all our departmental sections, it was part of a lot as part of the electoral material for the elections,” he said. The sections then choose the posters to be broadcast “according to the realities of the field”. “Out of context, this poster has been exploited by far-right networks and Laurent Bouvet, founder of the Republican Printemps and member of the council of wise men of laïcité, instituted by Mr. Blanquer,” protested Rodrigo Arenas.
According to the CIPF, Laurent Bouvet, who promotes strict secularism, has diverted the poster on his Facebook and Twitter accounts, for example by replacing the faces of women with faces of jihadists. The federation is since “cyberharcelée” and “by its reaction, Mr. Blanquer undermines the election results,” denounced Rodrigo Arenas.
Source: En24News
