Religious Profiling of Muslim Children Causes Outcry in France

TEHRAN (IQNA) – A French mayor backed by the far-right Front National has been accused of racism after using the names of schoolchildren in his town to decide how many were Muslim.

Under France’s strict secularism laws, the government does not keep statistics on people’s religion or ethnicity.

Robert Menard, the mayor of Béziers in the southern region of Languedoc-Roussillon, said in a live TV broadcast that his administration had listed the school kids’ names to see how many were Muslim, The Guardian reported on Tuesday.

Menard said during the Monday night broadcast that about 64 percent of the town’s schoolchildren are Muslims, added that the figure was obtained by counting the names of the kids “class by class.”

According to an opinion piece published in the French daily Le Monde, what Menard did is illegal under article 226-19 of the French Penal Code and can be punishable by up to five years in prison or a 300,000-euro fine.

“I know I don’t have the right to do it. Sorry to say it, but the first names tell us their religion. To say otherwise is to deny the evidence," he said.

Reacting to the incident, Prime Minister Manuel Valls denounced the move, saying, "Shame on the mayor of Béziers. The Republic does not make any distinction between its children.”

And Education Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem has also called for a judicial investigation into Menard’s comments.

Moreover, the head of the country's National Observatory Against Islamophobia, Abdallah Zekri, criticized Menard’s comments, saying, “I am scandalized, sickened by these comments… Moreover, you can be called Mohammed without being a practicing Muslim.”