French Politicians Support Principal Who Used Violence Against Muslim Student
French politicians have shown their support for a school principal who was forced to resign after receiving death threats for asking a Muslim student to remove her headscarf within the school premises. Last February, the principal of Maurice-Ravel high school in East Paris had asked three Muslim students to remove their headscarves on school grounds, but one of the students refused and accused the principal of violence during the ensuing altercation. The principal later resigned “for security reasons” and was said to have taken “early retirement.”
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, in an interview with French television on Wednesday, stated their support for the principal who had been accused of violence for asking the student to unveil. Attal announced that an official complaint would be filed against the student for “slanderous accusations.” Bruno Retailleau, the leader of the right-wing Les Républicains group in the Senate, commented on X (formerly Twitter), “We cannot accept this,” while Marion Maréchal, a far-right politician, referred to the situation as a "defeat of the state." Maud Bregeon, a lawmaker from President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party, emphasized, “Authority lies with school heads and teachers, and we have a duty to support this educational community.”
The Muslim student who was asked to remove her headscarf claimed she was “hit hard on the arm” by the principal and filed a complaint, which the Paris prosecutor’s office dismissed on Wednesday.
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