France will give each child a number to track them attending school – and ban home education, under proposed legislation to curb Islamic extremism.
A six-month jail sentence would be given to those who flout the rules alongside a €7,500 fine if the plans go ahead. Gérald Darmanin, Minister of the Interior, said that in some areas there are ‘more boys than girls [in school] when statistically more girls are born. It’s a scandal’.
Heads who fail to respect French values in religious schools would face imprisonment of one year.
Other proposals include empowering local councils to refuse separate swimming times for men and women, and forcing mosques to be transparent about their overseas funding.
President Macron said the need for legislation has arisen to fight ‘Islamist separatism’. He described Islam as a religion ‘gangrened’ by radicalism.
Christians respond
The National Council of Evangelicals in France (CNEF) said ‘the government reassured the CNEF that the freedom of religion, in particular its peaceful expression in public space, is guaranteed. [However} the restrictions announced by the President regarding the ban on home education seem strict [and we are] astonished because the freedom of education is a freedom with constitutional value, which has recently been reaffirmed by both the Constitutional Council and the Council of State. We hope that this freedom will not be violated, and that other means be found to avoid the abuses of certain home-schooling practices.’
At the request of the Ministry of the Interior, the CNEF will formulate its remarks and proposals as part of the government’s consultation of faith groups before the end of the month.
