Former French prime minister Gabriel Attal faces backlash from across the board after calling to ban Muslim headscarves for children under 15. Seeking media attention and to show "firmness" on state authority issues, Attal outlined his proposal on Tuesday, May 20, the day before a Defense Council meeting about a report on the Muslim Brotherhood and political Islamism in France. He also called for the creation of a "misdemeanor of coercion to wear a headscarf" to punish parents. His statements drew criticism from the left, the right and even from within his own party.

His predecessor as prime minister, Elisabeth Borne, voiced her "deepest doubts about the constitutionality" and the "applicability" of the measure, speaking on Sunday to the news channel BFM-TV. "Can we really imagine police officers stopping and fining little girls?" she asked. While she argued that "in the face of a serious threat (...) no option should be off the table," Borne, now the education minister, advised "working to propose rigorous, constitutionally sound, and applicable measures."

Marc Fesneau, the second-in-command of centrist Prime Minister François Bayrou's MoDem party, expressed concern about "an escalating one-upmanship" on matters of state authority within President Emmanuel Macron's coalition. "Within the 'central bloc,' we are now advocating the rhetoric, the ideas, the proposals of the right, or even the far right. But that is not what the center is about! That is not the adventure we wanted to build with Emmanuel Macron in 2017," said Fesneau, in the newspaper La Tribune Dimanche. "The original promise was one of moderation, unity, and reconciliation," he said.

You have 72.43% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.