Paris school head resigns after death threats over Muslim veil row

RELIGIONS NEWS AGENCY (REDNA) – French politicians from across the spectrum have expressed dismay over the resignation of a Paris school principal who had received death threats after asking a student to remove her Muslim veil on the premises.

AP reported in a show of support, prime minister Gabriel Attal, a former education minister, was set to receive the principal late on Wednesday, his office said.

Secularism and religion are hot-button issues in France, which is home to Europe’s largest Muslim community.

In 2004, authorities banned schoolchildren from wearing “signs or outfits by which students ostensibly show a religious affiliation” such as headscarves, turbans or kippas on the basis of the country’s secular laws, which are meant to guarantee neutrality in state institutions.

The headteacher’s departure comes amid deep tensions in the country after a series of incidents including the killing of a teacher by an Islamist former pupil last year.

The head at the Maurice Ravel lycée in eastern Paris quit after receiving death threats online following an altercation with a student last month, officials told AFP.

In late February he had asked three students to remove their Islamic headscarves on school premises, but one of them refused and an altercation ensued, according to prosecutors. The head later received death threats online.

Marion Maréchal, granddaughter of far-right patriarch Jean-Marie Le Pen and a far-right politician herself, spoke on Sud Radio of a “defeat of the state” in the face of “the Islamist gangrene”.

Maud Bregeon, a lawmaker with President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party, also took aim at “an Islamist movement”.

“Authority lies with school heads and teachers, and we have a duty to support this educational community,” Bregeon said.

Socialist Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo called the principal to “assure him of her total support and solidarity”, said her office, adding she was “appalled and dismayed.”

The student lodged a complaint against the principal, accusing him of mistreating her during the incident. She told French daily Le Parisien that she had been “hit hard on the arm” by the principal.

The ministry said that “all teams” remained mobilised, adding that the principal’s decision to leave his post was “understandable given the seriousness of the attacks against him”.

Education minister Nicole Belloubet visited the school in early March and deplored the “unacceptable attacks”.

A 26-year-old man has been arrested for making death threats against the principal on the internet. He is due to stand trial in April.