PARIS — France’s National Assembly adopted on Tuesday evening at first reading a bill meant to be the cornerstone of Macron’s plan to tackle Islamist extremism.
The bill includes a limited extension of the neutrality principle for public servants and contractors —which prohibits wearing religious signs such as the headscarf, restrictions on homeschooling and ramped up scrutiny on the financing and activities of religious organizations.
Specific measures also crack down on practices such as virginity certificates, polygamy, or arranged marriage.
The “law comforting the respect of the Republic’s principles” in its full name will now move to the Senate, before being finalized in a joint parliamentary committee.
Macron’s majority party, LREM, voted massively in favor, even though risks of internal divisions had been anticipated before the discussion of the text. A controversial amendment sponsored by two majority MPs sought to ban headscarves for girls younger than 18, but the divisive provisions were eventually dropped.
Opposition parties mostly voted against or abstained. On the left, the Socialists and France Unbowed saw the bill as restricting liberties, failing to address inequalities and discriminations affecting Muslims. Conservatives from Les Républicains voted against, finding the government’s line too soft. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally abstained, wishing for the text to explicitly ban “Islamist ideologies.”
The bill’s inspiration is President Emmanuel Macron’s October speech on “separatisms,” a term which has come to define practices seen as incompatible with French republican values. Motivating the text, though not explicitly mentioned within, is a pushback against what the government says is a growing footprint of radical Islam in parts of the country.