PARIS: Trade unions and anti-racism groups have criticized an initiative by the French interior ministry to check on the number of Muslim children who skipped school last month to celebrate Eid Al-Fitr.
The festival, which concludes the holy month of Ramadan, is observed as a holiday in Muslim-majority countries and fell on Friday, April 21, for most believers this year.
France’s interior ministry said Sunday that it had ordered “an evaluation of the level of absenteeism recorded on the occasion of Eid Al-Fitr.”
The ministry “regularly studies the impact of some religious festivals on the workings of public services, and notably in the educational sector,” said a statement from junior minister Sonia Backes.
In the city of Toulouse, police asked the heads of local schools to report the number of absent children on April 21, leading to accusations that authorities were creating a registry — which was denied by Backes.
The country’s biggest teachers’ union, the FSU, said in a statement addressed to Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin on Monday that it “harshly denounces this operation.”
“Attempting to create statistics by security forces on religious beliefs and their observance or not, above all in a school environment, goes against the basic principles of secularism and fundamental rights,” it said.
The smaller CGT Educ’ation union called it a “scandalous and dangerous stigmatization.”
Using police to carry out the checks was “particularly shocking because it associates the observance of the Islamic religion to an issue of security,” the anti-racism group SOS Racisme said.
France has a strict form of secularism that seeks to separate the state and its various branches from religion and religious bodies, while guaranteeing the freedom to worship to all.
Collecting information about ethnicity or religious beliefs is also generally prohibited in France under the country’s anti-discrimination laws.
Owing to the country’s Catholic heritage, major Christian festivals such as Christmas or Easter are observed as public holidays in France when schools are closed.
Outcry in France over checks on children skipping school for Eid
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Outcry in France over checks on children skipping school for Eid
- France’s interior ministry said Sunday that it had ordered “an evaluation of the level of absenteeism recorded on the occasion of Eid Al-Fitr”
Italian police fire tear gas as protesters clash near Winter Olympics hockey venue
- Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes’ village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue
MILAN: Italian police fired tear gas and a water cannon at dozens of protesters who threw firecrackers and tried to access a highway near a Winter Olympics venue on Saturday.
The brief confrontation came at the end of a peaceful march by thousands against the environmental impact of the Games and the presence of US agents in Italy.
Police held off the violent demonstrators, who appeared to be trying to reach the Santagiulia Olympic ice hockey rink, after the skirmish. By then, the larger peaceful protest, including families with small children and students, had dispersed.
Earlier, a group of masked protesters had set off smoke bombs and firecrackers on a bridge overlooking a construction site about 800 meters (a half-mile) from the Olympic Village that’s housing around 1,500 athletes.
Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes’ village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue. A heavy police presence guarded the entire route.
There was no indication that the protest and resulting road closure interfered with athletes’ transfers to their events, all on the outskirts of Milan.
The demonstration coincided with US Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Milan as head of the American delegation that attended the opening ceremony on Friday.
He and his family visited Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” closer to the city center, far from the protest, which also was against the deployment of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to provide security to the US delegation.
US Homeland Security Investigations, an ICE unit that focuses on cross-border crimes, frequently sends its officers to overseas events like the Olympics to assist with security. The ICE arm at the forefront of the immigration crackdown in the US is known as Enforcement and Removal Operations, and there is no indication its officers are being sent to Italy.
At the larger, peaceful demonstration, which police said numbered 10,000, people carried cardboard cutouts to represent trees felled to build the new bobsled run in Cortina. A group of dancers performed to beating drums. Music blasted from a truck leading the march, one a profanity-laced anti-ICE anthem.
“Let’s take back the cities and free the mountains,” read a banner by a group calling itself the Unsustainable Olympic Committee. Another group called the Association of Proletariat Excursionists organized the cutout trees.
“They bypassed the laws that usually are needed for major infrastructure project, citing urgency for the Games,” said protester Guido Maffioli, who expressed concern that the private entity organizing the Games would eventually pass on debt to Italian taxpayers.
Homemade signs read “Get out of the Games: Genocide States, Fascist Police and Polluting Sponsors,” the final one a reference to fossil fuel companies that are sponsors of the Games. One woman carried an artificial tree on her back decorated with the sign: “Infernal Olympics.”
The demonstration followed another last week when hundreds protested the deployment of ICE agents.
Like last week, demonstrators Saturday said they were opposed to ICE agents’ presence, despite official statements that a small number of agents from an investigative arm would be present in US diplomatic territory, and not operational on the streets.
