French Lawmakers Reject Ban on Religious Symbols at Polling Stations

As the National Assembly was studying the bill on respect for the principles of the Republic, Modem MPs tabled an amendment to ban the wearing of ostentatious religious symbols within polling stations, reports Le Parisien. "Mayors and municipal elected officials are the first responsible for the proper conduct of voting operations. As representatives of the State, they must in particular ensure the political but also religious neutrality of the members of the polling station," they defend.

This proposal has sparked heated controversy. "We are off the mark, fumes with anger the deputy of the Gard, Annie Chapelier (ex-LREM). [...] We are coming out of an election where there was 25% participation and where polling stations desperately sought assessors and we are theorizing on the fact that we are going to prohibit people who are engaged in citizenship from not being able to be assessors." According to her, we are targeting the woman who wears a veil and not the rest.

"Don’t find excuses for what you want to incriminate and that you are pointing the finger at and which is the veiled woman that you don’t want to accept. Citizenship is open to all and being an assessor must be open to all," Annie Chapelier told the deputies who replied to her that the amendment targets all religious symbols, including the kippah. Lamia El Aaraje, for her part, addressed LR deputy Julien Aubert: "Daring to say that France today is not a multicultural country... I don’t know what country you live in, but you don’t live in the same country as me." "I hope you are ashamed of what you said. Personally, you make me want to vomit," added the Socialist MP from Paris.

Marlène Schiappa, Minister Delegate to the Minister of the Interior, in charge of Citizenship, tried to calm the spirits. She called for "not fueling a spiral of stigmatization and hatred". The official questions the deputies: "Did Jordan Bardella feel threatened?", or did he "prefer to launch a controversy on social networks?". The candidate of the Rassemblement national (RN) in the regional elections in Île-de-France had voted in a polling station where a veiled assessor was present.

"You refuse to tackle the real problems," LR deputy Éric Ciotti said, provoking the annoyance of Marlène Schiappa. "When I hear you, Mr. Ciotti, draw a parallel between this lady who got up early to go be a volunteer assessor and a terrorist act and compare her to murderers, I am outraged for this lady. I would like to pay tribute to this lady and we should have more volunteers like her who get up whatever they have or don’t have on their head to come and hold the polling stations. Maybe with more ladies like her and less people like you, democracy would be better off."