Muslim Family Denied Service at Normandy Restaurant, Father Files Discrimination Complaint

A racist humiliation that does not pass. For this father who saw his Easter Monday ruined by this unpleasant family moment, sanctions must fall. Sanctions, that’s at least what Mohsen Zemni is demanding. Came from Argenteuil (Val d’Oise), with his family passing through Etretat (Seine-Maritime) this Easter Monday, he had to "cut short his stay to file a complaint against a restaurant," reports France Bleu Normandie.

Indeed, Mohsen Zemni claims to have been the victim of racism in this very popular establishment in the small Norman town, where when he wanted to sit with his wife and two children on the terrace, one of the waiters accosted them. "He looked sternly at my wife and asked us if we wanted to have a drink. I replied that we wanted to eat as a family, and he replied: no no, if you want to eat, for you, it’s in the back room of the restaurant’," he recounts.

Mohsen said he was surprised, especially since according to him other people were seated outside. "I asked the waiter if he was saying this because of the color of our skin or my wife’s veil. He repeated to me: ’it’s not otherwise, in the back of the restaurant otherwise you’ll eat elsewhere’," he continues.

In order to ensure that such humiliating treatment does not happen again, he decides to file a complaint against the establishment and also writes a letter to the mayor of Etretat, to, he says, "the honor of my wife whom I saw crying. And also so that it doesn’t happen again. The law exists, there must be exemplary sanctions because we are citizens like the others and we have rights."