“Secularism is a dam that the Republic has built to protect personal freedom of expression by prohibiting all proselytism within the framework of its institutions”. With these words, the Republican (LR) mayor of Chalon-sur-Saône, Gilles Platret, made it clear on December the 29th that he wanted to oppose the penetration of Islamism into schools, explains the Journal de Saône-et-Loire. The right-wing MP explained that he had sent a letter to the academic director of the Saône-et-Loire departmental education authorities pointing out the presence of a mother veiled from head to toe as an chaperone on a school trip just before the Christmas holidays.
Gilles Platret states: “In fact, just before the school holidays, when I myself noticed that a class from a school in Chalon, coming from a Christmas performance organised by the town council in premises belonging to the town, was attended by several escorts, one of whom was wearing a full-body black veil from head to toe, a clear sign of Salafism, one of the most separatist doctrines of Islamism”. Before calling on the person in charge of education to “prevent such an occurrence from happening again in Chalon-sur-Saône in the future”.