“These remarks are shocking and unacceptable,” said Valérie Pécresse. The rhetoric competition on the theme of secularism, organised on May 16 by the Île-de-France region in Saint-Ouen (Seine-Saint-Denis) in collaboration with the Ligue de l’enseignement, led to a huge scandal. Several young candidates, coached by a League affiliate, gave disturbing speeches. One candidate called the 1905 law an “archaic concept” that “divides us instead of uniting us”, “serves mainly to prevent the wearing of headscarves” and leads to “mosques being built in prefabricated houses and Muslims being forced to pray in the street”. For another competitor, “secularism is the coffin for women”, “a form of dictatorship”.www.lepoint.fr
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Antisemitism, Antizionism, Jihadism and the Reunited Germany. News by Fred Alan Medforth