Marine Le Pen has promised to ban women wearing Muslim headscarves if she becomes president next year. The leader of the National Rally declared on X: ‘I will submit to the French people, by referendum, a bill to combat Islamist ideologies with numerous powerful measures, including the banning of the Islamist headscarf in public spaces’.

Le Pen may be out of step with the rest of the political class but she is speaking for a majority of the people

Le Pen may be out of step with the rest of the political class but she is speaking for a majority of the people

France has led the way among European countries on the issue of conservative Islamic dress. In 2004, for example, a law was passed prohibiting the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols in schools. It applied to Christians, Jews and Muslims, but France was accused of using the bill to persecute Islam. ‘Wearing a headscarf, for whatever reason, will not undermine the French nation,’ said the Guardian.

In 2010, France became the first European nation to ban the Islamic niqab – the full-face veil – with an overwhelming majority of MPs backing the bill. One of the most vociferous supporters of the ban was the prominent far-left politician, Jean-Luc Melenchon, who called the niqab ‘degrading’. He added: ‘We are not........

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