Schools in the academy of the city of Toulouse, in southwestern France, have received an email from the police asking them to pass on to their Muslim pupils the absenteeism rates for the Eid holiday al-Fitr.
“Based on the request from the information services and for the evaluation of this day, we ask you to know the absenteeism rate for Friday, April 21, during the Eid holiday. Please get back to us quickly” , indicates the email, which was received by nearly 100 schools, from kindergarten to high school.
Responding to the controversy surrounding this request, the Secretary of State for Citizenship, Sonia Bakis, confirmed in a press release that “contrary to what has been said in recent days, it is clear that the Ministry of the Interior and de l’Outre-mer does not practice any registration of students according to their faith or record personal data at any time.
On the other hand, she pointed out that “the Ministry of the Interior regularly studies the impact of certain religious holidays on the performance of public services, particularly in the educational field”.
request without consent
It seems that the Ministry of the Interior acted without coordination with the Ministry of Education after the Academy of Toulouse indicated through its dean, Mustapha Fourard, that the initiative had taken place without his approval .
Normally, “we don’t conduct any such investigation,” he told AFP, explaining that “civic education has nothing to do with it.”
This is why he sent a directive to the institutions advising them not to provide this data.
As soon as the news was broadcast, the Union of National Education majorities sent a direct letter to the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, asking him for “clarifications” on the “nature of the request” formulated by his ministry.
For its part, the Federation of Mosques of France called for an “appropriate investigation”, considering that “families must be informed and reassured about the future of the information provided by certain heads of establishments who, unfortunately, responded to the request of the police.”
Violation of the principles of secularism
As for the association “SOS Racisme”, which mocked the recognition of the Ministry of the Interior, it asked in a press release on “other religious holidays that the ministry has requested to assess the absenteeism rate of officials of establishments”.
And the head of the association, Dominique Sopo, said in his statement to “Sky News Arabia” that the police request “is particularly shocking because it violates many basic principles, the most important of which is the principle of secularism. , the principle of equality and, without a doubt, the principle of legality.”
Stressing that this investigation was seized by the police, it actually associates “the practice of the Islamic religion” with the “internal security issue”, and this includes the targeting of Muslim families”, he questioned on “the link between the so-called Islamic religion of children and the problem of security”.
He recalls that in France, “the true or supposed religion of a child can never be the source of suspicion or suspicion”.
As for the leftist of the “Independent France” party, Eric Cockerell, he considered in his interview with “Sky News Arabia” that the request was a “scandal”, especially since the ministry requested it directly from the heads of ‘establishment.
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