PARIS, 14 May. - (ANA) - French President Emmanuel Macron’s ruling centrist party has barred a Muslim candidate from running in a local election after she was photographed in a hijab for a campaign flyer, a move which has drawn criticism from experts and opened bitter divisions within the party. 

 

Macron’s La Republique en Marche (The Republic on the Move, LREM) said the party line was that in secular France, there should be no place for the overt display of religious symbols on electoral campaign documents. 

 

“This woman will not be an en Marche candidate,” Stanislas Guerini, the party’s general secretary, told RTL radio, referring to Sara Zemmahi. 

 

An LREM official close to Guerini said Zemmahi would be officially informed of the party’s decision in writing, according to Reuters news agency. 

 

In the poster, Zemmahi is pictured wearing a white hijab, a headscarf worn by many Muslim women who feel it is part of their religion, standing alongside three other people. 

 

The words “Different, but united for you” on the flyer appear to be a reference to diversity. French law does not prohibit the wearing of the hijab or other religious symbols in images that appear on campaign fliers.  - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/14 May 2021 - -