Promoting liberty and equality in France, a group of Muslim mothers have launched a campaign that aims to fight social apartheid and foster diversity at schools in the European country.
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“That is exactly what we are fighting for,” Safia, a mother of three, who is among the campaign leaders in the southern town of Montpellier, told the National on Monday, August 10.
“We’d love it if class photographs showed fair-haired or red-headed children side by side with our children.”
The 36-year-old mother was talking about the new campaign that aims to end to the “ghettoization” of French schools where every pupil is of immigrations origin.
Called “la mixite’”, the initiative calls for adopting secular laws and fostering inclusion to make schools “more French”.
In Petit Bard estate, where about 5,000 Muslim families of Moroccan background live, campaigners staged rallies and visited several schools to advocate integration.
They also created a Facebook campaign page and fired off letters to the city hall, the local education authority and France’s education minister, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem.
Morroco-born Najat Vallaud-Belkacem is the first woman in French history to hold the office of education minister.
The 36-year-old star took the office as a last step in a brilliant career for the telegenic protegee of President Francois Hollande.
The Muslim mothers hopes that Belkacem, who has been vocal on many aspects of discrimination in French society, will support their case.
“No to the ghetto – yes to la mixité” reads a slogan on a banner.
The anti-apartheid campaign was applauded by Marie-Françoise Camps, headmistress at the Genevievé-Bon nursery school.
In Montpellier town, moving schools from a more mixed environment has been criticized by Muslim mothers who said that the change confirmed the ghetto status in the country.
“We suddenly realized our children would go all the way from nursery school to the end of secondary school without discovering the cultures of others or the art of different communities living together,” said another mother, Fatima.
Calling for diversity, Renaud Calvat, a counselor with responsibility for education, said that parents should be allowed to send their children to any schools of their choice out of Ghettos.
Education department officials admit that “in an unmixed district, schools will also be unmixed.”
The Muslim mothers said that changes are being made, but slowly.
“We have made a difference,” says Safia, who was one of the group of women invited to an international educational conference in Paris.
“Attitudes have changed a little but there’s a long way to go.”
“I hope we will achieve much more before they leave school,” added Safia, whose children are aged between six and 10.
France is home to a Muslim community of nearly six million, the largest in Europe.
French Muslims have been complaining of restrictions on performing their religious practices.
Freedom of religion in France is guaranteed by the constitutional rights set forth in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
France does not recognize any official religion; instead it merely recognizes certain religious organizations, according to formal legal criteria that do not address religious doctrine. In return, religious organizations are to refrain from involvement in the State's policy-making.
Last January, France’s education minister has announced new measures to enshrines democratic values and religious' respect in schools following Paris attacks that left 17 killed earlier this month.
