{{France\u2019s newly elected far-right mayors will re-instate school cafeteria menus featuring pork in the cities they govern, the National Front party\u2019s leader, Marine Le Pen, announced on Friday.}}<\/p>\n
Most French public schools offer an option with no pork for Muslim and Jewish students who follow their religions\u2019 dietary restrictions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will not except any religious requirements when it comes to school cafeteria menus,\u201d Le Pen declared on French radio network RTL, in response to a question about the measures the National Front would implement in the cities they won in last week\u2019s municipal elections. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere is absolutely no reason for religion to enter into the public sphere; that\u2019s the law.\u201d<\/p>\n
France is a strictly secular country \u2013 with a Catholic majority and sizable Muslim and Jewish minorities \u2013 and has in recent years prohibited the wearing of religious garb (like the Muslim headscarf or Jewish kippah) in public buildings like schools and hospitals.<\/p>\n
In her radio interview on Friday, Le Pen said that France\u2019s tradition of secularism was being threatened, and she accused mayors from both the Socialist Party and the right-wing UMP of catering to religious minorities in the hopes of getting their votes.<\/p>\n
France\u2019s Communist Party was quick to condemn Le Pen\u2019s statement. \u201cMarine Le Pen is promoting backwards secularism,\u201d the party said in a statement, denouncing \u201ca thinly veiled anti-Muslim offensive.\u201d<\/p>\n
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{{France\u2019s newly elected far-right mayors will re-instate school cafeteria menus featuring pork in the cities they govern, the National Front party\u2019s leader, Marine Le Pen, announced on Friday.}} Most French public schools offer an option with no pork for Muslim and Jewish students who follow their religions\u2019 dietary restrictions. \u201cWe will not except any religious […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000051444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-13660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000051444,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13660.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13660.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13660.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13660.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13660.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13660.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000051444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13660"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=13660"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=13660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}