Rabat – Eric Domard, an advisor to Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s social conservative party the National Front, has questioned Moroccan-Born minister of national education, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem’s allegiance to the Republic of France and its principles following her “condemnation” to removing substitution menus in school canteens when pork is served.
Domard posted on Twitter that “Najat Vallaud-Belkacem is a French-Moroccan Minister for menus without pork, and favorable to the [wearing] of the veil during school field trips. The question of allegiance arises,” he said on Tuesday.
The decision to remove substitution menus was taken by Gille Platret, the mayor of Chalon-sur-Saone, on the grounds that it “discriminates between children.”
Citing the “principle of secularism”, the mayor said on Monday that the decision will take effect next September and it will cover all the school canteens in his city.
Last October, Bertrand Dutheil de La Rochere, then advisor to Le Pen on republic and secularism, said that “the socialists [had surrendered] to the communitarian claims of Islamists” because “Najat Vallaud-Belkacem (authorized) veiled mothers to accompany school trips.”
Already criticized on this issue by a Front National candidate during the electoral campaign of 2012, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem said that she was only elected in the French Republic. “The only ones that I have to account for today are the French, the French people, to whom I decided to devote myself.”
French-Moroccan politician Najat Vallaud-Belkacem has always been the target of criticism from the French right-wing.
In 2014, and following her appointment as Minister of National Education, Higher Education, and Research in the new cabinet of Manuel Valls, Franck Keller, a French UMP Counselor for Neuilly-sur-Seine, tweeted “what assets [has she] used to convince Hollande to appoint her to a large department.”
Born in Bni Chiker in Nador, Morocco, in 1982 she moved with her family to France and settled in Amiens. She completed her education at the Paris Institute of Political Studies in 2002. She married Boris Vallaud in 2005. She joined the Socialist Party in 2002, and worked for the mayor of Lyon in 2003 on social issues. Elected to the Regional Council of Rhone-Alpes in 2004, she chaired the Culture Commission, resigning in 2008. In 2005, she became an adviser for the Socialist Party.
