Paty’s killing prompted the government to close several mosques and shutter two leading Muslim organizations, the Baraka City charity and the Collective against Islamophobia in France, Agence France Presse reports.
Macron’s defense of the caricatures as free speech prompted protests among Muslims in other countries and some nationwide boycotts of French products.
Just days after the killing of Paty, an attacker shouting Islamic slogans killed three people at Basilica of Notre-Dame de Nice.
France has suffered over a dozen Islamist terrorist attacks since 2015. However, proposals to respond to extremism differ.
The Socialist Party said a major expansion of social programs would better combat extremism through better schools and job opportunities.
The far-right National Rally party, whose leader Marine Le Pen has already announced a challenge to Macron, said the bill does not go far enough. Some critics on the political right objected that the legislation should have mentioned Islam or Islamism by name.
The legislation originally proposed a ban on homeschooling. After major debate, it placed strong limits on the practice, requiring state authorization. It aims to ensure that children attend regular schools at age 3 and to avoid any agenda that might encourage extremist beliefs, ITV News reports.
Home education is viewed as a source of separatism and a means for Muslim families to shelter young girls from what they see as cultural corruption, the New York Times reports.
The religious freedom group ADF International objected to the education provisions, saying they would “severely curtail rights that have not only been upheld in French national law since 1882, but also are affirmed in international human rights law.”
“International law recognizes the right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children,” Jennifer Lea, legal counsel for ADF International in Strasbourg, said Feb. 17. “Children are born to parents, not the state, and it should be parents who make decisions about how to best raise their children.”
Robert Clarke, Deputy Director of ADF International, said France’s proposed homeschooling policy is “completely out of step with other democracies that embrace home education as part of their free and pluralistic society.”
“Moreover, home education is a natural, fundamental, and protected human right. France has signed up to protect this right in international treaties, and must not ignore its obligations,” he said. “Taking choices away from parents undermines the tremendous responsibility they have and is a slap in the face to the millions of mothers and fathers that France has relied upon to homeschool during the pandemic.”
A 2004 bill banned children from wearing religious symbols in French public schools. The measure drew criticism from many world leaders, including Pope John Paul II.
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