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POLITICS

Italy’s far-right Meloni angered by French ‘threat’

Italian far-right leader Giorgia Meloni has reacted angrily to comments from European Affairs Minister Laurence Boone reported in an Italian newspaper

Italy's far-right Meloni angered by French 'threat'
(Photo by Piero CRUCIATTI / AFP)

Meloni, whose post-fascist Brothers of Italy party won last month’s general election, has demanded an explanation after a French minister suggested rights may be at risk under the incoming government.

European Affairs Minister Laurence Boone told the Repubblica daily that Paris would “pay close attention to the respect for values and the rule of law” once the new government is sworn in.

“The EU has already demonstrated its vigilance towards other countries such as Hungary and Poland,” Boone added in the interview published Friday, citing the two Eurosceptic governments that have clashed with Brussels over civil rights.

Meloni said the comments appeared to be “an unacceptable threat of interference against a sovereign member state of the European Union”.

“I trust that the French government will immediately deny the words,” Meloni said, adding she hoped “the left-wing” daily had in fact misinterpreted Boone’s meaning.

Meloni, a fierce defender of Catholic family values, won as part of a right-wing coalition that civil rights activists fear pose a threat to civil rights, from abortion to same-sex marriage.

Italy’s most far-right government since World War Two is expected to be in place by the end of October.

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POLITICS

Departure of school principal after death threats sparks anger in France

French politicians from across the political spectrum Wednesday denounced what they called an "Islamist" attack on education after a school principal resigned following death threats over a Muslim headscarf.

Departure of school principal after death threats sparks anger in France

The headmaster at a high school and college in eastern Paris quit after receiving death threats online following an altercation with a student, officials told AFP on Tuesday.

In late February, he had asked three students to remove their headscarves on school premises, but one refused and an altercation ensued, according to prosecutors. He later received death threats online.

According to a school letter sent to teachers, pupils and parents on Tuesday, the principal stood down for “security reasons”, while education officials said he had taken “early retirement”.

“It’s a disgrace,” Bruno Retailleau, the head of the right-wing Republicans faction in the Senate upper house, said on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday.

“We can’t accept it,” Boris Vallaud, the head of the Socialist deputies in the National Assembly lower house, told television broadcaster France 2, calling the incident “a collective failure”.

Marion Marechal, the granddaughter of far-right patriarch Jean-Marie Le Pen and a popular far-right politician herself, spoke on Sud Radio of a “defeat of the state” in the face of “the Islamist gangrene”.

Maud Bregeon, a lawmaker with President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party, also took aim at “an Islamist movement”.

“Authority lies with school heads and teachers, and we have a duty to support this educational community,” Bregeon said.

A 26-year-old man has been arrested for making death threats against the principal on the internet. He is due to stand trial in April.

France is home to Europe’s largest Muslim community.

In 2004, authorities banned school children from wearing “signs or outfits by which students ostensibly show a religious affiliation” such as headscarves, turbans or kippas on the basis of the country’s secular laws which are meant to guarantee neutrality in state institutions.

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