Islamophobia: French mayor to be tried on hate charges

PARIS: A far-right French mayor will be tried on hate charges over comments that include a claim the number of Muslim students in his city was a ‘problem’, a judicial source said Wednesday.

Robert Menard, who is an ally of France's anti-immigrant National Front party, will face a charge in a Paris court of incitement to hatred or discrimination, the source said.

"In a class in the city centre in my town, 91 per cent of the children are Muslims. Obviously, this is a problem. ," he said in September 5 comments on French news channel LCI.

Also in September, on France's first day back to school, he tweeted his There are limits to toleranceregret at witnessing ‘the great replacement’, using a term by xenophobic writer Renaud Camus to describe the country's white, Christian population being overtaken by foreign-born Muslims.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 22^nd, 2016.