PARIS – A French minister has sparked angry accusations of racism after comparing Muslim women who choose to don the Islamic hijab to the “American negroes” who once supported slavery.
“Racism starts with Laurence Rossignol and ends with insults, violence and blood,’” said one Twitter user, @oboerythme, France 24 reported on Thursday, March 31.
“@laurossignol must have missed the government’s anti-racism classes,” said @widadk.
Rossignol, France’s minister for women’s rights, sparked the controversy during an interview with French TV channel BFM.
During the interview, she harshly criticized fashion retailers H&M, Marks and Spencer and Dolce & Gabbana for launching products designed specifically for Muslim women, such as hijabs and the “burkini”, a swimsuit with a built-in hood designed to cover everything except the hands, feet and face.
When the interviewer pointed out that many Muslim women freely choose to don hijab, Rossignol responded: “Of course there are women who choose it. There were American negroes who were in favor of slavery.”
Along with angry reactions on Twitter, an online Change.org petition was also launched calling for Rossignol to face “sanctions” for her comments.
“It is with anger and exasperation that we have been once again confronted with the verbal violence of a political leader,” wrote the organizers.
“Invited to partake in a false debate on ‘Islamic fashion’, [Rossignol] made scandalous propositions, fuelling the conflation and stigmatization of both Muslim women and the millions of slaves transported [from Africa].”
The petition had more than 19,400 signatures till the hour of writing the article.
Seeking to contain anger, Rossignol told Agence France Presse (AFP) she had made an “error of language” by using the word “negro” while stressing she would never use the word “except when talking about slavery and the slave trade”.
“But I didn’t take into account the most widespread perception [of the word] – that one doesn’t say ‘negro’ even if it is allowed in respect to slavery,” she said.
“Outside of this error of language, I am not retracting a single word I said” about Islamic dress, the minister added.
France is home to a Muslim community of nearly six million, the largest in Europe.
French Muslims have been complaining of restrictions on performing their religious practices.
In May 2014, a French mayor, who claimed that Islam will be banned from the country by 2027, was expelled from France’s main opposition conservative party after rightists rejected his calls as “unacceptable”.