Voting for Macron is a bitter pill to swallow for some French Muslims
Ever since Lisa Troadec converted to Islam and began wearing a hijab almost a decade ago, the Frenchwoman says she has been subjected to verbal abuse, dirty stares and tripped in the street. She worries the alienation she feels will only deepen if far-right leader Marine Le Pen wins Sunday's presidential vote.
Le Pen's insistence on banning Muslim women from wearing the Islamic headscarf in public spaces would, Troadec said, be an act of discrimination against the strong majority of Muslims like her who adhere to France's strict secular values.
"I'm genuinely scared that Le Pen wins," said Troadec, who runs a childcare centre in Paris. "If it happens, I'm not sure what life would look like the next day."
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
In the hope of keeping Le Pen out of power, she will vote for Macron, but only begrudgingly. The president's track-record on Islam has left her deeply disillusioned and convinced that anti-Muslim sentiment is on the rise in France.
Data supports how she feels. Interior ministry figures show a sharp increase in anti-Muslim discriminatory and other acts in 2021, even as other faiths saw a decline.
She describes voting for Le Pen or Macron as president as
"a choice between Islamophobia and Islamophobia."
Macron says he will keep fighting what he calls "Islamist separatism" and defend French secularism, which he says allows every citizen to freely practice their faith. He says he's against banning religious symbols in public space.
Le Pen wants to outlaw the wearing in public spaces of the hijab but not other religious symbols such as the Jewish kippa. She promises to fight "Islamist ideologies" that she calls "totalitarian".
Over the past five years, the Macron government has passed a raft of laws and measures that, it says, are to tackle religious extremism and preserve national secular values. But it has left many Muslims like Troadec feeling that Islamophobia is on the rise.
Troadec's friend Sherazade Rouibah, 23, said she found Macron's overtures to Muslim voters between the two rounds of voting to be cynical.
