Marine Le Pen faces backlash over renewed proposal to ban hijab in public

PARIS — Far-right French presidential front-runner Marine Le Pen is under fire after doubling down on her proposal to ban women from wearing the hijab in public, despite doubts within her own party about the policy.

A person close to Le Pen, who was granted anonymity to discuss the candidate’s plan, told POLITICO that the she planned to propose a ban by including it in a law on combating “radical Islamism.”

That law would then be put to a referendum — a way to steer the debate away from the topic of religion and and place it on “Islamist ideology,” the person said.

The proposal is dominating the French political news cycle after a lawmaker from Le Pen’s National Rally said Sunday that wearing the hijab in public would become a fineable offense if she took office. Le Pen is currently polling with a double-digit lead ahead of the first round of the spring 2027 French presidential election.

Left-wing political leaders and civil liberties advocates in France lambasted Le Pen’s proposal as Islamophobic and discriminatory. The hijab is a headscarf worn by some Muslim women.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leading leftist candidate for next year’s presidential election, according to the most recent polling, accused Le Pen of wanting to set up an “Iranian-style clothing police” in a post on X. SOS Racisme, a French anti-racism watchdog, said Le Pen was looking to “chase Muslim women out of public areas.”

Center-right candidate Edouard Philippe said the state should focus on combatting “Islamism and extremists, not French Muslims,” and conservative candidate Bruno Retailleau argued it would be a poor use of police resources.

Debate about the hijab, which is worn by 26 percent of French Muslim women aged 18 to 49 according to a 2023 report from the French national statistics agency, regularly comes up in France.

It is one of the few European countries to have entirely outlawed wearing full-face veils in public and was the only country to ban its own athletes from wearing the hijab during the 2024 Olympics in Paris. Religious head coverings, including hijabs and kippas, have been banned in schools since 2004.

But Le Pen’s proposal has always proved politically risky for the four-time presidential candidate, even within her own party.

Jordan Bardella, president of Le Pen’s National Rally, had internally discussed scrapping the proposal over concerns that it could be a political liability.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Bardella again appeared to downplay the proposal, insisting it would be up to French voters to decide via the proposed referendum and that this was “not about enforcing a dress code.”

But with Le Pen in the driver’s seat for the election and Bardella relegated to a deputy role, the decision to put one of her most controversial proposals back into the public debate this week has served as a stark reminder of who’s in charge.