Elham Asaad Buaras
Marine Le Pen, Leader of France’s far-right National Rally party, has pledged to hold a referendum on banning Muslim women from wearing headscarves in public if she becomes president in 2027.
The proposal would make wearing what Le Pen calls the “Islamist veil” in public spaces a punishable offence. She says the measure would form part of a wider law aimed at combating “Islamist ideologies”.
“I will submit to the French people by referendum a major law to combat Islamist ideologies, with numerous powerful measures, including the criminalisation of the Islamist veil in public spaces,” Le Pen said on August 31.
The proposal had been agreed by the National Rally during a presidential strategy seminar on 16 and 17 July, according to Le Parisien, after months of internal debate over whether to revive the policy.
Jean-Philippe Tanguy, a National Rally MP and Le Pen ally, confirmed the plan saying women who continued to wear the headscarf after a ban would be fined.
“We will obviously combat Islamist ideology and we will sanction the wearing of the veil,” Tanguy told BFM-TV. He said the measure would also demonstrate “solidarity with all the women around the world who are forced to wear it and who die for having this freedom”.
The proposal has highlighted differences between Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, the National Rally President and a leading figure in the party.
Bardella has previously supported restrictions on the veil in public institutions but expressed reservations about extending a ban to the street. Le Monde reported in July that he had voiced doubts about the proposal during internal discussions, saying: “Je ne le sens pas” – roughly, “I don’t feel it.”
Le Pen has championed a much broader prohibition for more than a decade. She first called for a ban on the veil throughout public space in September 2012 and made the issue part of her presidential campaigns in 2017 and 2022.
The latest proposal would face significant legal hurdles. France already bans clothing that conceals the face in public, following legislation introduced in 2010, but there is no general prohibition on religious headscarves.
French constitutional experts have questioned whether a referendum could overcome constitutional protections for individual freedoms. Le Pen has increasingly presented referendums as a way of allowing voters to decide issues she argues have been blocked by France’s political establishment.
The headscarf proposal has substantial support among National Rally voters. A Verian poll cited by Le Monde found that 94% of the party’s supporters backed banning the veil in public, while support across the French population stood at 66%.
The move comes as Le Pen prepares for the 2027 presidential election, in which she is seeking to become France’s first far-right president.
For Le Pen, the proposal marks a return to one of the defining themes of her political programme and puts the issue at the centre of the National Rally’s campaign for power.
