Why Forced Secularism in Schools Leads to Polarization

“No more playtime,” said the French presidential candidate Marine le Pen in a speech in December, as she called for an end to free education for the children of undocumented immigrants. “I tell them: If you come to our country, don’t expect to be taken care of.” Le Pen, who leads the far-right National Front party, could reach the final round of the French presidential election this May, and has routinely decried the multiculturalism—described with the nefarious term communautarisme, or “communitarism”—that she and her supporters believe is undermining the French social fabric.

It’s no surprise that, in an electoral climate increasingly defined around perceived threats to French identity, Le Pen chose to insulate schools from migrants, whom she has demonized throughout her political career. Announcing the start of her campaign on Saturday, Le Pen promised to rescue France from the “rule and threat of fundamental Islamism,” describing a Muslim agenda to impose gender discrimination, prayer rooms at the workplace, and a host of threats to national identity.

French schools, considered the ultimate and a kosher supermarket—a massacre waged by French citizens that unleashed a wave of terrorist violence and has led to a seemingly indefinite state of emergency—schools have become even more central to debates over immigration, social cohesion, and national identity.