Discrimination complaint lodged against French municipality

A community group has lodged a formal complaint against a municipal council in a Paris suburb after it sacked four summer camp instructors for fasting during Ramadan. The coordinator of the group told RFI the complaint will help protect Muslim employees in France

The complaint was logded with the mayor of Gennevilliers on Saturday by the organization, Front des Banlieues Independant Association, that works to alleviate poverty.

The organization's president Hassan Ben M'Barek said he lodged the complaint as the town's reason for the dismissal, children's safety, "masks discrimination against a Muslim practice".

France introduced a law in September 2010 banning people from covering their face. Critics of the law say it targets Muslim women who wear burqas.

"There has been an increase in Islamaphobia here in France in recent years, which started with the law that bans Muslim women wearing burqas," Ben M'Barek told RFI.

The four summer camp employees were dismissed on July 20, the first day of Ramadan, after an inspector visited the camp and told the staff they were endangering the children's safety by not eating or drinking during daylight hours.

An aide to the mayor said the decision was influenced by an episode three years ago when a fasting camp worker was taken ill while driving, leading to an accident which seriously injured a child. (...)