Excerpt:
The leader of the far-Right French party National Front, Marine Le Pen, vowed to ban "all religious symbols" including kippas, headscarves, veils, burqas and burkinis from public spaces if she is elected president, explaining the move as a "sacrifice" to combat Islamic extremism.
In an interview Sunday with France's BFMTV station, Le Pen, who heads the third-largest party in France and has been making inroads with voters amid a string of devastating terror attacks over the past two years, said that if elected, she would extend a 2004 law banning religious symbols in schools to all public spaces.
"I know it is a sacrifice but I think the situation is terrible these days...I know that every French person, including [French] Jews can understand that if we ask for this sacrifice from them [in the framework] of the battle against the advance of Islamic extremism, they will make this effort and understand it," she said, adding that she is "convinced" that it is in the "national interest" to do so.