Authorities in Gennevilliers a suburb outside Paris last week suspended 4 instructors at a children’s summer camp for observing Ramadan.
According to reports monitored online by our correspondent, Mayor of Gennevilliers who ordered their suspension said that their refusal to eat or drink amounted to a breach of contract, noting that they put the children’s safety at risk.
The four instructors, who were employed for the month of July, had to leave the summer camp in the south-west of France the day after a visit by an inspector who noticed they were not eating – although they remained on full pay till the end of the month.
One of the suspended instructors said it was “unfair and unacceptable”, the French news agency AFP reports. The instructor, named only as Samir, said: “You can’t force someone to eat – you can’t prove that missing a meal deprives you of some of your faculties.”
Explaining its decision, the council said that three years ago a child was seriously injured in a road accident while travelling in a vehicle driven by a female instructor who was not eating.
The suspension of the four instructors has been heavily criticized in France and the Mayor has been forced into recalling the men back to work on Monday 30th July.