Al Jazeera News :
After weeks of debate, France’s lower house of parliament will vote on a so-called “anti-separatism” bill brought forward by President Emmanuel Macron’s government.
Proponents say the controversial legislation is needed to tackle what they term “Islamist separatism” and bolster France’s secular system, but critics, including prominent human rights groups, argue it breaches religious freedom and unfairly targets the country’s 5.7 million-strong Muslim minority population.
French legislators are expected to approve the bill during the afternoon vote on Tuesday in the National Assembly, which is dominated by Macron’s centrist La Republique En Marche (LREM) party.
The vote follows 135 hours of debates that saw some 313 amendments tagged onto the bill’s 51 articles.
The draft law will then be passed up to the upper house, the conservative-led Senate, which has the power to amend the proposal but is expected to greenlight it.
If it clears both legislative hurdles, the bill will be passed into law within months.
The law would strengthen government oversight of mosques and religious schools and crack down on polygamy and forced marriage, among other measures.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said after the final debate on the bill on Saturday that it “provides concrete responses to… the development of radical Islam, an ideology hostile to the principles and values on which the Republic is founded”.
