Almost one in two Muslims in France say they might consider leaving the country if Marine Le Pen wins the next presidential election, according to a new survey.
Le Pen, the leader of the hard-Right National Rally, is currently ahead in polling for the 2027 presidential race.
The Ifop poll found that 46 per cent of Muslim respondents would think about emigrating if Le Pen became president. One in five said they would “certainly” leave France.
The prospect of a National Rally victory also prompted widespread fears over discrimination. Some 81 per cent of those surveyed believed a Le Pen presidency would bring greater hostility and aggression towards Muslims.
A further 27 per cent said they could consider hiding their religious identity, according to French news outlet Marianne.
Le Pen has faced strong criticism over her proposals to tackle what she describes as “Islamist ideologies” if she enters the Élysée Palace.
Among her suggested measures is a fine for wearing a hijab in public, which she refers to as the “Islamist veil”.
“I will submit to the French people, by referendum, a bill to combat Islamist ideologies with numerous powerful measures, including the banning of the Islamist headscarf in public places,” the presidential candidate wrote on X last month.
National Rally leader Marine Le Pen arrives for her New Year’s address to the media in Paris in January 2024
Now 58, Le Pen has advocated banning Muslim women from wearing head coverings in public since 2012, when she launched her first of three unsuccessful presidential campaigns.
She put the proposal aside in 2022 as she sought to soften her hard-Right image during her campaign against France’s current president, Emmanuel Macron.
France became the first European nation to prohibit full-face coverings in public places in 2011. Anyone breaching the law can receive a fine or be required to attend a civic education course.
At the time, the French government said face coverings made identification difficult, could create security risks and hindered normal social interaction.
Several other European countries later introduced similar restrictions. Portugal, for example, banned or limited the wearing of burqas and other full-face veils in public last month.
The survey suggests Le Pen’s position broadly reflects existing public opinion in France.
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Researchers questioned 9,689 adults and found that a substantial majority supported limits on Islamic clothing and other religious symbols in public settings.
Around 53 per cent said they opposed women wearing the hijab on the street, while approximately 75 per cent supported prohibiting the abaya in state secondary schools.
A woman wearing a headscarf in public in Nantes, France
The abaya, a long, loose-fitting dress worn by some Muslim women, was barred from state schools in 2023 after officials argued that it breached France’s principle of secularism.
The measure received strong backing from Macron, but also intensified debate over France’s strict secularism laws and whether they unfairly target the country’s Muslim minority, estimated to make up about 10 per cent of the population.
Meanwhile, the study found 72 per cent of those surveyed supported a ban on conspicuous religious symbols at sporting events.
François Kraus, director of the Politics and Current Affairs unit at Ifop, said that Ms Le Pen’s victory ‘risks generating significant blockages and produces high levels of fear and a sense of insecurity’.
Ms Le Pen has consistently led first-round voting intention surveys for the election on April 18, 2027, typically polling between 30 and 35 per cent.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon of La France Insoumise and former prime minister Édouard Philippe have alternated in second place, polling between 14 and 19 per cent.
Ms Le Pen recently stirred tension after accusing Europe of waging a war over energy with Russia and vowed to stop funding Ukraine should she win the presidency.
She pledged to stop financial aid for Kyiv within six months, saying France can no longer afford it.
And claimed the ‘honest thing’ the EU should do would be to tell Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky it ‘can’t manage’ to financially support his cause any more.
The Eurosceptic party leader has long opposed Ukraine’s membership of the EU and has criticised EU sanctions against Russia, claiming it has allowed an ‘energy war’ to form between the two powers.
Ms Le Pen accused the EU of idiocy over its stance against the Kremlin, telling the Financial Times: ‘We the EU have led an energy war against Russia, when we haven’t got any energy. It is not very smart.’
READ MORE: Marine Le Pen says she would stop aid to Ukraine within six months of being elected and criticises Europe’s ‘energy war’ with Putin as polls put her ahead in French presidential race