Two women wearing hijabs were thrown out of a Paris restaurant in tears after being verbally abused by a member of staff. The incident at the Le Cenacle restaurant in Tremblay-en-France was captured on a mobile phone by one of the women who secretly recorded the incident as it unfolded on Saturday 28 August.
The women are seen sitting at a table where they were initially offered glasses of water, before a man, thought to be a manager of the restaurant, emerged from the kitchen and launched into an abusive tirade. He confronts the two women telling them: "I don't want people like you in my place, I'll make that clear". Maintaining their composure the women respond calmly saying: "We don't want to be served by racists. The man continues saying: " Racists like me don't kill good people.
Racists like me. Analyse my words, you'll see that they're right," he says. Continuing his rant he says: "I'm living in a secular country and this is my opinion. Now get out! The women get up and leave in tears. The restaurateur — who has not been named — later apologised for his conduct when he was confronted by a group outside the restaurant, the Mirror Online reports.
He accepted the situation got "out of hand" and said he regretted the verbal altercation with the women. He claimed he had been riled by recent tensions surrounding the burkini ban and had also been reacting emotively having lost a friend who had died at the Bataclan concert centre attack in November , Le Parisien reported. Rossignol called for sanctions against the "the unacceptable behaviour of this restaurant owner. The incident comes after a woman was surrounded by police on a Nice beach and ordered to remove her burkini.
The image sparked global outrage and resulted in the controversial measure, which prevents women wearing Islamic looking swimsuits, being overturned by a Paris appeal court on grounds of civil liberties.
