France: Far-right National Front Leader Marine Le Pen Vows Pork-free Menu Ban for Schools

The leader of France's far right National Front (FN) Party said religious menus will be banned from school cafeterias in towns won by her party at local elections last week.

Marine Le Pen said that mayor elects in the 11 towns seized by the anti-immigration, anti-Europe party last week will implement a strict laic diet to the "public sphere".

"We will not accept any religious demand in school menus," Le Pen, 45, told RTL radio. "There is no reason why religion should enter the public sphere. Too often laity is not applied."

Her comment is likely to infuriate Muslim and Jewish families, whose children are allowed to opt for pork-free meals when eating at school.

Le Pen, however, backtracked shortly after her remark caused a stir online.

"[It's an] artificial controversy," she tweeted. "We talk about forbidding bans on pork in cafeterias. The argument is useless as there will still be two menus."

FN won more than 1,000 council seats across the country in two rounds of municipal elections in March and seized a record number of towns after a decade without mayors.

Filling candidates in only 596 of the more than 36,000 municipalities, FN captured some relevant middle-seize cities such as Beziers and Frejus in the south and Hénin-Beaumont in the north.

Hénin-Beaumont's new mayor, Steeve Briois, had earlier dismissed claims by members of the socialist government that FN was to force children to eat pork products as "delirious".

"What's their programme? To force all children to eat ham at the cafeteria?" France's Minister of Women's Rights Najat Vallaud-Belkacem had attacked after the first round of vote.

FN's electoral result was hailed as a triumph by Le Pen who has been working to clean up FN's long-standing image of a racist and anti-Semitic movement.

The party founded in 1973 by Le Pen's father, Jean-Marie, had a previous best of four mayoral seats, won in 1997.