Joly wants Jewish and Muslim holiday
Presidential candidate wants religions to get "equal treatment" as she attacks Guéant and Le Pen
GREEN presidential candidate Eva Joly has called for equal treatment for religions and that Yom Kippur - the Jewish day of atonement - and Eid, the Muslim holiday that ends Ramadan, be made into national holidays.
She said "each religion deserves equal treatment in public life" and added that equality was a "key element of the French national identity" and it had been "battered by five years of the Sarkozy presidency".
"When I listen to Claude Guéant and Marine Le Pen I fear for my France; I fear for our France."
Her call for new national holidays comes as a survey said French working hours were the lowest in Europe apart from Finland. The study by the COE-Rexecode economic think-tank said full-time workers in France worked 1,679 hours in 2010 - 224 hours less than in Germany and 177 less than the UK. It said that the French experiment with the 35-hour working week had failed.
However, figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development say French workers worked an average of 1,562 hours in 2010 - more than the Germans on 1,419 but less than the British on 1,647.
Photo: Eva Joly 2012
