Author: Romina McGuinness
Publication: Express.co.uk
Date: January 4, 2017
URL:   http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/750123/peugeot-car-plant-closed-muslim-prayer-breaks-workers-took-too-many-claims-official

THE head of the France's centre-right Union of Democrats and Independents (UDI) political party, Jean-Christophe Lagarde, has claimed a PSA Peugeot Citroen car plant had to close because it had hired too many "unproductive" Muslim employees.

The hardline centrist, who is also deputy mayor of Drancy, a suburb northeast of Paris, said that the carmaker's Aulnay plant, which closed in 2013, had been forced to shut its doors because of "problems arising from never-ending religious demands by Muslim employees".

He said: "The Aulnay site closed because Muslim employees were constantly taking unscheduled prayer breaks and had become unproductive. It's the truth. A Peugeot official told me that it was one - but obviously not the only - of the reasons the plant was shut down."

The shocking claims were made in French newspaper France Info.

PSA Peugeot Citroen Trade union CGT representative Jean-Pierre Mercier also condemned Mr Lagarde's "nasty lies".

He said: "The only time the Aulnay plant closed for so-called religious reasons was for the Christmas break and Easter.