Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News – 2013-04-22

Black and North African workers were excluded from Paris’s main railway station Gare Du Nord during Israeli President Shimon Peres's visit amid fears they might be Muslim, it has been alleged.

The decision was reportedly made ahead of Peres’s arrival in the city on March 8 on a high-speed train from Belgium to discuss the Middle East peace process with French President Francois Hollande.

Peres and his delegation were greeted at the French station by non-excluded staff from France’s state-owned railway SNCF, and their baggage handling subsidiary, ITIREMIA.

The SUD-Rail transport union filed an official complaint with the railroad, the Daily Telegraph reported, saying everything was done to ensure there were "no Muslim employees to welcome the Head of the State of Israel."

In its complaint, the union said that management assumed anyone from a "black or Arab" background might be Muslim-an assumption "based on the appearance of the workers." SUD-Rail spokesman Monique Dabat told Radio Internationale Française: "The employees noticed that anyone who was black or Arab was excluded from the job and when afterwards they demanded an explanation from the site boss they received the reply that it wasn't because they were black or Arab but there couldn't be any Muslims getting close to Shimon Peres."

The SUD-Rail statement states employees were initially told by SNCF the measure was taken following “security demands” from the French Interior Ministry and the Israeli Embassy in Paris, both of which have denied all knowledge of the ban.

SNCF has since admitted the order came from management, with a spokesman promising “a full investigation” while the union called on SNCF to publicly condemn the incident as "unacceptable," according to the Telegraph newspaper.

The incident is being branded by Twitter users as “shocking”, “racist” and “shameful”.