The mayor of a small town in southeastern France is sending out tweets with the message saying that Islam must be banned from France. Launching an anti-Islam campaign, the mayor of Venelles, a town near Aix-en-Provence with a population of 8,000, representing the conservative Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party, Robert Chardon, suggested the removal of a 1905 secularism law that guarantees freedom of religion, saying that "the Republic should promote the practice of the Christian faith." He told the French daily Le Monde that it was during his treatment that the idea came to him. "It is the only solution for most of France's problems," he said."We also need a Marshall Plan to send Muslims to countries where the religion is practiced," he added in his tweets.In an immediate response, former French President Nicholas Sarkozy and the leader of right-wing UMP said that the mayor's statement on Islam are "unacceptable." Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Abdallah Zekri, president of the National Observatory against Islamophobia, denounced Chardon's comments, also describing them as "unacceptable" and as a breach of France's secularism "that grants citizens the freedom of belief." " It is not up to a racist mayor who knows nothing about religions to decide such a thing," Zekri added. He urged French authorities and Sarkozy to declare their "clear" position regarding the mayor's remarks.Earlier this month, France was shaken by a scandal concerning ethnic and racial profiling of Muslims perpetrated by a French mayor. The far-right mayor of the town of Beziers, Robert Menard, in southern France, confessed that he kept files on the number of Muslim students in his town, Le Monde reported. Speaking on France 2 on Monday, he claimed he had statistical information on the religious affiliation of students enrolled in schools in his town, noting that 64.6 percent of them were Muslims. Keeping personal information and files is prohibited by the 1978 law. The illegal act of filing information on Muslim students came under fire from French political leaders.In the aftermath of the deadly attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on Jan.7, Muslims in France have been subjected to violent attacks due to an increase in suspicion and negative sentiment toward the Muslim community in France. Reports of attacks on mosques and Muslim-run businesses in various places in France have led many French Muslims to fear rising Islamophobia. France has suffered a six-fold rise in Islamophobic attacks, counting 222 violent anti-Muslim attacks in the first quarter of this year, according to figures released by the French Ministry of the Interior.France is home to the largest Muslim population in Europe, estimated at between 4 million to 5 million. The French Muslim community represents approximately 6 percent of the total French population of 58.5.