Dhaka: Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy came under fire on Wednesday after making a disparaging comment about Education Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem and Justice Minister Christiane Taubira, both of whom are women of colour.

Sarkozy, leader of the conservative UMP (Union for Popular Movement) party, made the controversial remark as he spoke out against the socialist government’s plans to reform the national education system, during a public meeting in the northern Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis on 11 May.

‘Christiane Taubira is about to be surpassed by Najat Vallaud-Belkacem in the unrelenting quest for mediocrity,’ he said.

Although Sarkozy did not use explicit language, he was slammed by members of government and the country’s Socialist Party for appealing to racist sentiments by accusing two non-white ministers in a predominantly white government of incompetence. Vallaud-Belkacem is of Moroccan origin, while Taubira is black.

Finance Minister Michel Sapin told French RMC radio and BFM TV that ‘it wasn’t a coincidence’ that Sarkozy had ‘made offensive remarks about the minister of justice and the minister of education in the same sentence’.

‘It’s a justice minister of colour and an education minister who has an [ethnic] name,’ Sapin pointed out.

The leader of the country’s Socialist Party, Jean-Christophe Cambadélis, also voiced his outrage over Sarkozy’s comments.

‘It has a certain connotation,’ he told RTL radio. ‘Madame Taubira was attacked for reasons that we know, for the colour of her skin, and Madame Belkacem has been attacked why? Because she’s named Madame Belkacem.’

‘I think that it was somewhat xenophobic,’ Cambadélis added. ‘The UMP and Nicolas Sarkozy decided to attack the person and not the reform.’

UMP defends Sarkozy

Although Sarkozy declined to comment on the controversy, several members from the UMP party leapt to his defence.

‘When Nicolas Sarkozy criticises Madame Taubira or Madame Vallaud-Belkacem, he isn’t criticising them for who they are, but for what they are doing. That’s what is bothering the Socialist Party,’ Laurent Wauquiez, secretary general of the UMP, said in a statement.

Meanwhile, UMP spokesman Sébastien Huyghe dismissed the Socialist Party’s criticism of Sarkozy as ‘insults’ and ‘anti-republican’ on Twitter.

Sarkozy’s ex-justice minister Rachida Dhati, who is of North African origin and was once held up as an example of diversity within the former president’s government, also condemned the accusations.

‘To accuse Nicolas Sarkozy of xenophobia is shameful!’ she wrote on Twitter. ‘For the left, defending our values, our principles and our schools is to be xenophobic!’

Both Vallaud-Belkacem and Taubira have been targeted over their ethnicities in the past. When Vallaud-Belkacem was made education minister in a government reshuffle last year, the far-right magazine Minute ran a photo of her on its cover with the caption ‘A Moroccan Muslim heads the national education [ministry]’, describing her appointment as a ‘provocation’.

Taubira has also been the target of numerous slurs during the three years she has been in office. In 2013, the UN condemned what it called ‘racist attacks’ against the justice minister after she was repeatedly compared to a monkey.