French MPs back Ban on Headscarves in Schools by ABC News Online / Reuters / The Age 12:31pm 11th Feb, 2004   February 16, 2004    "Headscarf ban sets a dangerous precedent". (Editorial. The Age Newspaper. Australia)    France's ban on religious garb in schools is likely to increase social conflict, not resolve it.    A an on "excessive hairiness" in schools? No, the idea does not come from a 1960s memo, penned by some crusty Education Ministry bureaucrat and promptly filed in a vault by his superiors to avoid attracting ridicule.    It is being seriously considered by France's Education Minister, Luc Ferry, as an application of the law banning the display of religious symbols in schools, which that country's National Assembly passed last week by a massive majority.    The draft law has yet to be considered by France's Senate and must then be returned to the Assembly for final approval, but the size of the majority, 494-36, makes these further steps a formality.    At a time of heightened sensitivity about a clash of cultures between the West and the Islamic world, a major Western democracy is intent on preventing people from wearing clothes or insignia that proclaim their religious identities.    The law has been defended by its supporters as an expression of France's secular republican ethos, and in principle at least, it is not aimed at any particular religion. It prohibits the wearing of Jewish yarmulkes as well as the Islamic headscarf, and Sikh turbans will probably be excluded, too. Christians will not be able to wear "large crosses" around their necks.    But no one in France seriously pretends that President Jacques Chirac proposed the law because it is feared that Christians, Jews or Sikhs may try to subvert the secular school system.    The law reflects growing hostility towards Muslims, who are now France's second-largest religious group and an increasingly visible one.    This hostility can be found both on the racist far-right and the secular left, and President Chirac perhaps sees the new law as a means of harvesting votes across the spectrum.    This sort of legislation, however, is not only a French phenomenon: four German states have also drafted laws prohibiting the wearing of religious headscarves in Government offices, though not yet in schools.    If such laws are intended to prevent religious adherence becoming a source of political divisiveness, they will almost certainly be counter-productive.    Wherever there are large Muslim immigrant populations in Europe, there are large numbers of young people who are, in varying degrees, economically disadvantaged and who feel that they are subject to constant discrimination because of their religion.    Prohibiting symbolic expressions of their religious identity will almost certainly provoke increasingly strident assertions of that identity, and radical responses to the discrimination they experience.    This sort of ban will not promote tolerance, let alone harmony.    As Alain Bocquet, a Communist deputy who voted against the law, said during the National Assembly debate, it will stigmatise those of immigrant origin and "set things on fire rather than calm them down".    President Chirac should withdraw the law, lest he start a fire he cannot put out.    15 February , 2004    "French religious symbol ban draws widespread criticism" (ABC News Online:Correspondents Report. Reporter: Kirsten Aiken)      HAMISH ROBERTSON: There's been an intense debate in Europe about a French Bill to ban obvious religious symbols like the Islamic headscarf from state-funded classrooms.    The Bill was passed by a massive majority in the lower house of the French Parliament last week, and assuming it's also passed by the upper house next month, it’ll become illegal to wear the headscarf and other religious symbols in September, when the new legislation comes into effect.    President Chirac's Government claims the fundamental principal of secularism is at stake.    But critics say the Bill threatens freedom of expression, and could prompt an increase in attacks against religious minorities throughout the continent and even beyond Europe's borders.This report from Kirsten Aiken in London.    KIRSTEN AIKEN: The ban on overt religious symbols in France's state-funded classrooms has caused outrage outside the country's borders. Yet opinion polls suggest 70 per cent of the French population is in favour of it.    The ban is expected to mainly affect Muslim girls who wear the hajib or Islamic headscarf. But even in the French Muslim population, Europe's second largest at five million, opinion is divided. Labelling the issue complex, appears an understatement. Although French MPs maintain it is straightforward. Nearly 500 MPs voted for the Bill that's stated objective is secularism. Only 36 registered their opposition.    Jacques Myard from the right-wing RPR Party explains why the measure has received overwhelming domestic political support.    JACQUES MYARD: People try to impose their political religious dogma, that means imposing headscarf and going further, meaning for instance that the girls refuse to go to swimming pool, meaning that the girls for instance refuse to be interrogated by a male teacher.    So we want to reaffirm that at school you don't follow the religious rule. Everyone is on equal footing and religion belong to the private life of everyone, not the public one.    KIRSTEN AIKEN: Student Abeer Pharaon disagrees with Jacques Myard. Ms Pharaon heads the British Muslim Women’s Society and became very animated when I asked about the importance of her brilliant white headscarf.    ABEER PHARAON: It has a function. It is embedded in myself as a Muslim woman. So it is not a threat to anyone. It's not a threat to secularism.    KIRSTEN AIKEN: Abeer Pharaon fears that many students just like her, but living in France, will face discrimination if the legislation is approved by the Senate, and again finally, by the National Assembly.    ABEER PHARAON: I'm proud and raise my head high, because of my scarf, because I feel this is part of my religion.    And when somebody asks me to take it out, it means that they are pushing me to home. Not to study, not to educate, not to go to my work, and not to do anything.    It means that they are pushing me to feel angry, to feel angry with the society and to be, you know, just sitting at home doing nothing.    Is that secularism? Is that freedom? I don't think so.    KIRSTEN AIKEN: What do you make of the French Government's claim that symbols like the hajib risk creating a religious battleground in state schools?    ABEER PHARAON: Well I want to question that. I want to question them. They should tell us how can a piece of cloth threaten secularism.    I mean, Muslims have been living in Europe and everywhere for a long time and nothing happened. Why is it now? Is it because of elections? I'm questioning that.    KIRSTEN AIKEN: Dabinderjit Singh from the Sikh Secretariat in London believes Abeer Pharaon has answered her own question.    DABINDERJIT SINGH: There is a political background to this, that in France at the moment, the second biggest political party is the right-wing party led by Le Pen and I think this has sent shockwaves through France that, you know, the Socialist Party is no longer seen as the Opposition.    KIRSTEN AIKEN: The ban will cover obvious religious symbols and will therefore also target the Sikh turban, the Jewish skull cap and the Christian cross, besides the Islamic headscarf.    Dabinderjit Singh says President Chirac's ruling centre-right UNP Party hasn't thought it through.He believes greater segregation between religious faiths will be the eventual damaging result.    DABINDERJIT SINGH: It could end up in the courts because whenever you do not consult community, whenever you infringe minority rights, invariably the process is looked at, and I think what we're saying is that Sikhs are protected by European and international law.    There have been test cases in the past and we believe through our experience in the UK that this is an issue where French authorities, because they haven't completely thought this through, will find that they will need to do something.    KIRSTEN AIKEN: It's understood members of the European Parliament have asked the European Commission to look at the ban to consider whether it contravenes a treaty guaranteeing the freedom of labour movement and capital inside the EU.    In the meantime, France is facing a huge international backlash to scrap it.    Politicians in the UK, Iran, Egypt and India have made their opposition known, with some aligning President Chirac alongside the German Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, because of it.    Others say it will prompt an increase in attacks against religious minorities throughout Europe.    But it's difficult to see how the French Government will do an about-turn when the ban could win at votes at home. And even its near neighbours, including Germany and Belgium are considering following suit.    February 11, 2004.    "French MPs back ban on headscarfs in class" by Kirsten Aiken and Reuters    French MPs have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a controversial bill banning overtly religious symbols from public classrooms.There was little opposition in the French Parliament to the bill banning Islamic headscarves, Jewish skullcaps, Christian crosses and Sikh turbans from public schools.    The bill has angered religious and human rights groups across Europe, who say it will encourage extremism and attacks against minorities.They argue it panders to supporters of the far right, ahead of key regional elections next month. But of the 530 MPs who voted, only 36 recorded their opposition.The bill's opponents are calling for President Jacques Chirac to withdraw it before it is considered in the Senate.    Main targets    The key passage of the law, which schools would apply from September, reads: "In primary and secondary state schools, wearing signs and clothes that conspicuously display the pupil's religious affiliation is forbidden."    The Government says the ban does not single out any religion but Cabinet ministers acknowledge its main targets are Islamic headscarves and anti-Semitic remarks from Muslim pupils that teachers say have become more frequent.    Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said: "After this debate and the magnitude of this vote, both the republic and its secularism have been reinforced."    Assembly Speaker Jean-Louis Debre added: "What is at issue here is the clear affirmation that public school is a place for learning and not for militant activity or proselytism."    But Lhaj Thami Breze, president of the large Union of French Islamic Organisations (UOIF), said the bill would not solve the problem it aimed to address.    "This will not solve the problem," he said. "Who will decide what's conspicuous and what's not?"    He says the UOIF will urge schoolgirls to opt for discrete head coverings such as bandannas or caps and hoped these would be accepted at school.    "It's unfortunate that the whole nation is so preoccupied with a simple piece of cloth," he said.    Nicholas Perruchot, a centrist UDF deputy who voted against the bill, said: "The law will not be applicable and the disputes will not diminish."    This was the first reading of the bill, which must go to the Senate and then back to the National Assembly for final approval in mid-March, which now should be just a formality.
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