Chirac defends proposed headscarf ban

The French government has taken its first formal step toward legally banning the Muslim head scarf from public schools, adopting the measure in a Cabinet session.

President Jacques Chirac defended the legislation that some see as discriminatory, saying that France needs to head off danger to its secular foundations.

“To do nothing would be irresponsible. It would be a fault,” Chirac told the closed-door Cabinet meeting yesterday, according to government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope.

The bill, containing three articles, would ban conspicuous religious symbols from public schools, namely Islamic head scarves, Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses. However, Chirac made clear that it is aimed at Muslim head coverings.

In a nationally televised speech in December, Chirac called on lawmakers to legislate, asking for a bill that was succinct, quickly passed and in force by the new school year in September.

Parliamentary debate is set to begin on Tuesday.

The bill stipulates that “in schools, junior high schools and high schools, signs and dress that conspicuously show the religious affiliation of students are forbidden”.

It would not apply to students in private schools or to French schools in other countries.

Under the legislation, sanctions for refusing to remove conspicuous religious signs would range from a warning, to temporary suspension from school to expulsion.

The planned law has drawn criticism from some Muslims in France and in other countries. Fears that it could trigger a backlash in France’s huge Muslim community have been voiced.

Some lawmakers have already said they would abstain or oppose the bill in the scheduled February 10 lower house vote. Among them are centrist allies of Chirac.

Even Chirac’s party, the conservative Union for a Popular Movement, or UMP, appeared to lean toward amending the bill.

Jacques Barrot, UMP leader in the National Assembly, said yesterday that the text should emphasise that students would have the possibility of mediation in any dispute.

“It’s not firstly a law of interdiction. It’s a law of dissuasion,” Barrot said.

Despite dissent, the bill is all but assured passage. Chirac’s party holds 364 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, and a bill needs only 288 votes to pass.

Some 10,000 people, mostly Muslims, marched through Paris on January 17 to protest against the planned law. A similar number of protesters marched in countries around the world.

Yesterday in Pakistan a group of 70 women belonging to Jamaat-e-Islami, a radical Islamic party, protested in front of the French Embassy in Islamabad.

Echoing a complaint heard in France, party leader Samia Raheel Qazi said the law would go against secularism and amount to a “clear-cut violation of basic human rights”.

However, Chirac said France has a duty to protect French values, notably the constitutional principle of secularism that underpins French society.