France to review headscarf ban

French MPs were today set to review a bill banning Islamic headscarves in public schools.

The bill to ban “conspicuous” religious symbols in public schools is composed of only three brief measures, but some 140 MPs in the National Assembly, the lower house, have signed up for the debate.

The bill would also ban Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses from public schools, but French authorities have made clear that it is aimed at Muslim head coverings.

Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin was to open the debate, a measure of just how important the government considers the legislation.

A vote is tentatively set for February 10.

The bill’s third article stipulates that the law would take force at the start of the new school year in September.

President Jacques Chirac has fiercely defended the need for such legislation, which some Muslims view as discriminatory.

“To do nothing would be irresponsible,” Chirac told his Cabinet last week. “It would be a fault.”

A ban is seen as a means of guaranteeing respect for French values, notably secularism, ensuring a strict separation of church and state in the public domain.

However, it also is a tool to help bring an increasingly militant Muslim population into the mainstream.

With an estimated five million Muslims, France has the largest such population in Western Europe and Islam is the second religion in this mainly Roman Catholic country.

A presidential commission which studied the state of secularism for six months concluded that French values were under attack and a ban on headscarves was needed.

Chirac gave the green light to proceed.

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.

Sanctions for refusing to remove conspicuous religious signs would range from a warning to temporary suspension from school to expulsion.

France has grappled with how to deal with girls who refuse to remove headscarves in class since 1989, when two Muslim girls in Creil, outside Paris, defied school rules banning such head coverings.

Since then, scores of students have been expelled.

The legislation is unlikely to be the peacemaker the government had hoped.

Muslims in France and around the world have demonstrated to protest the planned law. More demonstrations are set for Saturday.