France to Ban Religious Symbols from Schools

Chirac's announcement came in response to a report published last week by a government commission, which proposed the ban of religious symbols in the country's state-run schools. "In all conscience, I consider that the wearing of dress or symbols which conspicuously show religious affiliation should be banned in schools," Chirac said.

The decision comes after months of debate on the role of religion in French society and the difficulties the nation has encountered in the integration of its five million-strong Muslim population.

The law, which Chirac has urged parliament to push through before the start of the 2004 school year next September, will outlaw the wearing of Muslim headscarves, Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses, but will make provision for more discrete signs of religious affiliation, such as small pendants.

Chirac rejected a further commission proposal to add Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, and the Eid al-Kebir festival which marks the end of Islam's Ramadan month of fasting to the existing list of France's public school holidays. He said that pupils in France already had sufficient public holidays.

Secular state

During his speech at the Elysee Palace, Chirac seized the opportunity to stress the continued importance of secularism in French society. "Secularism is one of the Republic's great achievements. It plays a crucial role in social harmony and national cohesion. We must not allow it to be weakened," Chirac told an audience of 400 invited guests.

Secularism in France dates back to 1789 and the French Revolution, and has served as a basic principle of the nation's progressive thought since 1905 when church and state officially separated. The Republic works on the basis of recognizing individuals rather than groups, and the idea of schools and colleges as religion-free zones is in keeping with the basic French notion of citizenship.

Current laws on the subject are vague and have led to several cases of girls being expelled from schools for wearing headscarves. Schools and colleges are currently at liberty to decide for themselves whether they allow their pupils and students to openly display their faith. The new law will remove this ambiguity, but Chirac's announcement has drawn mixed reactions from French society.

Prior to the speech, the French Council of the Muslim Faith had warned Chirac to be careful not to create a law which discriminates against Muslims. Representatives of France's Jewish and Catholic populations fundamentally agreed with the suggestions in the commission's publication last week, and following Chirac's speech, Grand Rabbi Joseph Sitruk told the Reuters news agency that he was satisfied because he had been worried about a law specifying the size of a kippa or a cross.

A poll published by Le Parisien newspaper on Wednesday put public opinion behind the ban, showing that 69 percent of French citizens would support that law, compared with 55 percent who said they would back such a move prior to the publication of the expert commission report. But according to the same poll, only 39 percent of French Muslims favor the ban.

Germany tackles a similar issue

The headscarves debate has become a recurring issue in Germany over the past months as well. Earlier this year, Germany’s highest court in Karlsruhe ruled that school authorities in the southern city of Stuttgart were wrong to bar a Muslim woman from a teaching job because she insisted on wearing a headscarf in the classroom. But the court also stated that although Germany’s constitution did not forbid the wearing of headscarves in state-run schools, individual states could impose such a ban if they wished.

Since the ruling, the German states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg have drafted bills which, if passed, would prohibit teachers in state-funded schools from wearing headscarves. The bills will be sent before their respective state parliaments for approval early in the New Year.