PARIS, 2 October 2003 — The only Muslim woman in France’s center-right government broke a long silence yesterday to say she opposed letting girls wear traditional Islamic headscarves in school and wanted the practice outlawed.
Development Minister Tokia Saifi told RTL radio she hadn’t spoken out before because she did not think the fact she was the French-born daughter of Algerian immigrants meant she had to make statements on every Islamic issue that arises in France.
With the headscarf’s growing popularity among Muslim girls in the poor suburbs of big cities, the government has launched an inquiry into the place of religious symbols in state schools. The Cabinet is split over whether to ban them officially or not.
“I am against the wearing of headscarves in school,” Saifi, 44, said. “We should include (a ban) in the school guidelines law for 2004. I don’t think we can do otherwise.” She said a ban would apply to other religious symbols, such as necklaces with a Christian cross or Jewish Star of David.
French law prescribes strict religious neutrality in public institutions. Scarf-wearers argue that the Holy Qur’an dictates they dress modestly and their right to practice their religion allows them to do this.
France has Europe’s largest Muslim minority with about five million people, including a small group urging disaffected youths to stress their Muslim rather than French background.
The headscarf issue has arisen in some other European countries with growing Muslim immigrant populations.
A number of German states are mulling a law that would ban teachers from wearing the headscarf, after a supreme court ruling reopened a fierce debate that has dismayed Muslim leaders.
Six of Germany’s 16 states are considering whether to introduce a law that would formally ban the practice on the grounds of religious neutrality in the classroom.
But at least eight other states see no need for a law, while Muslim leaders say they fear the discussion may be shaped by prejudice over other issues.
“It is a heated debate and we regret that,” said Aiman Mazyak, a spokesman for the Central Council of Muslims in Germany.
“We want a considered debate, not an umbrella debate that is influenced by other people’s perceptions of the role of women in Islam and the situation in Muslim countries. “They are interesting themes, but have nothing to do with this issue.”
Last week, Germany’s constitutional court ruled in a long-awaited case that officials in western Baden-Wuerttemberg state were wrong to ban a teacher from wearing a Muslim headscarf in the classroom. However, it said individual states could pass new laws to outlaw religious dress in public schools.
Baden-Wuerttemberg later announced plans to study a law formalizing a ban. Other states have said they may follow suit, including the conservative-run governments of Hesse and Lower Saxony, as well as Bremen and Berlin.
