French Expert Panel Favors Law Banning Headscarves in Schools

PARIS, 12 December 2003 — A blue-ribbon expert panel commissioned by President Jacques Chirac said yesterday it favored legally banning Islamic headscarves and other conspicuous religious attire in public buildings, including schools.

The conclusions of the panel after six months of study and 120 hearings were expected to play a role in Chirac’s own decision on whether to propose legislation to ban headscarves and other blatant religious symbols from public institutions.

The 20-member panel agreed unanimously that France should impose a law banning “obvious” religious and political symbols from public schools, such as headscarves, yarmulkes or large-sized crucifixes. Small pendants would be permitted. Bernard Stasi, who headed the commission, said the proposed law was aimed at keeping France’s strict secular underpinnings intact and at countering “forces that are trying to destabilize the country,” a reference to fundamentalists.

Stasi stressed that the commission’s work did not target France’s Muslim community but was aimed at giving all religions a more equal footing.

“Muslims must understand that secularism is a chance for Islam,” Stasi said. “Secularism is the separation of church and state, but it is also the respect of differences.”

Neither the Grand Mosque of Paris nor the Consistoire in Paris, which runs Jewish religious life in France, had an immediate reaction to the Stasi report.

But France’s largest high school teachers union criticized the report for not going far enough in calling for secularism to prevail in public schools.

“In France, in terms of secularism, there is a lot to do. Veils are just one problem, but not the only problem,” said Daniel Robin, national secretary of the SNES union. Among problems, he said, was that several of France’s departments still require religion to be taught in public schools and have clergymen on their payrolls. The commission also recommended what would be a first for France — adding Jewish and Muslim holidays to the school calendar.

Chirac — who has made clear his opposition to blatant religious symbols in the classroom — said he would address the nation next week with his own conclusions. On a state visit last week to Tunisia, Chirac told a group of high school students that wearing a veil in France was seen as “a sort of aggression.”