PARIS, 12 February 2004 — France’s looming ban on Muslim headscarves in state schools met widespread criticism abroad yesterday as commentators wondered whether Paris had forgotten its heritage of liberty, equality and fraternity.

The overwhelming 494-36 vote for the anti-veil law on its first reading by the National Assembly on Tuesday showed legislators saw the ban as a way to uphold those traditions and defend France’s secular system.

It did not look that way to many Arab and European commentators reacting to the law, which will bar emblems of faith such as headscarves, Jewish skullcaps or large Christian crosses from public classrooms from September.

“France is the country of the first popular revolution, of equality and brotherhood, and then an issue of personal freedom requires passing a law and all this agitation,” said Abdul Aziz Al-Fayez, a member of the Saudi Shoura Council. “It’s in complete contradiction with the slogans (on human rights and freedom) that France proclaims,” said Moroccan journalist Nadia Boukilli, who wears an Islamic scarf herself.

Closer neighbors were no more understanding.

“The reality is that wearing a headscarf, for whatever reason, will not undermine the French nation or its secular foundations,” the Guardian wrote in London. “A headscarf, or turban or yarmulke hurts no one, regardless of its symbolism.”

“The debate on the ‘veil’ has revealed an acute fear of being swamped by foreigners — subliminal racism is widespread in France,” Switzerland’s daily Neue Zuercher Zeitung said.

The Koelnische Rundschau in Cologne, Germany, called the vote “a boost for France’s Islamists”.

The debate about upholding the strict division of church and state was so deeply rooted in French history and political traditions that it was hard for outsiders to grasp why France was ready to risk angering its large Muslim minority over it.

Interest abroad focused more on the law’s unintended impact. “The sad thing is it strengthens the widespread perception here in the Kingdom and in the Muslim world that there is a degree of hostility on the part of Western governments towards Islam and Muslims,” Al-Fayez said in Riyadh.

In Cairo, the Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Mahdi Akef, regretted France would hinder Muslim girls from fulfilling a religious obligation and said there could be “confrontation to conduct which dishonors the rights of Muslims.

“We had hoped that France would not join these oppressive forces which do not respect either religion or freedoms.”

A newspaper seller in downtown Cairo, Iman Mohammad, thought Egypt was now a freer country than France. “Foreigners in Egypt wear what they like,” he said. “Why is France trying to make Muslims there dress like French people?”

Zohra, a waitress in Algiers, was just as baffled, saying: “It’s not right, it’s not fair. Wearing a scarf is a personal decision. I’m disappointed with the French, I always thought they were for liberty.”

Abdelaziz Rabbah, a youth leader of Morocco’s Justice and Development Party, said: “My concern is that (President Jacques) Chirac’s decision will lead Muslims to live in ghettos.”

The Kuwaiti Islamist parliamentarian Waleed Al-Tatabae called the vote a dangerous move that “underscores that human rights are the first victim of Sept. 11”. He urged Muslims around the world to boycott French goods and not visit France.

The Times in London accused politicians of whipping up the headscarf debate before regional elections in France next month to avoid more serious issues such as the failed integration of the country’s five million Muslims.

“France’s real failure has been to try to use the law on secularism to remedy failed integration polities,” it wrote.