Muslims urge calm over scarf law

Some Muslims have said they will demonstrate against the ban

Islamic leaders in France have urged young Muslims to stay calm after the French president's support for a law banning headscarves in state schools.

President Jacques Chirac backed proposals which would mean a ban on all conspicuous religious signs in schools.

He said secularism was one of France's greatest achievements and played a vital role in ensuring social harmony.

President of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, Dalil Boubakeur, asked Muslims to avoid confrontation.

"We call... for thoughtfulness, calm and serenity," he said.

National cohesion

Opinion polls showed a majority support for the law but many religious leaders had expressed their concerns before Mr Chirac's speech on Wednesday.

Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses would be affected, as well as headscarves worn by Muslim girls.

Chirac speech excerpts Mixed reaction in media

The proposals were made by an official commission led by former minister Bernard Stasi which examined French secularism.

"Secularism is one of the great successes of the Republic," Mr Chirac said in an address to the nation.

"It is a crucial element of social peace and national cohesion. We cannot let it weaken."

French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said he would "move quickly" to make sure the proposals become law before the start of the new school year in September.

As both Mr Chirac's governing conservative party, the UMP, and the opposition Socialists are in favour of a law, it is unlikely to fail.

Vigilant

Grand Rabbi Joseph Sitruk said he was satisfied overall with Mr Chirac's speech.

"I had been worried about a law (specifying) the size of a skullcap or of a cross," he said.

I'm in France, I'm in a country that proclaims liberty and human rights and forcing someone to take off the hijab - I don't see why, I don't understand Ben Niser Teycir student

Father Stanislas Lalanne, head of the French Bishop's Conference, said the president had assuaged its fears of anti-religious measures, but left room for interpretation.

"I am confident and at the same time vigilant," he said.

But a major teachers' union criticized the plan.

Head of the FSU union, Gerard Aschieri, speaking on France Info radio said the proposal was "counterproductive" and that dialogue was needed.

Fouad Alaoui, head of the fundamentalist Union for Islamic Organisations of France, said the law "limits religious freedom to the maximum" and would put practicing Muslims "in contradiction with their religious convictions".

Some Muslims have said they will demonstrate to show their opposition to the law.

Imam Hamed of the Croissant de l'Islam community organisation in Dunkerque said the law would deepen divisions in society.

"We're going to demonstrate to show we don't agree," he told BBC News Online.

New laws

France has the largest Muslim population in the European Union, with around five million people, and several thousand teenage girls are estimated to wear headscarves to classes.

Paris student Ben Niser Teycir, 17, said she started wearing the headscarf or hijab earlier this year but has already been told to take it off on a school trip.

She fears that France misunderstands what the headscarf means to a Muslim woman.

"The hijab, it's liberty, it's emancipation, it's freedom and stop saying that the girls who are wearing this are submissive or manipulated or provocative," she told the BBC.

Other proposals which got the president's backing included:

• ensuring that patients in public hospitals cannot refuse treatment from doctors of the opposite sex
• enabling employers to regulate the wearing of religious symbols for reasons of safety or customer relations

He rejected a plan for school holidays to mark the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha and the Jewish Yom Kippur.