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Frenchies may... ummm... surrender on headscarf issue
The French government's plan to ban Islamic veils from schools came under sustained fire yesterday when MPs, shaken by a weekend of protests and violence, began asking whether the move would inflame religious tensions rather than ease them. Most commentators feel President Jacques Chirac has invested too much in the proposed ban to back down now. But fears that the bill may alienate Muslims more than it helps integrate them have been significantly increased by marches against the ban on Saturday in more than a dozen French and foreign cities, and by Sunday's carbombing aimed at a top public official of Muslim origin. So far, bound by party lines, no senior members of either the ruling UMP or the Socialist opposition have questioned the wisdom of the law, which will outlaw all religious symbols from state schools from September. "I had my reservations, and I still have them, about a law that can only pour oil on the fires of extremism," said François Bayrou, leader of the UMP's main parliamentary ally, the centrist UDF party. "In the aim of fighting extremism, we are in fact abandoning the field." Many observers fear that the fundamentalists' message - that Muslims in France are being discriminated against and denied one of their fundamental rights - could find many willing converts among an already disadvantaged Islamic community. "The headscarf question is political manipulation," said one Muslim leader, Karim Bouzid. "The real issues for us are high unemployment in the Muslim community, violence and harassment, discrimination in jobs and housing. The strife is only just beginning, believe me." The daily newspaper Libération said in its editorial that it was fast becoming plain that "unless the proposed headscarf ban is accompanied by a vigorous effort on serious integration, it will be nothing but a useless annoyance". Within the ranks of the UMP, Edouard Balladur, head of parliament's foreign affairs committee, is the most senior figure to have spoken against "opportunistic" legislation which in his view risks "poisoning things irretrievably". But several junior MPs said yesterday they saw the law as "excessive", "unnecessary" and "counter-productive". One, Jean-Marc Nesme, told Libération the government was going "too far; it will offend the vast majority of believers".
Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2004-01-20 |
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| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=24660 |