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Muslim Girls Comply With Head Scarf Ban
Despite divisive debate over a new law banning religious signs in the classroom, compliance was widespread as France's public schools opened the fall term, Education Minister Francois Fillon said Thursday. It was easier for 16-year-old Nadia Arabi to remove her Islamic head scarf than to defy the new law, or to risk contempt for breaking a national chain of solidarity for two Frenchmen held hostage by militants in Iraq. Nadia was not alone. But that was seen less as a sign of surrender by conservative Muslims than part of the national effort - with the Islamic community at the forefront - to save two French journalists held by Islamic radicals demanding that the law be scrapped. The French government firmly refused the demand. ``It is clear that the international context has played a non-negligible role'' in the peaceful return to school, Armand Martin, head of Raymond Queneau High School in Villeneuve d'Ascq, told LCI television. His school, outside the northern city of Lille, held the unofficial record for girls wearing Muslim head scarves last year - 58, according the newspaper Le Monde. Fillon said only 240 schoolgirls in all of France showed up in head scarves Thursday, compared to 1,200 counted last year. Only 70 refused to remove their scarves when they walked through the school door, he said.

Islamic organizations have been at the heart of a show of solidarity for French efforts to win the release of reporters Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, and Muslim families were reminded of the need for discretion. The Union of Islamic Organizations of France, the leading Muslim fundamentalist organization and a vocal opponent of the law, participated in a delegation of Muslim leaders who went to Iraq on Wednesday. ``We must be responsible,'' one member of the mission, Mohammed Bechari, warned in an interview published Thursday in the newspaper Le Figaro.
There's an interesting concept.
During a visit to the Jacques Brel High School in a heavily Muslim district of northern Paris, Fillon argued that the hostage-takers had unwittingly created national unity in France. That remained to be seen. Others said the law is making them choose between their country and their religion. Standing outside a mosque in northern Paris, 37-year-old Naser Admar said he interpreted the law as a message that Muslims aren't welcome. ``They're trying to get rid of us,'' said Admar, a refrigerator repairman with two young daughters. ``When my girls are old enough to wear head scarves, I'll send them to school in Algeria.''
Bon voyage!

Posted by: Steve White 2004-09-03
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=42222