Intolerant ban dressed up as secular ruling
By Yasmin Qureshi
Morning Star, 23 March 2005
It has now been just over one year since the introduction of a new law in France forbidding the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols in French state schools.
This law has been of considerable concern to London’s Asian communities in particular.
Sikh and Muslim groups in Britain asked the mayor of London to take the issue up and look into the impact on community relations across Europe of the so-called “headscarf ban.”
I visited Paris last week on the mayor’s behalf, meeting, among others, representatives of Muslim organisation le Collectif des Musulmans de France, as well as the French civil rights group the Ligue des droits de l’Homme and representatives of the Sikh community – including the two Sikh boys who have been excluded from their school as a direct result of the law .
There is a widely held view among those opposed to the ban that it came at a time when the French government needed to divert from the country’s economic problems.
As an attempt to divert attention from high unemployment and budget cuts it was very successful, tapping into long-held French secular political traditions.
The overwhelming focus of the debate about the new law – which is why it has become known as the “headscarf ban” – was the Muslim community.
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