France’s ban on religious symbols in state schools, a move meant to check a feared spread of Islamist radicalism, is prompting some Muslims to pull out of the system and launch their own schools and tutoring services. Representatives of new projects around the country turned up at France’s largest Muslim convention at the weekend, canvassing for money and support to educate girls who have dropped out or been expelled from school for insisting on wearing headscarves.
Robert Spencer has his own interpretation of this – he seems to think it is an example, not of resistance to state oppression, but of French Muslims’ rejection of “assimilation”.