Jacques Chirac hinted strongly yesterday that France will soon introduce legislation banning Muslim girls from wearing headscarves to school, saying most French people saw ”something aggressive” in the veil and that the secular state could not tolerate ”ostentatious signs of religious proselytism”.
The French president’s comments to secondary school students in Tunis followed a petition published yesterday by 60 prominent French women, including the actors Isabelle Adjani and Emmanuelle Beart and the designer Sonia Rykiel, calling for an outright ban on ”this visible symbol of the submission of women”.
Chirac is due to make his position on the issue clear next week, when a special commission presents its findings on how to protect France’s secular traditions. He stressed yesterday that he had no dispute with the vast majority of French Muslims, but added: ”Wearing a veil, whether we want it or not, is a sort of aggression that is difficult for us to accept.”
Critics argue that banning the veil from state institutions risks antagonising France’s 5 million Muslims, and ignores the root problem: the failure to integrate immigrants of mainly north African origin.
But a clear majority of both the public and MPs favour a ban, believing it the only effective way to defend France’s secular republic from the demands of militant Islam. – Guardian Unlimited Â