Back to School
La rentrée is a big event in France. Dominating this year's rentrée is the law forbidding girls from wearing Muslim headscarves to school. The kidnapping of two journalists by Iraqis opposing the law has ensured maximum attention during the back to school week.
Secondary schools started today and the Ministry of Education is congratulating themselves that everything is proceeding calmly. However, no pupils will be excluded on the first day, so it's not surprising that there's a dearth of mediagenic confrontations.
The government claims that this law isn't aimed at Muslims but this isn't true. The law forbids all conspicuous religious imagery in the name of France's much-valued secularity. The word "conspicuous" is important, small Christian crosses are not included in the ban.
I'd rather see the headscarf disappear sooner than later, but this isn't the way to go about it. It would be better, for example, to investigate why pupils are wearing headscarves when their Algerian-born mothers didn't. Alienating French Muslims for political profit in this manner is not clever.
Secondary schools started today and the Ministry of Education is congratulating themselves that everything is proceeding calmly. However, no pupils will be excluded on the first day, so it's not surprising that there's a dearth of mediagenic confrontations.
The government claims that this law isn't aimed at Muslims but this isn't true. The law forbids all conspicuous religious imagery in the name of France's much-valued secularity. The word "conspicuous" is important, small Christian crosses are not included in the ban.
I'd rather see the headscarf disappear sooner than later, but this isn't the way to go about it. It would be better, for example, to investigate why pupils are wearing headscarves when their Algerian-born mothers didn't. Alienating French Muslims for political profit in this manner is not clever.