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We
should talk about the several difficulties that confront French
Muslims to help them improve their way of living and positions,”
Sarkozy
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By
Hadi Yahmed, IOL Paris Correspondent
PARIS,
October 9 (IslamOnline.net) - The possibility of passing a law that bans
hijab in schools in France has recently raised the opposition of the
majority of French leftist groups as French Interior Minister Nicolas
Sarkozy said there is no need to pass a law that bans religious symbols
in schools.
Labor
Struggle Movement is the only leftist organization that supported
passing such a law, not due to its interpretation of secularism but to
the fact that it sees the hijab as a symbol of women’s weakness.
Meanwhile,
other leftist groups, including Revolutionary Communist League, opposed
such a law, pointing out that it would deprive a large number of veiled
young women from their right of education.
To
express their opposition, several French leftist societies have
organized a gathering on Tuesday, October 7, in front of the Henri
Wallon lycee in the Paris northern suburb of Aubervilliers, during which
they called for the return of French sisters, Lila and Alma Levy, to the
institute.
Lila
and Alma, 18 and 16, were expelled
after the school claimed they were wearing clothes "of an
ostentatious character".
The
administration of the institute had previously decided to prevent both
sisters from entering the institute starting Wednesday, September 24,
due to their insistence to wear hijab.
Their
father, Laurent Levy, a lawyer of a Jewish origin, said that Preventing
his daughters from entering the institute is anti-secular, adding that
those who describe themselves as secularists are ignorant of secular
laws.
'School
For All'
The
gathering of leftist groups represented in the Revolutionary Communist
League, Women and Public Opinion and the Immigration and Neighborhoods
Organization in front of the institute comes one day before the
disciplinary council due to be held on October 10 to settle the issue of
both sisters.
Leftist
groups distributed a communiqué saying, “they do not support the
Islamic veil in itself but they support the principle that French
schools are for all; and hence they oppose the idea of depriving both
Lila and Alma from their right to go to school.”
Dozens
of demonstrators carried banners that call for “schools for all
people” of whatever religious affiliation.
In
the same context, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy opposed
passing a law that bans veils in schools.
“There
is no need to pass a law that bans religious symbols in France,”
Sarkozy said before the Commission of Bernar Stasse that is assigned
with applying secular principles in France and preparing recommendations
on the possibility of passing a law that bans veils in schools.
The
minister told the committee that a tougher law that would bar women and
girls from wearing traditional Muslim headscarves when they attend
school or work in a state office was “neither necessary nor useful nor
opportune.”
The
current law, which dates back to 1905, already rules out the wearing of
religious symbols in public offices and schools, he said, and a tougher
new one would only isolate Muslims and encourage them to take a more
radical stand.
“We
should talk about the several difficulties that confront French Muslims
to help them improve their way of living and positions,” Sarkozy said,
pointing out that French Muslims are away from high-ranking jobs of the
state.
'Second
Class Citizen'
France’s
five million Muslims do not enjoy the same rights as the country’s
other citizens and might need positive discrimination efforts to reach
an equal footing, Sarkozy said according to Arab News website.
French
Muslims, mostly of North African Arab origin, face prejudice at work and
a shortage of mosques and other religious services in comparison to
other religions, he told the official committee.
“If
you’re named Mohammed, your resume isn’t the last to be thrown into
the waste basket,” he remarked, adding there were almost no Muslims in
any senior positions in France.
“It’s
a fact that our compatriots of the Muslim faith do not have the same
rights as believers in the other great religions.”
Sarkozy,
who last year helped Muslim organizations found a national council to
represent their interests, broke a French taboo by suggesting that
positive discrimination might help integrate Muslims more fully into
French life.
“The
term ‘positive discrimination’ doesn’t scare me,” he said,
arguing that favoring Muslims might be the only way to create role
models for the community. France has traditionally shunned anything that
smacks of ethnic profiling.
Sarkozy
said Muslims did not have enough mosques, places in public cemeteries
and chaplains in schools, often because officials from the mostly
Catholic majority in this country of 60 million used the law to
discriminate against them, the website added.
Noting
that many towns refused building permits for mosques on technical
grounds, he remarked: “We’ve spent more energy using zoning laws to
block the building of mosques than we have to protect our seashores.”
Muslims
also had no schools in France to train imams, or prayer leaders, forcing
congregations to recruit men abroad who often speak no French and
sometimes preach extremism.
Sarkozy
also criticized French intellectuals who single out Islam for
discriminating against women, saying this was a problem in all
religions. “I don’t see a lot of women in the Catholic Bishops’
Conference in France,” he observed.
