"The decision to ban conspicuous signs (of religion) in school is a decision that respects our history, our customs and our values,” Chirac

Additional Reporting By Hadi Yahmid, IOL Correspondent

PARIS, January 29 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The French cabinet on Wednesday, January 28, approved a controversial bill to ban hijab from state schools, setting the stage for its passage through parliament and adoption by the start of the next school year.

The bill will be presented on Tuesday, February 3, to the National Assembly, parliament's lower house, which will cast its first vote on February 10 - amid growing opposition from Muslim protesters and reservations within the centre-right government over the wisdom of the move.

“In schools, the wearing of signs or clothes which conspicuously display a pupil's religious affiliation is prohibited,” read the bill, carried by Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The impact of the law on the 5,000 Sikhs is not clear.  Seikh leaders had threatened their school children would rather drop out rather than abandoning their turbans, boosting Muslims’ accusations the move is rather discriminatory.

President Jacques Chirac, who chaired Wednesday's weekly cabinet meeting, said the bill “clearly reaffirms the neutrality of our state schools. It is obviously not intended to outlaw signs of religious affiliation worn in everyday life.

"The decision to ban conspicuous signs (of religion) in school is a decision that respects our history, our customs and our values. To do nothing would be irresponsible. It would be wrong," the president was quoted by his spokesman as saying.

French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said the ban would not include beards or bandannas, ending confusion created by Education Minister Luc Ferry when he said the two things could also be outlawed if they were worn with a clearly religious intent.

Press reports said Raffarin, who has been under pressure on several fronts this week, took a firm line over the planned law two months before regional elections.

France has the largest Muslim population in Western Europe, estimated at about 5 million, and there is growing concern that Muslims are not fully integrating into French society.

But the law, intended to ensure a rigid enforcement of the French principle of “secularism”, has prompted an angry reaction from many world Muslims who stress that wearing hijab is an obligation and not just a symbol as Chirac had said in an earlier televised speech.

Many French citizens seemingly misunderstand the nature of the hijab, as a poll published on Wednesday by Libération newspaper showed 76 per cent felt the Islamic headscarf to be an “ostensible” religious symbol.

Thousands have demonstrated in France as well as more than 20 countries in a collective appeal for Paris to go back on its decision to bar hijab from the public schools.

Opposition Still There

The bill is expected to pass without a hitch through parliament where Chirac's Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) has a clear majority.

But several senior political and religious figures have raised concerns, arguing that it is badly-drafted, unworkable and inflammatory.

Following the guidance of an official report into secularism presented to Chirac in December, the law will prohibit not just Islamic wear but also Jewish skull-caps and "large" Christian crosses.

Francois Bayrou, a former education minister who heads the UMP's coalition partner the Union for French Democracy (UDF), said he would oppose the law because “the disadvantages outweigh the advantages”.

“We have just given the ‘Islamists and the militant fundamentalists’ a massive gift of gold,” he said on RTL radio.

Foreign minister Dominique de Villepin was widely quoted in the French press last week warning the government that the law would damage French relations with predominantly Muslim nations in the Middle East and Asia as well the United States.

Many French citizens misunderstood the nature of the hijab, as a poll published on Wednesday by Libération newspaper showed 76 percent felt the Islamic headscarf to be an “ostensible” religious symbol.

Claude Goasguen, deputy leader for Chirac's UMP party in parliament, said he was considering abstaining from the vote on the ban.

Other heavyweights joined the club, as Christine Boutin which said the move would feed sectarianism.

Further to the dismay of Chirac in the anguished debate, the list of opponents from his party is growing, along with members of other parties and ethnic communities originally standing in the NO camp.

Centrist Francois Bayrou denounced the planned ban as “a whiff of oxygen for fundamentalists” who would exploit it to whip up protests.

Socialist parliamentary leader Jean-Marc Ayrault said the government's position “is not clear at all”.

The Socialist Party also reiterated calls for amending the bill to replace “ostensible” with “visible” to end any possible violations or misinterpretations.

The request had been earlier turned down.

Several politicians have warned that the controversy over the bill is playing into the hands of the far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, who is hoping to make big electoral gains at regional elections in March.

Noting that the law was originally intended to cut support for Le Pen's National Front (FN) by taking a firm line on Islamic extremists, the pro-government Le Figaro newspaper warned Wednesday that the policy appeared to be backfiring.

“It has to be doubted whether the daily sight on television of young girls raising their fists and bearded men shouting anti-French slogans will do anything to hold back Le Pen.

“In politics as elsewhere, the road to hell is paved with good intentions,” the paper said.