GENEVA, November 28 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The majority of the Swiss people accept allowing Muslims to wear hijab at workplaces, an opinion poll revealed Sunday, November 28.

Fifty-three percent of Swiss citizens polled by the Sonntagsblick newspaper backed hijab in public jobs against 36 percent who opposed, reported Agence France Presse (AFP).

The poll, carried out by the Isopublic survey company, indicated that French-speaking Swiss were more reticent about allowing hijab in the workplace compared to the German and Italian speaking communities in the country.

Seventy-six per cent of those polled said that they do not feel the Muslim community in Switzerland poses a threat, while 16 percent disagreed.

The survey also revealed that about 57 percent supported Muslims who wanted their children to be dispensed from standard religious education at school and to be taught Islamic teachings instead.

The European country is home to 350,000 Muslims representing a sizable 4.5 percent of its eight-million population.

“The findings show that the Swiss people are very tolerant about the integration of minorities,” Farhad Afshar, head of a coordination body for Islamic organizations in Switzerland, told the paper.

The phone poll, involving 1,101 people aged between 15 and 74, showed that the Swiss people are divided over granting an official place to Islam alongside the officially-recognized Protestant and Roman Catholic churches.

It indicated that forty-six percent favored the idea against 43 percent.

Islam is the second religion in Switzerland after Christianity.

The integration of the Muslim communities has recently taken central stage in several European countries.