Despite protests from Muslim leaders, France must outlaw Islamic head coverings, Jewish skullcaps and other obvious religious signs in schools and regulate them in the workplace, President Jacques Chirac announced.
Such action, the French president said Wednesday in a televised national address, is needed to reaffirm France's secular foundations.
"It is not negotiable," he asserted.
Islamic head scarves, Jewish yarmulkes or outsized Christian crosses "have no place" in public schools, Chirac said, and called on parliament, where his conservative government has a majority, to pass a law banning them ahead of the school year that starts next September.
While widely expected, Chirac's dramatic proposal capped months of debate about mainly Roman Catholic France's struggle to hold together the multiracial, multicultural but often poorly integrated society it has become after waves of immigration from North Africa and elsewhere.
Chirac's proposals, part of a quickening government effort to thwart the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, also appeared aimed at undercutting support for the extreme right National Front, led by Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Le Pen, who placed second behind Chirac in presidential elections last year, has capitalized on fears of immigration and concerns that France is abandoning its traditions as it seeks to respond to immigrant communities.
Chirac paid homage to the immigrants who helped "forge our country, make it stronger and more prosperous."
But he also said he will not tolerate any religious challenge to France's core values -- encapsulated in the phrase carved above the front doors of schools and town halls across the country: "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity."
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