The French government's intention to ban Muslim head scarves in schools in order to defend the nation's secular character is being met with defiance by Muslims in France and elsewhere.
Protesters were to take to the streets in Paris and other major Western cities yesterday to show opposition to the proposal to ban religious attire, including the head scarf, in public schools.
In Paris, police expect at least 10,000 people at a march against the proposed law. Other protests are expected in the US, Canada and Britain.
The demonstrations would be the biggest coordinated protest against a draft law that will forbid Muslim head scarves, Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses in French public schools.
The government is worried about the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and intends to enact the law for the start of the school year in September.
It says Muslim scarves and other obvious religious symbols must be forced out of schools to keep them secular and avoid religious strife.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said protests would not be a positive contribution to the debate.
"If there is a protest one day, there will be a counter-protest the next," he said on Friday.
But many Islamic leaders say the law will stigmatize France's estimated 5 million Muslims, who make up 8 percent of the population.
Yesterday's march through northeastern Paris to the Place de la Nation was to begin at 1pm. It was called by the Party of French Muslims.
Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Mosque of Paris and president of the French council of the Muslim religion, discouraged Muslims from attending the protest, saying it would only exacerbate the anti-Muslim climate and create tensions for Muslims in Europe.
Boubakeur has called for calm in the French Muslim community "because we absolutely do not want confrontation."
Boubakeur's French Council of the Muslim Faith serves as a link to the government.
Protests are also expected in other French cities including Marseille, Lille, Bordeaux, Nice and Toulouse.
About 3,000 people took part in a similar protest in Paris on Dec. 21. More than half were women, girls and even young children wearing the hijab, or head scarf.
Protests have taken place elsewhere, too. Earlier this month, 700 Muslims marched through the Danish capital of Copenhagen to protest the proposed law.
Other protests were planned for yesterday, mostly outside French consulates and embassies in Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Washington, DC, and in Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto in Canada, organizers said.
A few thousand people are expected in all, said Shaheen Kazi, national office manager at the Muslim Students Association of the US and Canada.
"The hijab is so central to the Muslim woman's identity," Kazi said.
"If we don't stand up for this issue when it happens in a European country or anywhere else, then it could be like a wave that could carry on throughout Europe and then we don't know how far it would spread," she said.
In Britain, protests are planned outside the French Embassy in London and a French consulate in Edinburgh. They were called by the Muslim Association of Britain and the Muslim Women Society.
"Hijab is part of a Muslim woman's faith," the association said on its Web site.
"The French government must realize that it has made a huge mistake," it said.
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