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Debate opens on French bill against head scarves

The debate was expected to be noisy as lawmakers hunkered down yesterday to review a bill banning Islamic head scarves in public schools that was also intended to help draw France's huge Muslim community into the mainstream.

But there are fears the effort to end a long quandary over how to deal with Muslim girls who refuse to remove head scarves in the classroom could stigmatize the Muslim population.

The bill to ban "conspicuous" religious symbols in public schools is composed of only three brief articles. However, some 140 lawmakers in the National Assembly, the lower house, have signed up to comment -- an exceedingly high number.

The bill would also ban Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses from public schools, but French authorities have made clear that it is aimed at Muslim head coverings.

Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin was to open the debate, a measure of just how important the government considers the legislation. A vote is tentatively set for Tuesday next week.

The bill's third article stipulates that the law would take force at the start of the new school year in September.

President Jacques Chirac has fiercely defended the need for such legislation, which some Muslims view as discriminatory.

A ban is seen as a means of guaranteeing respect for French values, notably secularism, ensuring a strict separation of church and state in the public domain. However, it also is a tool to help bring an increasingly militant Muslim population into the mainstream, and help dampen a rise in Muslim fundamentalism.

With an estimated 5 million Muslims, France has the largest such population in Western Europe and Islam is the second religion in this mainly Roman Catholic country.
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