France began quietly expelling Muslim girls who defied a new law forbidding them from wearing Islamic head scarves in school, treading carefully for fear of endangering two French hostages in Iraq.
The expulsions of at least five girls in two days were the first since the law banning all conspicuous religious signs from public schools went into effect at the start of the academic year on Sept. 2. They were kept low-key because the French journalists' captors had demanded that the measure be abolished.
After disciplinary hearings, officials on Wednesday expelled two 17-year-olds from schools in the eastern city of Mulhouse and another girl from a school in Flers in Normandy in western France.
"They have just destroyed my life," 12-year-old Khouloud told Le Monde newspaper after she and another girl were expelled Tuesday from the Jean Mace middle school in Mulhouse.
"What they want is to see us in tight pants like all the girls," Khouloud was quoted as saying. Le Monde did not give her last name.
Another five could be expelled this week as the Education Ministry gave school districts the signal to start taking action against a total of 72 students who could not be persuaded to obey the law. Most are Muslim girls, but Sikh boys refusing to remove their turbans also risk being expelled.
The hostage drama involving Christian Chesnot and Christian Malbrunot, who entered their third month in captivity Wednesday, forced education authorities to tread softly. The Islamic Army of Iraq, a group that claimed to be holding the journalists and their Syrian driver, had demanded that the law be abolished. The French government refused.
The cautious approach stretched a required period of dialogue with recalcitrant students to the limit, and school districts began disciplinary hearings Tuesday through the end of the week. The rest of the hearings are to be held when classes resume after a vacation period marking the Roman Catholic All Saints Day holiday which ends Nov. 3.
Those expelled have the right to appeal to the head of the academy. If they are under 16 -- the legal age for leaving school -- the expelled students must continue their education at a private school, by correspondence or other means, said Gilles-Jean Klein, spokesman for the Academy of Strasbourg, which oversees the school district in the eastern Alsace region.
Education Minister Francois Fillon expressed satisfaction with progress in resolving troublesome cases -- some 600 at the start of the school year. Most were resolved through dialogue.
Critics contend that the law contravenes fundamental rights and risks stigmatizing France's 5 million-strong Muslim population.
The law bans conspicuous religious signs and apparel, including Muslim head scarves, Jewish skull caps and large Christian crosses.
The small Sikh community in France, estimated at 5,000-7,000 people, has learned that turbans can also pose a problem. Three Sikhs with turbans at a school in Bobigny, outside Paris, have been kept out of class since the start of September.
The law is intended to uphold France's constitutionally guaranteed principle of secularism, considered undermined by a growing number of Muslim girls wearing head scarves in classrooms.
Authorities have also said they view the law as a way to fight rising Muslim fundamentalism in France and to protect the rights of women, widely viewed here as submissive to men if they wear head scarves.
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