You are very correct here. France does prohibit what they call “ostentatious religious dress” in public places.
As an American who believes strongly in the 1st amendment, I have a problem with this. It would ban a Jewish man from wearing a yarmulker (sp?) to school or work in a governmnet job, a woman from wearing a large cross necklace, or an Islamic woman from wearing a headscarf.
I can understand prohibiting the covering of the face. The French see the headscarf as a political statement.
So, you are correct, Obama hates Sarko because he is a conservative, and hates the French for banning the headscarf in public establishmnents.
The French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools bans wearing conspicuous religious symbols in French public (i.e. government-operated) primary and secondary schools. The law is an amendment to the French Code of Education that expands principles founded in existing French law, especially the constitutional requirement of laïcité: the separation of state and religious activities.
The bill passed France’s national legislature and was signed into law by President Jacques Chirac on March 15, 2004 (thus the technical name is law 2004-228 of March 15, 2004) and came into effect on September 2, 2004, at the beginning of the new school year. The full title of the law is Loi n° 2004-228 du 15 mars 2004 encadrant, en application du principe de laïcité, le port de signes ou de tenues manifestant une appartenance religieuse dans les écoles, collèges et lycées publics (literally “Law #2004-228 of March 15, 2004 concerning, as an application of the principle of the separation of church and state, the wearing of symbols or garb which show religious affiliation in public primary and secondary schools”).
The law does not mention any particular symbol, though it is considered by many to specifically target the wearing of headscarves (a khimar, considered by some to be required as part of hijab [”modesty”]) by Muslim schoolgirls. For this reason, it is occasionally referred to as the French headscarf ban in the foreign press.
Deutsche Welle, December 9, 2008
Europe’s top courts have ruled in favor of a French school that expelled two Muslim girls for refusing to remove their headscarves for physical education classes. The ruling fuels the debate over secularism in France.
The European Court of Human Rights has dismissed a complaint by two French Muslim girls that their school violated their freedom of religion and their right to an education. The girls were expelled after repeatedly refusing to remove their headscarves for physical education classes.
The teacher had said that wearing a headscarf was incompatible with physical education classes. The girls, Belgin Dogru and Esma-Nur Kervanci, are French nationals and were 11 and 12 respectively when they were expelled from the school in the north-western town of Flers in 1999.
For secularism’s sake
Based in Strasbourg, the European Court of Human Rights ruled on Thursday, Dec. 4 that the school’s move to expel the girls was not out of line, emphasizing that the girls had been able to continue their education via correspondence classes.
“It was clear that the applicants’ religious convictions were fully taken into account in relation to the requirements of protecting the rights and freedoms of others and public order,” the court said in a press release.
The court also observed that the purpose of the restriction on the applicants’ right to manifest their religious convictions was to adhere to the requirements of secularism, a hot topic of debate in France.
Secularism is taken very seriously in the country’s state schools, and in 2004 a law was passed that bans pupils from wearing conspicuous signs of their religion at school.
France is home to Europe’s largest Muslim minority.