Proposed French Law Confuses Secularism With Paternalism

In a speech on 17 December 2003, French President Jacques Chirac formally endorsed one of the key recommendations of the government-appointed Stasi Commission – namely, that conspicuous religious symbols should be banned from state-approved schools, even when they are displayed without any state endorsement. These symbols include Jewish yarmulkes, Muslim headscarves and large Christian crosses. Mr. Chirac justified the proposal by appealing to the core values of the French nation.

The proposal unquestionably breaches fundamental human rights standards. There is no question that the wearing of a religious symbol – even a conspicuous symbol – falls squarely within the conventions’ very general contemplation of the manifestation of religion in worship, practice and observance. The Human Rights Committee confirmed this in its General Comment 22 of 30 July 1993. Minister of National Education Luc Ferry went further, describing the Muslim headscarf as “a militant sign that calls for militant countersigns”.

References to militancy and destabilising forces may justify certain anti-terrorism legislation, but to suggest that a piece of material covering a Muslim student’s head is a threat to the secular French Republic is absurdly disingenuous and unequivocally contrary to international and European human rights standards.

The professed motivation for M.Chirac’s proposal is to ensure that French society treats different religious groups equally. The proposal itself, however, amounts to nothing less than discrimination on religious grounds.

There are two reasons for this. First, even if the legislation treats different religions the same, this does not amount to treating different religions equally – because different religious traditions make different demands of their followers, and the individual right to manifest ones religion embraces these differences. The ban is wrong in both cases – but to proscribe Muslim headscarves steps beyond any prevention of proselytism and into the active restriction of unobtrusive religious adherence.

Second, the proposed legislation allows extraordinarily broad discretion – and this is necessarily open to discriminatory application. The current draft legislation proscribes “ostensibly” religious symbols, a deeply ambiguous benchmark that is left for the interpretation of school administrators on a case-by-case basis.

This law will serve only to confirm their worst fears – by declaring that conspicuous but unobtrusive religious symbols threaten the core ideals of the French nation. Understandably, French religious minorities have a history of resisting policies of this nature. Similarly, France’s small Sikh community initially responded to the proposed legislation by declaring that Sikh boys would leave public schools rather than remove their turbans. For a policy ostensibly designed to use French public schools to promote social harmony, this is the deepest irony and the ultimate condemnation. The policy will cause many students from religious minorities to flee from the public school system, into the hands of religious schools – segregated institutions that are far more likely than any public school to affirm the radical messages of isolation that this law will encourage.

The draft legislation is an extraordinary proposal that sacrifices fundamental individual liberties in the name of social harmony – but which, at its core, is justified by absurd religious generalisations that will serve only to isolate further many religious minorities. French leaders are right to be concerned about the status of religious minorities in France. They are right to emphasise French unity, and they do well to highlight France’s long-standing commitment to secularism.

What makes a religious symbol conspicuous?

Aug 17, 2009 a college in Mangalore in India banned a student wearing a burqa from attending class. The principal told local media the college had a policy of not allowing symbols of religion.

Turkey in 2008 lifted a ban on women wearing headscarves at universities, ruling it violated the country’s secular constitution. A 2004 French law bans students from wearing “conspicuous” signs of their religion in state schools, prompting Sikhs to launch a protest to allow them to keep their turbans on.