With the legal and philosophical justification that the Muslim headscarves have a distinctly political dimension, France will very likely enact a ban on wearing religious symbols in state schools. The ban, slated to become law next week, would apply to headscarves, crosses, turbans, skull caps and possibly beards. The bill proposes: “In schools, junior high schools and high schools, signs and dress that conspicuously show the religious affiliation of students are forbidden.”

In a highly diplomatic move, and unwilling to step on French toes, Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, the Grand Sheikh of the al-Azhar mosque in Egypt and one of the most important religious authorities in Sunni Islam, has upheld the French ban.

If this law is passed, it will do far more damage than stamp out religious pluralism and stifle religious freedom. Students will become separated along religious lines, especially if they or their parents believe that their only option is to attend a separate Muslim school, such as the institution that was recently founded in Lille. France will not be united under the banner of secularism; it will become polarized along religious lines. Islam is now the second largest religion in France, and this ban will be rightly interpreted as a thinly veiled attack on the country’s growing Muslim population. Fueled by righteous anger and driven into separate schools, a population is being created in France that is susceptible to being swayed by a radical interpretation of Islam.  

Mimi Hanaoka