A human rights faux pas

Last week's decision by the French National Assembly to pass a ban on "conspicuous signs of religious belonging" in public schools shocked few in France but many around the world -- an unlikely majority whose members remained convinced that the Assembly would realize its mistake at the last minute.

Sadly, the Assembly did not, and the law was passed by with overwhelming support -- 494 to 36 -- due to a compromise between the President Jacques Chirac's UMP party and the opposition Socialists.

The law, which will clear the path for a ban on headscarves, skullcaps, and "large crosses" at the start of the next school year, has been justified by countless talking heads, who have come to resemble a political Hydra -- once any line of reasoning is deemed faulty, two more spring up in its place.

The most common rationale was based on the principle of la‹cit‚ ("secularism"), enshrined in a 1905 law separating church and state. According to la‹cit‚, religion has no place in the public sphere, which includes public schools.

But in a shameful last-minute P.R. blitz, French leaders issued statements characterizing the law as an attempt to reign in the anti-Semitic attitudes of the Muslim minority.

While it is true that there have been incidents of an anti-Semitic nature, the Jewish community has not been as quick to defend the la‹cit‚ law as one might expect. Lord Greville Janner, vice-president of the World Jewish Congress, said the decision "disgracefully punished the entire Muslim population and other religious communities."

Another argument against the headscarf holds that the veil is a symbol of the oppression of women by a patriarchal society, and that it is forced upon girls by their fathers and brothers.

But even if the majority of girls were forced to wear the veil by their families, legislating the issue violates the rights of the ones who choose to wear it freely.

The day before the vote, I took the metro to the end of the line -- to Saint Denis, a suburb of Paris with a large immigrant population. At University of Paris VIII in Saint Denis, I asked women wearing headscarves about their views on the new law.

"Some say the law is not targeted, but in fact it's very targeted -- it's an Islamophobic law," one girl told me as her veiled friend nodded emphatically. "It's a barrier to liberty, stopping someone from expressing her religion."

The girls declined to give their names -- the issue is extremely sensitive in France -- but pointed out that France would be the only country in Europe to pass such a law.

The Senate will review the law in March, where easy approval is expected. The ban would then take effect at the beginning of the next school year in September.

But the debate over the issue has already lasted months and has aggravated the tensions between France's white Christian population and its large Muslim minority, who live to a certain extent in two different societies.

"I'm outside of the law," said Houda Brahim, a graduate student at the University of Paris VIII. "I'm excluded from society -- seriously, though," she told me in a bustling common area, where the passing students were far more diverse than at the elite universities inside Paris proper.

"It's an unbearable feeling to have people look at you in the street as they would look at someone who committed a crime," Brahim continued. "Before, at least they were discreet."

Brahim fears that the new law will push veiled Muslim women even further outside the mainstream. Though she already has a master's and is working toward another advanced degree, she says she is unsure of her future because of the discrimination she experiences as a veiled woman.

And what of the girls who attend public school and will be directly affected by the law next fall? At Fr‚d‚ric Bartholdi High School in Saint-Denis, one girl told me that the rules on headscarves were understandable -- it was a secular school, after all.

But her friend, who also wore a headscarf, seemed less accepting of government interference in her religious life. "It's a pain in the ass to have to take it off when we come and put it on when we go," she said. "I made a decision [to wear the veil]; I'm deeply involved in my religion -- it's not to piss people off," she said.

The girls pointed out that Catholics could easily hide their crosses but that the veil could not be hidden. The law will forbid not only headscarves but kippas for Jewish boys and "large crosses" for Christians, according to Chirac.

But the mention of "large crosses" was made "just to give the appearance of fairness," according to Professor Jean Bauberot, who holds the chair on "History and Sociology of secularism" at the Sorbonne.

It is perhaps telling that Bauberot, a leading expert on the cherished concept of la‹cit‚ in France, chose not to support the law as part of the influential Stasi Commission, which studied the issue for months before recommending its passage to President Jacques Chirac.

As one student at Paris VIII told me, "France is the homeland of the Declaration of the Rights of Man. This law is not worthy of France."