FRANCE: France's Muslim activists are considering court cases, school boycotts and advice hotlines as they prepare for a showdown when a controversial ban on Islamic headscarves comes into effect in state schools this September.
Ignoring a European court ruling this week that backed a veil ban in Turkey, one large Muslim group pledges advice, legal aid and private tutoring to girls turned away from school for wearing a headscarf despite the ban on overt signs of faith.
A leading defender of headscarves, a convert named Mr Thomas Abdallah Milcent, is urging pupils and parents to stage week-long strikes protesting against schools barring girls who cover their hair as a religious duty. The simmering tension over headscarves, which secularists see as signals of Islamist radicalism, shows the law passed last March may have too many loopholes to be enforced clearly.
"The UOIF urges pupils and their families to start thinking now about how they will adapt to this law," the Union of French Islamic Organisations, an influential group in Europe's largest Muslim minority, said in a statement on Wednesday.
"We are ready to provide them moral support, help for dialogue, information about their rights, advice from local activists and legal assistance," it said.
A European Court of Human Rights ruling on Tuesday backing a headscarf ban at Turkish universities appeared to bolster the French position, but Muslim activists in France argue it cannot be applied as a legal precedent there. Moderates in the Muslim community of five million, or 8 per cent of France's population, expect the reopening of school to go smoothly except for some highly visible cases that fundamentalist groups could use to attract media attention.