End Hijab Ban: French Gov’t Report
“It will no longer be up to immigrants to adopt French culture but up to France to abandon its culture, its values, its history to adapt to the culture of others,” Jean-François Copé, leader of the main opposition Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party, told The Telegraph.
Presenting a vision on how to better integrate France’s millions of citizens and residents of foreign origin, the report was commissioned by Socialist Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault who plans to overhaul policy next year.
The document, part of a government review of integration policy, was prepared by a team of specially-appointed experts
It said France, with Europe's largest Muslim population, should recognize the "Arab-oriental dimension" of its identity, for example by changing street and place names, rewriting its history curriculum and creating a special day to honor the contribution of immigrant cultures.
Among the proposals presented by senior civil servant Thierry Tuot and a group of experts was to forbid authorities and the media to refer to people's nationality, religion or ethnicity, and the creation of a new offence of "racial harassment".
It has also recommended promoting the teaching of Arabic and African languages in French schools.
Moreover, it added that school children should learn more about slavery and colonization and that a Museum of Colonization be created.
France is home to a Muslim community of nearly six million, the largest in Europe.
In 2004, the European country banned the wearing of hijab, an obligatory code of dress in Islam, in schools.
Later in 2011, France banned the wearing of face-veil, or niqab, in public places.
The report said the ban was “discriminatory” and “served as a justification of an extension of discriminatory practices in several sectors such as private companies and public services”.
Outcry
Rejecting what Le Figaro newspaper dubbed a “shock report”, UMP leader accused the Government of using it to “wave a red rag” at the French in order to boost the anti-immigrant National Front and weaken the UMP.
“I cannot accept that we abandon the idea of secularism to let religions dictate their law in the republic’s schools, that our language, French, be taught on the same level as the languages of the entire world..., that our common history be erased for the benefit of an impersonal and multiple history that champions all histories except the history of France,” Copé said.
Cope, who was a minister in ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy’s government, said the report was calling for a “total break with our vision of republican assimilation”, the model that requires immigrants to adopt French culture and leave their origins behind.
Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, who will chair a ministerial meeting next month on improving integration based partly on the report, told reporters there was no plan to drop the headscarf ban and distanced himself from the study.
He also shot back that Copé was “irresponsible and a liar” and said he “obviously” did not plan to overturn the headscarf ban.
"Just because I receive a report doesn't make it government policy," Ayrault said after the daily Le Figaro drew attention to the document, which was posted on the prime minister's official website last month.
Yet, criticism was not limited to UMP leaders.
Marine Le Pen, the Front National leader, said implementing its recommendations would be a “declaration of war on the French who are calling for an end to the policy of mass immigration and the reaffirmation of our republican laws and values”.
There was dissent within government ranks too, with Thierry Mandon, spokesman for the Socialist parliamentary group, saying some of the proposals were “hazardous”.
French Muslims have long complained of rising discrimination and hostile sentiments in the European country.
A recent IFOP poll found that almost half of French see Muslims as a threat to their national identity.
French Muslims have also complained of restrictions on building mosques to perform their daily prayers.
The French government has outlawed Muslim street prayers, a sight far-right leader Marine Le Pen likened to the Nazi occupation.
Amnesty International has criticized France and a number of European countries as Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland for discriminating against their Muslim minorities.
Source: On Islam
