French Muslims Show National Unity Over Hostage Crisis
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The third day of school term went smoothly Saturday, September 4, as Muslim students maintained compliance with the hijab ban in a
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For some French Muslims, two worlds collided as the ban on wearing Islamic head scarves in public schools took effect. Many described Thursday as crunch day, when they were forced to question the meaning of being Muslim in a Roman Catholic country where life since Sept. 11, 2001, has become more tense and divisive.
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PARIS - Millions of French students returned to school Thursday as a new law banning Islamic head scarves from classrooms goes into effect amid demands by Islamic radicals holding two French hostages in Iraq that the law be scrapped.    Muslim leaders in France, who had largely opposed the law, urged calm for the return to class...
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PARIS The French government vowed on Monday that it would not yield to demands from militants holding two French journalists hostage in Iraq that Paris withdraw a ban on Islamic head scarves in public schools.
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A threat by a militant Islamic group in Iraq to murder two French hostages unless Paris abandons a law banning muslim headscarves in schools was being treated as a national crisis by the French government last night.
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The French President has called for national unity for the sake of two French hostages in Iraq, as a row broke out over a failed attempt to free them.
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Los Angeles Times - PARIS &#8212; Muslim women in head scarves, journalists in jeans and senators draped in tricolored sashes rallied here Monday in support of two French hostages held in Iraq by kidnappers demanding that France repeal a new ban on the Islamic head scarf in public schools.
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French critics and defenders of a ban on Muslim headscarves in schools united in support of the law on Monday, pledging to stand firm against militants holding two French journalists hostage in Iraq who want the law scrapped.
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President Jacques Chirac called for  national unity on Tuesday over France's hostage crisis in Iraq,  after a bid by self-appointed mediators failed to free two  journalists held by Islamist militants.
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LOS ANGELES  - The French are no longer  alone.
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The group holding the two French journalists hostage in Iraq have issued a scathing denunciation of France on its Web site, saying the country has a &quot;history of oppression and persecution of Muslims and Islam.
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PARIS -- It was easier for 16-year-old Nadia Arabi to remove her Islamic head scarf yesterday than to defy a new law banning religious signs in the classroom, or to risk contempt for breaking a national chain of solidarity for two Frenchmen held hostage by militants in Iraq.
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France urged the international community on Friday to back a new national unity government formed by rival Palestinian factions and other EU countries were cautiously positive on the accord.
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journalists held in Iraq by militants demanding France end its ban on Muslim headscarves in schools. &quot;Backed up by this national unity, I solemnly call for the release of Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot.
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As Paris lobbied the Arab world in a desperate bid to save two reporters kidnapped in Iraq to demand the lifting of a controversial headscarf ban in France, French Muslim leaders in Baghdad to mediate for their ...
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PARIS - President Jacques Chirac vowed Sunday to spare no effort to free two French journalists held hostage in Iraq by militants reportedly demanding that France revoke its law banning Islamic head scarves in schools.   "The whole nation is gathered together because what's at stake is the lives of two French people, the defense of freedom of expression, and also the values of our Republic," Chirac said in a televised address...
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France's government and leaders of its  Muslim minority urged Iraqi militants Sunday to free two French  journalists they were holding hostage in a bid to force Paris  to revoke its ban on Muslim headscarves in schools.