French govt to stand firm on headscarf ban
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The French government has indicated that it intends to stand firm on its decision to ban the wearing of headscarves by Muslim girls in state schools.
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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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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 - France vowed Monday to press ahead with a controversial law banning Islamic head scarves in schools, despite demands by militants holding two French journalists hostage in Iraq that Paris revoke the legislation.    Government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope told Canal Plus television France would not compromise its values to win the release of the journalists, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot...
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France will not revoke a law banning Islamic head scarves in public schools despite demands by an Iraqi group holding two French journalists hostage, the government spokesman said Monday.
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France on Monday vowed not to yield to Islamic militants holding two journalists hostage in Iraq, pledging to implement a ban on headscarves in state schools this week despite threats by the kidnappers.
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Two French journalists being held hostage in Iraq on Monday night warned that they faced death if France refused to yield to their kidnappers' demands to repeal legislation which will ban Islamic headscarves in ...
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France on Monday proceeded with plans to implement its controversial ban on Islamic headscarves at the start of the school term later this week, ignoring the blackmail attempt by militants holding two journalists in Iraq.
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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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PARIS: The Islamic Army in Iraq has given France 48 hours to revoke the controversial ban. As French leaders scrambled to strategy meetings on Sunday morning, it seemed unlikely they would revoke the ban which has wide support among French voters.
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PARIS - Millions of French students returned to school Thursday as a new law that bans Islamic head scarves from classrooms went 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 -- French critics and defenders of a ban on Muslim headscarves in schools united in support of the law yesterday, pledging to stand firm against militants holding two French journalists hostage in Iraq who want the law revoked.
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30 August 2004 -- Paris said today that it will not repeal a ban on the wearing of Muslim headscarves in public schools, despite the demands of hostage-takers in Iraq holding two French journalists.
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PARIS  - France has quietly begun expelling Muslim girls for wearing head scarves to public schools in defiance of a new law banning conspicuous religious symbols, treading carefully for fear of endangering two French hostages in Iraq.
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Sikhs must respect France's new law banning conspicuous religious signs from public schools, the education minister said Tuesday, as three students who refused to remove their turbans took their case to court.
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For some French Muslims, two worlds collided as the ban on wearing Islamic head scarves in public schools took effect.
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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.