French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools

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The French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools bans students from wearing conspicuous religious symbols in French public (i.e. government-operated) primary and secondary schools. The law is an amendment to the French Code of Education that expands principles founded in existing French law, especially the constitutional requirement of laïcité: the separation of state and religious activities.

The bill passed France's national legislature and was signed into law by President Jacques Chirac on 15 March 2004 (thus the technical name is law 2004-228 of 15 March 2004) and came into effect on 2 September, 2004, at the beginning of the new school year. The full title of the law is Loi n° 2004-228 du 15 mars 2004 encadrant, en application du principe de laïcité, le port de signes ou de tenues manifestant une appartenance religieuse dans les écoles, collèges et lycées publics.

The law does not mention any particular symbol, though it is considered by many to specifically target the wearing of headscarves (a khimar, considered by some to be required as part of hijab ["modesty"]) by Muslim schoolgirls. For this reason, it is occasionally referred to as the French headscarf ban in the foreign press, even though this terminology is not strictly accurate.

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Contents

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Background

In order to understand why this law was adopted and what impact its enforcement might have, it is necessary to consider a number of facts about France and its educational system.

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History

Since 1905, France has had a law requiring separation of church and state, prohibiting the state from recognising or funding any religion. Schools directly operated by the national or local governments must not endorse or promote any religious dogma (whether endorsing an existing religion or endorsing atheism or any other philosophy). Schools funded totally or in part by the national and local governments by law must not force students into religious education; they should remain equally accessible to children of any, or no, faith. For example, even though a majority of the population nominally professes Catholicism (although far fewer regularly practice Catholicism), government-operated French schools have no communal prayers, religious assemblies, or Christian crosses on the walls. The Constitution of France says that France is a laïque (roughly, secular) Republic.

In France, historically, differences between religions (or between religious and non-religious people) have often resulted in deep divisions of society, from the 16th-century Wars of Religion to the late 19th-century Dreyfus Affair. The Roman Catholic Church was the dominating religion until the Revolution of 1789, when the French people sought to overthrow not only the monarchy and its supporters, but also the whole social and political system, including the Church. Although the Church survived the revolution, according to the ideology of the new republic it could no longer remain a separate estate with its own possessions. Therefore, the new government confiscated the land and assets belonging to the Church and auctioned them off to help resolve the financial problems that had led to the revolution. The state also attempted a huge restructuring of the Church hierarchy and demanded that the clergy swear allegiance to the French government ahead of the Church. Only 54% of priests complied with this request, but nevertheless, this attempt to bring the Catholic Church under state control can be seen as the beginning of the development of secularism in France.

Roman Catholicism was recognised as the faith of the majority of French citizens, but Napoleon also named Judaism and the Lutheran and Reformed Churches as being officially recognised by the state. Although these four 'official' religions received state funding and protection (until the 1905 law as above), none of them were given the status as the religion of the state. France had begun to view faith as a matter for each individual citizen rather than for a nation as a whole.

As a result of this history, religious manifestations are considered undesirable in government-operated schools; primary and secondary schools are supposed to be neutral spaces where children can learn away from political or religious pressures, controversies and quarrels. Because of this neutrality requirement, students are normally prohibited from conducting religious proselytising or political activism on the premises.

Civil servants are expected to stay neutral with respect to politics or religion when they discharge their duties. More generally, they are expected to keep a certain reserve and not make comments or demonstrations that may be interpreted as political, religious, or other bias in the course of their duties or as an endorsement of particular religious or partisan political views by the government. Teaching personnel in government-operated schools must not, by law, endorse any political or religious point of view; they may also face sanctions for wearing overt religious symbols (see, for instance, the 2000 ruling of the Conseil d'État, Mlle Marteaux).

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The 1980s and 1990s

Image:DSC00652 conseil etat.jpg For many years school administrators have tolerated schoolchildren wearing symbols of their various religions, such as a Christian student wearing a cross, or a Jewish boy wearing a yarmulke (French: calottes). However, there was some leeway and uncertainty in those matters, and occasionally some students faced disciplinary action for ostentatious attire.

Since the late 1980s, increasing numbers of young Muslim girls have worn headscarves (French: voiles) in schools. Many people find crosses and yarmulkes acceptable, but not these headscarves, for a variety of reasons. The issue has divided France, at least in some circles, and debate has raged on ever since.

The issue has wider implications than the mere wearing of headscarves, which contributed to the complexity of the debate. Some Muslim students have refused to attend certain classes, such as biology classes, whose teaching they disagreed with; or they have refused to attend physical education classes, or insisted on attending them in garb judged inappropriate for the activity. In some instances, Muslim females in technical classes would insist on wearing attire not safe for working with machine tools. Thus, in some instances, actions were taken against students for failing to accept the normal curriculum, safety rules, or rules of attendance.

On some occasions, Muslim girls failing to wear the headscarf have been threatened by Muslim males who felt their lack of modesty was inappropriate. This constituted a violation of their rights and a disturbance to the normal workings of the education system. The wearing of the headscarf was also criticised as a means to enforce peer pressure on the girls not wearing it.

Because of the uncertainty on the law, action was taken on a case-by-case basis against students wearing ostensible religious garb, with differences of practice between establishments. School administrators, in such cases, were taken into legal, social and media quarrels far beyond their ordinary responsibilities. This was highlighted by the 1989 Affaire du Foulard ("the headscarf affair"), when two young girls were expelled from their school in Creil, near Paris, for wearing headscarves.

Because of these difficulties, public powers sought a more consistent approach. In 1989, the Minister of Education requested the legal analysis of the Conseil d'État on the issue of whether or not school administrators could, or should, expel students for wearing religious symbols, within the current framework of applicable regulations, laws, constitutional rights and international conventions. The general assembly of the Conseil gave a detailed analysis [1], containing the following opinion:

It results from the above that, in teaching establishments, the wearing by students of symbols by which they intend to manifest their religious affiliation is not by itself incompatible with the principle of laïcité, as it constitutes the free exercise of freedom of expression and of manifestation of religious creeds, but that this freedom should not allow students to sport signs of religious affiliation that, due to their nature, or the conditions in which they are worn individually or collectively, or due to their ostentatious and provocative character, would constitute an act of pressure, provocation, proselytism or propaganda, or would harm the dignity or the freedom of the student or other members of the educative community, or would compromise their health or safety, or would perturb the educational activities or the education role of the teaching personnel, or would trouble public order in the establishment or the normal functioning of the public service.

On 2 November 1992, the Conseil ruled that a school regulation prohibiting all religious, philosophical or religious signs, including in wearing, was excessively sweeping and against the principle of laïcité.

On 14 March 1994, the Conseil ruled that a school regulation prohibiting any headgear was excessive (the intent of this regulation was to prohibit the wearing of certain religious signs). The Conseil found that this regulation was excessively sweeping, without a clear need for it to be so.

On 10 March 1995, the Conseil upheld the expelling of two students from a highschool, on the motive that the two students gravely perturbed classes, infringing on school rules and the prohibition of proselytism. One factor was the insistence of the students at wearing the scarf during sports classes, which was deemed to be inappropriate attire for such an activity; another was the constant trouble that these students cause, aggravated by protests suscited by their father in front of the school. It also upheld some stipulations of the school regulations which restricted the wearing of signs of a religious, philosophical or political character, with the same legal analysis as the 1989 one cited above.

On 11 September 1995, three families appealed before the Conseil rulings of lower administrative courts, which had upheld decisions by high schools to exclude their daughters because they wore the veil; and the Minister of Education appealed rulings of lower courts that had declared illegal three exclusion decisions. The actual legal reasons differed slightly; however, in every case, on 27 November 1996, the Conseil ruled that the children had been inappropriately expelled, considering that the headscarf worn by the student, while it expressed the student's religious beliefs, did not have a revendicative or ostentatious character, nor did wearing it constitute in any case an act of pressure or proselytism.

The opinion and the decisions of the Conseil, which established some kind of case law, still left a considerable margin of appreciation to school administrators, which led to many tensions and embarrassments. It was thus argued that clear and consistent rules should be enacted.

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The Stasi commission's report

In July 2003, French President Jacques Chirac set up an investigative committee (commission Stasi) to examine how the principle of laïcité should apply in practice. It consisted of 20 people headed by Bernard Stasi, then ombudsman of France (médiateur de la République). While an obvious focal point of the commission was the wearing of religious attire in public schools, the commission noted in its report that the issues went a long way further.

The Stasi Commission published its report on 11 December 2003, indicating that ostentatious displays of religion violated the secular rules of the French school system. The report recommended a law against pupils wearing "conspicuous" signs of belonging to a religion, meaning any visible symbol meant to be easily noticed by others. Prohibited items would include headscarves for Muslim girls, yarmulkes for Jewish boys, turbans for Sikh boys and large Christian crosses. The Commission recommended allowing the wearing of discreet symbols of faith such as small crosses, Stars of David or Fatima's hands.

The Senate commission based its report on multiple sources: school representatives, headmasters, teachers; local associations, such as Ni Putes Ni Soumises or SOS Racisme; representatives of the main religionsTemplate:Ref; and leaders of human-rights organisations.

Image:Iraqi girl smiles.jpg The Commission's report emphasised that publicly funded schools in France should transmit knowledge, teach students critical awareness, assure autonomy and openness to cultural diversity, and encourage personal development. Schooling aims both to train students for a professional career, and to make them into good citizens of the French Republic. The report states that such a mission presupposes fixed common rules, like gender equality and respect for secularity.

However, since the 1990s, many schools have fallen short of this ideal. Many cultural clashes have occurred, leading to violence, threats to individual freedom, and problems with public order in general. Most of the debate has centred on hijab – the Islamic dress code, which may include a headscarf for women – but more generally, on the wearing of religious or political symbols (such as Nazi symbols) in schools. The wearing of headscarfs in school started comparatively recently in mainland France (since the late 1980s), and has become the focus of the conflict. The increasing number of visible headscarves has been attributed to a rise in extremist activity in France, in particular in poor immigrant suburbs.

The Commission identified the following positions with regard to wearing the Muslim headscarf:

  • For those wearing it, the headscarf can have different meanings. The wearers may have exercised a free personal choice to wear the headscarf; or external pressure may have forced them to do so. Most French people find this idea of constraint or pressure particularly intolerable when it relates to young girls (some girls start wearing a headscarf before the age of 11). For those not wearing it, the meaning of the Islamic headscarf stigmatised the young girl or the young woman as responsible for attracting male desire, a vision which fundamentally contradicts the principle of equality between men and women – although this overlooks the fact that the Qur'an instructs all Muslims - both men and women - to dress modestly (albeit the specific requirements of "modesty" are different for Muslim men and women). The purpose of dressing according to hijab varies from person to person. Some women see the headscarf as a way to preserve their modesty, submit to Allah, and to achieve respect equally regardless of physical appearance; others, forced to wear it against their wishes, see it as a way to keep women hidden and subservient, and as a way to justify violence towards women who choose not to wear it.
  • For the whole of the school community, the fact that some students wear a headscarf very often becomes a source of conflict and division. Many teachers resent the headscarf's visibility: they believe it goes against the goal of schools to function as places of neutrality and of critical awareness. Some people also see the headscarf as a threat to the principles and values that the schools must teach – for example laïcité, but more importantly equality between the sexes. Many French female teachers, in particular, hold this position. Consequently, school representatives want a clear framework, a nation-wide policy, and a decision taken by the country's political authorities following from a public debate. Most school representatives, principals, and teachers want a law forbidding all visible symbols, so that school principals alone need not determine whether a symbol worn by a pupil gives offence or not.

The representatives of the main religions and leaders of human rights organisations have expressed several objections to a law banning the wearing of religious symbols. They believe it will lead to the stigmatisation of Muslims, exacerbate anti-religious sentiment, promote the image of a France that restricts personal freedom, and encourage Muslim girls to drop out of schools if they feel forced to choose between schooling and their faith.

Recently however, in addition to the issue of the headscarf, tension (mostly over religious issues) and even violence in schools has increased in France. Many school representatives have faced these issues alone for 20 years now, often in difficult regions (officially recognised as such), already troubled by student violence and rejection of the principles of education. They have highlighted the tensions provoked by the claims of religious and group identities, like the formation of gangs, for instance. They express concerns about the frequent violence toward themselves as well, in particular toward female teachers.

Local associations also frequently call for help for young girls and women, daughters of immigrants, living in problem areas. They see these girls as the silent majority and as victims of pressures within the family or within the neighbourhood. Local associations believe these girls need protection and, with this in mind, they asked the political authorities to issue strong warnings to Islamic fundamentalist groups.

Local associations noted in particular that a lot of pressure goes on young girls to force them to wear the headscarf - pressure which did not occur to the same extent 20 years ago (even though France had a Muslim population of a similar size at that time). The girls' families, in particular their brothers (more often than their fathers), sometimes force them to dress and act in ways they do not choose to of their own free will. The brothers may see the fact that their sisters show their hair or wear jeans instead of dresses as signs of western depravity. In that case, brothers may abuse and threaten their sisters. Incidents have occurred where persons have regarded young Muslim girls who refused to adopt the headscarf and dress code as "prostitutes" and have subjected them to gang rape. This view of the headscarf receives particular emphasis from the now famous (in France) feminist group Ni Putes Ni Soumises (Neither Whores Nor Submissives), which campaigns to defend the right of women to go without the headscarf - if they wish - without losing their status as "decent" women, and not just to be seen as sex objects for men to abuse freely for their pleasure.

The Commission said that the Republic must face this situation, and that schools must remain a place of freedom and emancipation for women.

A section of the report which received less media attention recommended that the school system make Yom Kippur and Eid into vacation days each year: currently, only some Christian holidays are vacation days (see Holidays in France); students who want to celebrate other festivities have to take some work day off with the authorisation of their parents. The report also recommended enacting a ban on conspicuous symbols of political affiliation. The French National Assembly has not taken up these proposals.

The Commission also noted that some pupils refuse to attend school because of the presence of teachers of the opposite sex, or refuse to attend certain classes (such as gymnastics or swimming lessons). The Commission suggested that only schools or state-recognised doctors (not simply parents) should have the right to grant exemptions.

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Law creation and interpretations

Image:Chirac-official.jpg In December 2003, President Jacques Chirac decided to act on the part of the Stasi report which recommended banning conspicuous religious symbols from schools. This meant that the legislature could adopt the recommendations, according to the emergency procedure, in January or February, ready for application at the start of the next school year in September 2004.

On February 10, 2004 the lower house voted by a large majority (494 for, 36 against, 31 abstentions) in support of the ban, which includes the caveat that the ban will be reviewed after it has operated for one year.

The initiators of the law are said to have particularly targeted two items of clothing: the headscarf and the veil (French: foulard and voile respectively); however the law mentions neither and just addresses "ostentatious" ("conspicuous") symbols. Because of its terse, broad, vague terms, the law will leave a lot of its interpretation to the administrative and judicial authorities.

The headscarf (sometimes referred to as the hijab in both French and English) covers the hair, ears, neck, and sometimes the shoulders, but not the face. Most Muslim girls who cover their heads in school wear such a headscarf. More rarely, girls may also wear a complete dress covering their body (djelbab). The full or Afghan burka, which covers the entire body except for a slit or grille to see through, occurs more commonly as the dress of an adult woman than that of a schoolgirl. A recent controversy occurred when a mother who wore a full burka became a representative of parents in a city school. Her participation in school deliberations while entirely covered was highly criticised, but finally tolerated.

In order to enforce the law, effective decisions whether certain items are "ostentatious" or not will have to be taken. In order to achieve that:

  • the Minister of Education will issue circulaires, or instructions for its services; it seems that large crosses, full hijabs or yarmulkes would be banned, while small symbols such as small Stars of David or crosses in pendants would not be;
  • headmasters will have to judge whether particular attire is or not acceptable with respect to the law;
  • if necessary, families will go to administrative courts to challenge the school authorities' decision; a final decision may not be reached until the Conseil d'État at litigation (supreme administrative court), decides some points of jurisprudence.

The law itself may not be challenged before French courts (since this would have warranted action before the Constitutional Council before the signing of the law); however, the courts may significantly curtail its application — especially given the inherent margin of appreciation of what is ostentatious or not.

The law will apply in France and its overseas territories (which France administers as a part of its metropolitan territory), but it is likely that appropriate enforcement measures will depend on the local context, given the margin of appreciation offered by the law. Overseas Countries and Territories with a large Muslim community will receive some exemptions. For example, it was suggested that Mayotte girls may wear small bandanas (salouva) and light veils (kishall).

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Public reaction

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In France

The proposed ban has attracted a significant level of controversy, with both sides of the political spectrum being split on the issue.

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Population

On February 14, 2004, the Associated Press reported that "Thousands of people, many of them women wearing headscarves, marched in France ... to protest a law banning the Islamic coverings and other religious apparel in public schools.". However, it must be pointed out that thousands of people nationwide constitute, by French standards, a small protest.

Polls suggest that a large majority of the French favour the ban. A January 2004 survey for Agence France-Presse showed 78% of teachers in favour (in French). A February 2004 survey by CSA for Le Parisien showed 69% of the population for the ban and 29% against. For Muslims in France, the February survey showed 42% for and 53% against. Among surveyed Muslim women, 49% approved the proposed law, and 43% opposed it. [2]

Complex reasons may influence why an individual either supports or opposes this amendment in favour of laïcité. They range from upholding the principle of laïcité, ensuring sex equality, preventing girls from being pressured into wearing the headscarf, or a desire to see the Muslim community assimilated into French society on the one hand; to upholding the rights of individuals of any religion to dress as their religion requires or opposing what may be seen as discrimination against Muslims on the other.

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Political reactions

While all major political parties were somewhat divided on the issue, all major parties (the majority UMP and UDF, the opposition French Socialist Party) supported the law. Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front National, a party advocating anti-immigration policies, did not support it.

Arguments against banning headscarves from schools include:

  • if a girl decided to wear one freely, the ban might force her to choose between schooling and her faith
  • if parents force a girl to wear a headscarf, they may pull her out of the public schools and, for instance, send them to a Koranic school, which may even reduce the openness of education they receive
  • if a girl wears one because of peer pressure and fear of harassment, she will perhaps not feel less pressured or less afraid after the ban
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Religious reactions

Some have seen the ban as targeting the Muslim population of France — the nation's largest religious minority. Many Muslim leaders have expressed their opposition to the ban, as have some Jewish, Christian, and civil liberties groups. The lawmakers admitted that they did not take into account France's small Sikh population, whose males have a religious obligation to cover their heads, and who may be banned from wearing their covering.

Some Muslims also argue that hijab forms a part of a cultural tradition rather than part of a religious tradition and as such does not conflict with the tradition of laïcité in French schools. However, hijab is a requirement as specified in the Koran, whereas the headscarf, which is not universally equated with 'hijab' as an obligation, is in many cases specific to ethnic groups which happen to be predominantly Muslim - but do not represent the conventions of Muslims as a group.

French Jews have not expressed significant opposition to the law. Some think that Jewish people hope that such a law will prove a step in the direction of less gang violence toward Jewish boys, which has occurred in past years.

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Legal arguments

Some critics have raised a legal point: they see the law as incompatible with the European convention on fundamental human rights. The Stasi Commission dismissed that argument: The European Court in Strasbourg protects laïcité when it is a fundamental value of the State. It allows limits to the freedom of expression in public services, especially when it is a matter of protecting minors against external pressures. The Commission considers that the expression of an individual's religion in the French state has to comply with the basic rules regarding the secular nature of the state and has to comply with the requirements of equality between the sexes and the safeguarding of the rights of minors. Similar debates on the education of girls in headscarves have long raged in secular-yet-Muslim Turkey; the European Court of Human Rights upheld the laws of Turkey, which are more restrictive than the French law [3]; it therefore seems highly unlikely it would declare the French law contrary to the Convention.

Another piece of legal criticism is that a full-fledged law was not needed to enforce a measure that basically amounts to a new set of school regulations. Any binding document of lesser value (such as a décret or an arrêté ministeriel) would have had a similar effect. Since the writing of the Napoleonic Code, a principle of French law has been that it must be, in the words of the great legislator Portalis, "general and abstract." Critics therefore argue that, by legislating on issues that could be solved with texts other than laws, the French legislature lowers the values of the law in general. Article 34[4] of the Constitution of France vests power in Parliament to legislate on the "fundamental principles of teaching", leaving the application of these principles to the executive branch. By legislating on such minutiae, the argument goes, Parliament may have overstepped the "domain of the law" (domaine de la loi) that is set out by the Constitution only for the sake of pleasing the media and some interest groups. However, a counter-argument is that the Conseil d'État, ruling according to current statute law, considered that sweeping prohibitions of religious attire or head gear by administrative authorities was contrary to law.

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International

Some international human rights' organisations criticised the law. Human Rights Watch stated: [5]

The proposed law is an unwarranted infringement on the right to religious practice. For many Muslims, wearing a headscarf is not only about religious expression, it is about religious obligation.

Criticism of the law was particularly vocal in the United States. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, appointed by the US government, declared in its 2004 report

In February 2004, the Commission issued a public statement expressing concern over the proposed new law. The Commission expressed particular concern that the proposed restrictions may violate France’s international human rights commitments. The Commission also stated that though increased immigration in France in recent years has created new challenges for the French government, including integration of these immigrants into French society as well as problems of public order, these challenges should be addressed directly, and not by inappropriately limiting the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and belief. The French government’s promotion of its understanding of the principle of secularism should not result in violations of the internationally recognised individual right to freedom of religion or belief.

Most editorialists in the US press were also opposed to the law.

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Islamic view

Hijab, or the wearing of modest clothing, is considered by many Muslims as a duty. Some Muslims equate the Hijab with the wearing of a headscarf, known as a khimar. Note that this is not a view universally accepted by all Muslims. Some Muslim women who do not wear a headscarf still believe that it is an obligation that they should be fulfilling. The French decision caused a strong cry from many Muslims all over the world seeing it as a clear violation of freedom of practising their religion. In addition to protests in Paris, there were also protests in other European cities and other countries, especially Muslim countries, worldwide when the law was enacted. [6] Thousands of Muslim women demonstrated across universities in Egypt against the French decision.

On 30 August 2004, despite demands from armed Islamic militants holding two French hostages (Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot) in Iraq, France upheld its ban on religious symbols and clothing, including that against Muslim headscarves.

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Enforcement

The law came into effect on September 2, 2004, with the new school year. Despite the controversy when the law was passed, the actual enforcement of the law was rather uneventful.

According to statistics from the French government [7], out of 12 million students, only 240 girls attempted to come to school with a headscarf; 170 agreed to take it off, and 70 conciliation procedures were started. Two female collège (junior highschool) students, Dounia and Khouloudewere, aged 12 and 13 respectively, were the first to be expelled under this law for refusing to take off their headscarves on the 20 October 2004, from a school in Mulhouse, Alsace. At the end of the first semester, according to François Fillon, Minister for Education, 48 students were expelled under the new law, including three Sikh students who went to Catholic schools.

On October 6, 2004, the Conseil d'État rejected a recourse from the family of a student (born in Syria and on the way to leaving for the United Arab Emirates) who was asked to leave a highschool for insisting on wearing a bandana, which they claim is for aesthetic and not religious reasons. The court ruled that the school's administration had applied diligence in maintaining contacts with the child's family and offering pedagogical tutoring.

On October 8, 2004, the Conseil d'État rejected a recourse against a circulaire by the Minister of Education giving precisions the executive's view of the law, judging that it did not violate constitutional rights nor the European Convention of Human Rights.

On July 19, 2005, the Paris administrative court of appeals rejected the respective requests from the parents of two students who were expelled from a highschool in Bobigny on November 5, 2004 for wearing turbans (keshkis), albeit small ones, demonstrating their belonging to the Sikh religion.

In September 2005, the Ministry of Education reported (Le Monde, September 30, 2005 [8]) that only 12 students showed up with distinctive religious signs in the first week of classes, compared to 639 in the preceding year. A number of students have elected to take distance-learning classes from CNED. There is a case of a Sikh student in the académie of Créteil, who refused to remove his turban [9].

According to a report by Hanifa Chérifi, inspector-general at the Ministry of Education, the law was largely considered "liberation" by many young women and parents. Opponents of the law in the group Une école pour tous ("One school for all") dispute those claims, and give their own estimates, based on extrapolations, that between 200 to 800 simply declined to show up in school rather than to remove their religious garb or join a private school.

While the text of the law called for an evaluation by Parliament after one year, as of September 2005, no such evaluation has taken place yet.

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Notes

  1. Template:Note Because Islam is not a hierarchical religion in the way that Roman Catholicism is (the only hierarchical structure being the currently-defunct Caliphate), it is not obvious which religious representatives should be engaged in discussion by public powers. In addition, contrary to other religious tendencies such as Protestantism, Islam did not have an umbrella organisation in France. To remedy this issue, in 2003 Nicolas Sarkozy, then Minister of the Interior, set up the French Council of the Muslim Faith, which the State uses as a discussion partner for such issues. This council, however, is merely a private non-profit association and has no special legal standing, nor is it universally accepted as being representative of the opinions of Muslims residing in France.
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See also

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References

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External links

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