29 November 2013

Behind mask of secularism, France hardens face towards Islam

Paris — A landmark court ruling this week is set to increase the pressure on French Muslims, potentially at the expense of the country's fraught race relations, experts fear.

Frenchwomen who wear headscarves out of faith could see their freedom to do so curtailed after a Paris appeals court's decision to uphold a nursery's right to dismiss a worker who insisted on wearing a hijab at work.

At the heart of the case was the question of whether France's strict ban on any overt religious symbols being displayed in state schools and other public institutions could be applied to what was a privately run nursery. [AFP] Read more