The French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools bans 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 (literally "Law #2004-228 of March 15, 2004 concerning, as an application of the principle of the separation of church and state, the wearing of symbols or garb which show religious affiliation in public primary and secondary schools").
The law does not mention any particular symbol, and thus bans all Christian (veil, signs), Muslim (veil, signs), Jewish and other minor religions' signs. But it is considered by many to specifically target the wearing of headscarves (a khimar, considered by most Muslims to be an obligatory article of faith as part of hijab ) by Muslim schoolgirls. For this reason, it is occasionally referred to as the French headscarf ban in the foreign press.
Read more about French Law On Secularity And Conspicuous Religious Symbols In Schools: Law Creation and Interpretations, Enforcement, Interpretation
Famous quotes containing the words french, law, conspicuous, religious, symbols and/or schools:
“Nothing is ever simple. What do you do when you discover you like parts of the role you’re trying to escape?”
—Marilyn French (b. 1929)
“The world is nothing, the man is all; in yourself is the law of all nature, and you know not yet how a globule of sap ascends; in yourself slumbers the whole of Reason; it is for you to know all, it is for you to dare all.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The sense of humour has other things to do
than to make itself conspicuous in the act
of laughter.”
—Alice Meynell (1847–1922)
“God from the mount of Sinai, whose grey top
Shall tremble, he descending, will himself
In thunder lightning and loud trumpets’ sound
Ordain them laws; part such as appertain
To civil justice, part religious rites
Of sacrifice, informing them, by types
And shadows, of that destined seed to bruise
The serpent, by what means he shall achieve
Mankind’s deliverance.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“For all symbols are fluxional; all language is vehicular and transitive, and is good, as ferries and horses are, for conveyance, not as farms and houses are, for homestead.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The shrewd guess, the fertile hypothesis, the courageous leap to a tentative conclusion—these are the most valuable coin of the thinker at work. But in most schools guessing is heavily penalized and is associated somehow with laziness.”
—Jerome S. Bruner (b. 1915)