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:
“Just as the French of the nineteenth century invested their surplus capital in a railway-system in the belief that they would make money by it in this life, in the thirteenth they trusted their money to the Queen of Heaven because of their belief in her power to repay it with interest in the life to come.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“It is a law of life that human beings, even the geniuses among them, do not pride themselves on their actual achievements but that they want to impress others, want to be admired and respected because of things of much lower import and value.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“Linguistically, and hence conceptually, the things in sharpest focus are the things that are public enough to be talked of publicly, common and conspicuous enough to be talked of often, and near enough to sense to be quickly identified and learned by name; it is to these that words apply first and foremost.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“The chief assertion of religious morality is that white is a colour. Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“Luckless is the country in which the symbols of procreation are the objects of shame, while the agents of destruction are honored! And yet you call that member your pudendum, or shameful part, as if there were anything more glorious than creating life, or anything more atrocious than taking it away.”
—Savinien Cyrano De Bergerac (1619–1655)
“The schools begin with what they call the elements, and where do they end?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)