page_title: French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools
section_title: Stasi commission's report
hierarchical_section_title: French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools / Background / Stasi commission's report
caption_attribution_description: English: Hijab-Indonesia Anna Martadiningrat
context_page_description: The French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools bans wearing conspicuous religious symbols in French public 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 and came into effect on 2 September 2004. The full title of the law is "loi nᵒ 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 religious symbol, and thus bans Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Jewish and other religious signs. It is, however, considered by many to target the wearing of headscarves by Muslim schoolgirls. For this reason, it is occasionally referred to as the French headscarf ban in the foreign press.
context_section_description: 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 focus of the commission was wearing religious attire in public schools, the commission noted in its report that the issues went further.
  The Stasi Commission published its report on 11 December 2003, considering 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, and turbans for Sikh boys. 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; political associations, such as Ni Putes Ni Soumises or SOS Racisme; representatives of the main religions; or leaders of human-rights organizations.
  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.
  Most of the debate has centered on hijab – the Islamic dress code, which may include a headscarf for women, but more generally, on the wearing of religious or political symbols  in schools. The wearing of headscarves 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 by some to a rise in extremist activity in France, in particular in poor immigrant suburbs. However intellectuals such as Xavier Ternisien of Le Monde Diplomatique have maintained that the indubitable rise in religious observance is not linked with Islamic extremism, but with the frustration of children of immigrants no longer accepting to remain invisible as their parents often were. Further it is often associated with the idea of Muslim communities feeling settled and established in, and thus a part of, in French society such that they feel comfortable in expressing their identity.
  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).
  The purpose of dressing according to hijab varies from person to person. Some women see the headscarf as a way to preserve their modesty and prevent any sexual attractions as in western countries. Some see it as a form of liberation above the sexualisation and consumerism of modern society. Others see it as a patriarchal article intended to keep women hidden and subservient.
  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.
  The Commission said that the Republic must clarify this situation.
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caption: Most of the debate about the law centred on the use of the hijab (similar to the one worn by these Indonesian women) by female Muslim students
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