French School Expels 2 Girls Over Scarves

A French school expelled two girls Tuesday for wearing Muslim head scarves, the first students to be kicked out since Paris imposed a ban on religious symbols in state schools last month.

In Paris, Education Minister Francois Fillon said about 70 additional students risk expulsion for defying the law.

They include three Sikh boys who went to court Tuesday seeking to continue wearing their turbans, in the first known court action over the ban.

The two expelled seventh-graders, ages 12 and 13, had refused to remove their head scarves since school resumed in September despite repeated meetings teachers held with them and their parents, the school principal in this eastern French city said.

Lazhar Fortas, a French citizen of Algerian origin whose daughter Khouloude was one of the two expelled, said he could not understand how the school could shut her out.

“She was a top student last year, first in her class, she had no problems, she went to gym class, did everything, was even her class delegate,” he said.

French officials said they imposed the ban to reassert the secularism of state schools and counter what teachers said was rising Islamic radicalism that included denial of the Holocaust and attacks on Jewish schoolmates.

The law bars what it calls conspicuous signs of faith, such as head scarves, turbans, Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses.

But the rule has some leeway, such as for discreet jewelry, because a complete ban would violate European human rights laws.

The three Sikhs, who live in a Paris suburb, are also subject to the ban, Fillon said, because “the law applies to everybody.”

About 600 cases of students defying the ban were counted at the start of the school year.

Most of the disputes have been resolved through dialogue -- as called for in the law -- avoiding expulsion, Fillon said on France Inter radio.

Pupils expelled from public school can attend private schools for a fee or continue their education through correspondence courses.