France on Monday unveiled a new charter designed to reinforce rules banning religion from schools which have been a recurring cause of tension with Muslims and other faiths.
The "Charter for Secularity in School," is to be displayed in poster form in every state-funded school in the country in a move pioneered by the Socialist government's education minister, Vincent Peillon.
The 15-point statement contains nothing new in legal terms.
Instead, Peillon says, it represents an attempt to promote better understanding, and more consistent enforcement, of long-established principles which have their roots in the anti-clericalism of the French revolution and the country's 1905 law enforcing a strict separation of church and state.
Peillon's initiative was greeted coolly by leaders of France's five million Muslims, some of whom see the aggressive promotion of secularity as an assault on their culture and traditions.
Recent years have seen a string of legal disputes arising from the exclusion from school of girls wearing headscarves in defiance of a 2004 law which prohibits the wearing of "ostentatious" religious symbols.
Read more: France unveils new school 'secularism charter' - FRANCE - FRANCE 24
The "Charter for Secularity in School," is to be displayed in poster form in every state-funded school in the country in a move pioneered by the Socialist government's education minister, Vincent Peillon.
The 15-point statement contains nothing new in legal terms.
Instead, Peillon says, it represents an attempt to promote better understanding, and more consistent enforcement, of long-established principles which have their roots in the anti-clericalism of the French revolution and the country's 1905 law enforcing a strict separation of church and state.
Peillon's initiative was greeted coolly by leaders of France's five million Muslims, some of whom see the aggressive promotion of secularity as an assault on their culture and traditions.
Recent years have seen a string of legal disputes arising from the exclusion from school of girls wearing headscarves in defiance of a 2004 law which prohibits the wearing of "ostentatious" religious symbols.
Read more: France unveils new school 'secularism charter' - FRANCE - FRANCE 24
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