France

Background on France, the veil, and the ban

A "Middle East Report" article by Paul Silverstein, 30 January 2004 France is in the process of passing a law that would ban "signs and dress that ostensibly denote the religious belonging of students" in public elementary and high schools beginning in the 2004-2005 school year. Lawmakers are scheduled to vote on the bill on February 3. According to the Ministry of Education, the law would cover all "signs and dress whose wearing leads to the immediate recognition of the [wearer's] religious belonging, which is to say the Islamic veil, whatever name one calls it, the [Jewish] kippa, or a cross...

Liberté, égalité, fraternité: Precarious generation

By Vicki Morris In December 2003 more than 200 workers at Pizza Hut in France struck a deal with their management, after mounting a month of strikes. The details are not public yet. Last autumn the company decided to franchise out its French restaurants, a move that would mostly likely lead to even less respect for workers' rights. The move helped to galvanise the workers. The workers' demands included: 10% pay rise for all No malicious sackings Respect for trade union rights A "13th month" pay bonus for all workers. One of the strike leaders and a representative for the trade union CGT...

Debate & discussion: How to fight against religion

I read with interest your article about the headscarf in France in Solidarity (3/43). I would like to make some comments. First a point of detail, which nevertheless has its importance. Teachers who are members of Lutte Ouvrière and the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire have fought for the expulsion of the Lévy sisters in a high school outside Paris, in the working class district of Aubervilliers. The two young girls had decided to become Muslims and to use the headscarf issue to rebel against their Jewish atheist father! Your article mentions the LCR but forgets to mention that Lutte Ouvrière...

Chirac, Shari'a and secular confusion

A press conference on 17 January to oppose the introduction of Shari'a law in Iraq, called by the Organisation of Women's Freedom of Iraq (OWFI) followed directly on from a counter-demonstration to the Muslim Association of Britain's protest against the French headscarf ban. The discussion was somewhat dominated by that issue. It might seem contradictory that the OWFI should oppose the freedom of women to choose to wear the hijab. As some Stop the War Coalition placards rather disingenuously declared, it is a "Woman's Right to Choose", echoing the slogan of the pro-choice abortion movement...

French Embassy protests

Today, Saturday 17 January 2004, two protests were held outside the French Embassy in London. The Muslim Association of Britain (British offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Arab world's largest Islamic-fundamentalist movement) demonstrated against the French governnment's proposed legislation to ban the Islamic headscarf in state schools. They mobilised about 300 people, supported by small contingents from the Socialist Workers Party and the Communist Party of Great Britain (Weekly Worker). The Worker-Communist Party of Iraq mobilised about 40 people for a counter-demonstration "for...

France: the veil and the ban

By Vicki Morris "Tous ensemble." "All together." French president Jacques Chirac appropriated the slogan of the trade union movement to end his speech about the Stasi commission on the separation of church and state. He has taken to using that slogan. The commission of 20 'wise men' headed by former minister Bernard Stasi was appointed in July 2003 and reported just before Christmas. They had heard testimony from 70 witnesses, ranging from education professionals through academics and religious leaders to the feminist writer of Iranian origin Chadhort Djavann, author of an influential book A...

No to the veil, no to the law!

In Solidarity over the next few issues, and on this website, we will be publishing translations of views from the French left on the issue of the law and the headscarf. This first text is a leaflet produced by the Ligue Communist Révolutionnaire last month. Background: in Britain, many religious schools are part of the state system, and religion in schools is usual, indeed compulsory. France is different. Religion is not allowed in state schools. The country has a long history of sharp political battle between secularists and clerics, dating right back to the days of the French Revolution of...

Tariq Ramadan

Tariq Ramadan is visiting London on 5 December 2003 to speak at a meeting with George Galloway. The following leaflet (a translation from French) gives some information on the debate in France about Tariq Ramadan and his politics. This leaflet was distributed (in French) at the European Social Forum in Paris on 12-16 November 2003 by the "Feminist Collective for a Secular Alternative Globalisation". We translate it to inform activists in Britain about the debate in France on Tariq Ramadan's politics. Tariq Ramadan is dangerous not because he is the grandson of Hassan al-Banna, founder of the...

LCR-LO to fight on working-class demands

By Rhodri Evans In an opinion poll taken during the first two days of the congress of the LCR, fully 31% of French voters said they might vote for a revolutionary socialist candidate in next year's regional elections. The LCR - Revolutionary Communist League - decided at the congress to endorse joint lists for the regional and Euro-elections with Lutte Ouvrière (LO), the other main Marxist group in France. In 2002's presidential election, the LCR and LO stood separately, the LCR's Olivier Besancenot getting 4.2% and LO's Arlette Laguiller 5.7%. In the 1999 Euro-elections they stood a joint...

Liberté, égalité, fraternité - Liberty and the veil

By Joan Trevor French teachers, who waged an inspiring battle during the spring and summer against government attacks, have hit the headlines in the "rentrée scolaire" (back to school) not for their continued industrial militancy - things have gone fairly quiet on that front - but, in one school anyway, for excluding two young Muslim women from high-school for wearing a Muslim headscarf. Alma and Lila Lévy-Omari were suspended from the lycée Henri-Wallon d'Aubervilliers in September on the grounds that they could not take part in physical education lessons while wearing their scarves, and...

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