[Note from the Hindu Vivek Kendra: The operative part is the warning to the Islamic activists. The minister should have also warned those who call themselves liberals.]
France's education minister warned Islamic activists yesterday not to incite Muslim girls to defy a ban on headscarves in state schools, saying Paris would be "absolutely firm" in imposing the prohibition in September.
Francois Fillon said most French Muslims agreed with the ban, which is meant to uphold the state's secular principles, but a small minority "is spoiling for a fight".
Fillon's concern echoed that of Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin, who said on Wednesday that Islamist agitators were increasingly active in poorer neighbourhoods.
"Nobody should have any illusions," Fillon told France Inter radio. "I will personally ensure there are no exceptions. The Republic will be firm."
The influential Union of French Islamic Organisations (UOIF) urged Muslim girls last week to wear whatever they wanted and pledged legal aid and private tutoring if they were expelled from school.
Debate over what to do when school reopens in September nearly split the official French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) last week but the UOIF and its moderate rival, the Paris Grand Mosque, worked out a compromise on Monday.
Officials remain concerned that the UOIF, one of the strongest groups among France's five million Muslims, will go ahead and challenge the ban when school reopens.
Fillon made clear the state was ready to expel those who insisted on wearing the head-and-shoulders covering that a small but growing minority of Muslim schoolgirls now don.
"I hope there will be as few (expulsions) as possible," he said, adding it would be up to school principals to meet the girls and decide whether to turn them away or not.
"They are the advance troops of the Republic that we want to restore," said Fillon, referring to the French ideal of a state – including public services such as schools – where religion remains strictly a private matter.
Villepin said earlier there were growing tensions in poor neighbourhoods and the state had to help minority groups increasingly alienated from French society.
"Islamic proselytism ... is growing," he told France Inter. "Groups are turning inwards, which leads to certain attitudes about minority identity, sometimes separation of the sexes or tougher behaviour in some cases...
"There has been a series of factors piling up that at some point crystallise to create a new situation."
He noted an increase in anti-Semitic
attacks and other acts of racism. In recent weeks, neo-Nazis have spray-painted
swastikas and hate slogans on Jewish, Muslim and Christian cemeteries in
the eastern region of Alsace.