Muslim Headscarf Debate Divides France, in Climate of Hate
The Associated Press’ Elaine Ganley reports that tensions are rising in the debate over whether Muslim headscarves should be allowed in public spaces in fiercely secular France. Recent incidents include a French official demanding that a mother remove her headscarf when accompanying her child on a school trip and a shooting at a mosque earlier this week that wounded two Muslims. Nicholas Cadene, who works for the government’s Observatory of Secularism, said, “We’re in a climate of a meeting of fears, emotions, instincts.” Ganley writes, “For Cadene, French society is growing polarized as one part increasingly turns away from religion while another, notably Muslims, grows more visible.”