FRANCE:France fired a top regional education official yesterday for vigorously opposing a new Muslim school and publicly complaining about pressure from Paris to stop obstructing its opening.
The Al-Kindi high school, in a suburb of Lyon in eastern France, finally admitted its first 22 pupils on March 5th after an eight-month struggle with school board head Alain Morvan that ended only when Paris intervened to permit it to open.
Mr Morvan's stubborn campaign became a sore point for French Muslims who accused him of Islamophobia for refusing them the right to open a faith school, even though about one-fifth of all high schools in France are private and mostly Catholic.
In rejecting three requests to open the school, Mr Morvan accused its founders of being "fundamentalists" and said he would sign refusals to open it "down to the last drop of ink".
Government spokesman Jean-François Copé said Mr Morvan was replaced because "his behaviour was not that of a senior official, whose task is to carry out government policy".
Al-Kindi is the third Muslim school in France, whose five million Muslims make up 8 per cent of the population. It only took in 22 sixth-grade pupils because it opened halfway through the school year, but it expects to enrol about 150 pupils in September.
Several other Muslim groups, spurred into action by France's 2004 ban on Islamic headscarves in state schools, have also begun planning to open their own schools.
A private Muslim school can allow headscarves and teach Islam, but it must follow the state curriculum in all regular subjects if it wants state subsidies. A school must teach the state curriculum for five years before getting the subsidy.
Al-Kindi will be France's biggest Muslim school next September. The other two, in the suburbs of Paris and Lille, have a few dozen pupils each.
Hakim Chergui, deputy head of the school association named after the ninth-century Arab philosopher, Yaqub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi, said the curriculum reflected Muslim values but it was not "a Koran school".
Headscarves are not be obligatory, even if most female pupils wear them, and religion class is optional. Physical education classes are mixed, but boys and girls wear modest sweatsuits rather than short gym attire.
"We do not stop classes for prayers," he said. "Children who want to pray can do so during recreation periods."
There is a special emphasis on languages, including Arabic, Turkish and Chinese, and there are courses on Islamic cultures.
The school aroused some suspicion because its founders belong to the Union of French Islamic Organisations, which has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
However its organisers met the education ministry's requirements for private schools, so education officials - except Mr Morvan - agreed it had to be allowed to open. - ( Reuters)