The Change Mariner

France's first Muslim school raises hopes - and concern

Christian Science Monitor

Spurred by a similar expulsion of 19 Muslim women from a state school in south Lille in 1994, the first Muslim high school in France opened its doors in September. And it is reenergizing a debate about the status of religion in a secular state.

For the center-right government of President Jacques Chirac, the school is an experiment aimed at meeting the demands of France's second biggest religion, after Roman Catholicism, while preserving the state's secular identity and containing the threat of fundamentalism.

The goal of the Lycée Averroés, named after a 12th-century Spanish Arabian philosopher, is to offer Muslim youths an alternative to state education, something Jews, Catholics, and Protestants have enjoyed for many years.

The creation of a Muslim school financed by the state like other private religious schools, will help to integrate France's 5 million Muslims, say supporters. But there is concern, even among Muslims, that it could isolate and radicalize Muslim students.

"We [France] are a democracy and they [Muslims] have the right to open a school, like anybody else," says Jacqueline Costa- Lascoux, an expert on French secularism and a member of a state commission studying the issue. "But democracy is weak in the face of fundamentalism."