French report backs ban on veil, skullcap, cross

France should ban Muslim veils, Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses from its public schools, while creating new holidays to respect holy days of minority religions, an official report said yesterday.

The long-awaited report on Church-state relations, the centre-piece of a national debate over integrating Muslims into French society, advised Paris to stand firm against militant Islamists trying to undermine official secularism.

It also urged traditionally Catholic France to respect "all spiritual options" in its ever more diverse society and stressed that sexual equality was a key criterion in deciding whether certain practices were considered acceptable.

President Jacques Chirac said he would announce next Wednesday whether he would seek a law banning the veil, now a major issue in France amid concern of failed Muslim integration and growing Islamist influence. He has hinted he backs a ban.

France, once so Catholic it was called "the eldest daughter of the Church", is now eight per cent Muslim and Islam is its second-largest religion. But eight of its 13 national holidays are based on Christian feasts such as Christmas and Easter.

Its five-million-strong Muslim community and its 600,000 Jews are both the largest minorities of their kind in Europe.

"Secularism essentially means respect for differences," Bernard Stasi, chairman of the special commission that drew up the 67-page report, told a news conference.

But he added: "We must be lucid - there are in France some behaviours which cannot be tolerated. There are without any doubt forces in France which are seeking to destabilise the republic and it is time for the republic to react."

Christian, Muslim and some Jewish religious leaders have in recent days urged Chirac not to seek an outright ban.

The French Council of the Muslim Faith, which say the veil is a religious obligation for women, repeated its opposition to a ban after the report was issued but pledged to back "anything that can strengthen the spirit of concord and tolerance".