Students run up a flight of stairs as they make their way to class at Ibn Khaldoun, a private Muslim school, in Marseille, southern France, Thursday, April 18, 2024. Brought into the international spotlight by the ban on hijabs for French athletes at the upcoming Paris Olympics, France’s unique approach to “laïcité” — loosely translated as “secularism” — has been increasingly stirring controversy from schools to sports fields across the country.
“We wanted them to have a great education, and with our principles and our values,” added Ould Ibbat, who only started wearing a headscarf recently, while her teen daughter, Minane, hasn’t felt ready to. Her 15-year-old son, Chahid, often prays in the school’s mosque during recess.For the children of Gaza, war means no school — and no indication when formal learning might returnFor Minane, as for many French Muslim youth, navigating French culture and her spiritual identity is getting harder.
Amid the tension, there’s broad agreement that polarization is skyrocketing, as crackdowns and challenges mount for this French approach to religion and integration. “You can’t force them to sing, but teachers tell them they can’t cover their ears out of respect for the instructor and classmates,” Tretola said. “In school, you come to learn the values of the republic.”
For many teachers and principals, having strict government rules is helping confront multiplying challenges. The curriculum — from music to evolution to sexual health — is a new target, though all public students receive a “secularism in school” guide that notes objecting to teaching on the basis of religion is forbidden.by a suspected Islamic extremist, said Didier Georges. He’s in charge of secularism issues for SNPDEN-UNSA, a union representing more than half of France’s principals.
At Marseille’s Cedres Mosque, next to the projects, Salah Bariki, who has worked on interreligious affairs with city hall, said youth are struggling with exactly that sense of rejection from France. Its principal, Cédric Coureur, says private schools have the advantage of being allowed to address questions students might have about God — and provide the kind of answers “within the republican framework” that helped him integrate into France as the son of Mauritian immigrants.