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French President Jacques Chirac created the Stasi Commission, headed by Bernard Stasi, on July 3, 2003 to assess the principle of laïcité, or secularism, in the French Republic. Born out of a nationwide debate on the issue of Islamic headscarves in school, the Commission was asked to examine laïcité in all state-associated activities, including public schools, public works, hospitals, and prisons. The Commission, consisting of 20 members from dynamic backgrounds, called 140 representatives from civil society, politics, and religious bodies to give testimony in hearings and public meetings. It also held a public debate with 220 high school students. The Commission took six months to complete and submit a report to the President on December 11, 2003. The President then addressed the report's findings in a speech on December 17, 2003. He embraced the report's suggestion to ban “ostentatious religious clothing” (i.e., the Islamic hijab, Jewish yarmulke, or a large Christian cross) from public schools.

In all, there were 26 recommendations made by the Commission. Of these, the French government addressed and enacted one: the ban of religious clothing in public schools. Enacted in 2004, the ban remains controversial.

Findings of the Report
The report opens with the recognition that France has changed dramatically since the 1905 Law of Separation of Church and State, which removed the Catholic Church from government. Today’s France is the most religiously diverse country and is home to the largest Muslim, Buddhist, and Jewish populations in Europe. The report further focuses on the history of secularism in France and the jurisprudence surrounding Islamic headscarves in public schools since the early 1980s. (For more information, see French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools.)

Among key findings of the report are :
 * Public authorities should respect all major religious festivals, including Yom Kippur and Eid al-Kabir, by opening public communal spaces up for celebrations and granting excused absences from work or school. Also, the legality of ritual slaughter traditional during Eid al-Kabir should be reassured.


 * Cafeteria managers in schools, hospitals, and prisons should diversify menus wherever possible to accommodate religious dietary requirements.


 * New French and History curricula in grade schools should include religion and an acknowledgement of France’s colonial legacy in the Maghreb.


 * More Muslim chaplains should be added to the current list of priests and rabbis available to prisoners, patients in hospitals, and members of the army.


 * Current laws should be reviewed to ensure that they do not impede in the proper burial of the dead according to religious traditions.


 * Conspicuous religious symbols (i.e., large crosses, yarmulkes, headscarves) should be banned from schools, as they disturb its tranquility. Regular absences from class for prayer and fasting, excusals from physical education, and challenges to science curriculum based on religious beliefs should also be addressed.


 * In hospitals, requests for women to be seen by female doctors, refusals of epidurals and blood transfusions, and the use of hallways to pray or serve traditional food are unacceptable and should be reviewed, as negotiations with patients inhibit hospital workers abilities to provide immediate and urgent care.


 * The Republic should reaffirm secularism by drafting a Charter of Secularism to be distributed regularly throughout the country.


 * Civilian service programs should be established to promote integration among young people.


 * The government should create a national agency to rehabilitate French ghettoes and banlieues to combat urban discrimination.


 * France should promote the teaching of regional languages that are prominent among immigrant populations, like Berber and Kurdish.


 * The State should denounce polygamy, repudiation, and other religious and cultural practices that treat women unequally.


 * The government should strengthen its discrimination statutes to be harsher against anti-Semitism, which has seen a rise in recent years.


 * A National Institute of Islamic Studies should be created.

Results
The Chirac administration adopted only one of the prescribed measures in the Commission’s report, the ban on religious clothing such as the headscarf, yarmulke or large cross.

Reactions
Some French saw this ban as a necessary step to prevent the growth of Islamism, saying that young Muslim girls who did not wear the headscarf were pressured by other students and prominent males in their communities to adopt the dress. Others saw it as a blatantly discriminatory statute and later pointed to the 2004-05 school expulsion records, which showed that, out of about 50 cases, all but three expulsions under the ban were of Muslim girls wearing the hijab. The remaining three were of Sikh boys who refused to remove their turbans.

(For more information on the reactions to Law 2004-228, see French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools.)

Members

 * Chairman: Mr. Bernard Stasi, a former Minister of State Security, ombudsman


 * Mohammed Arkoun, Professor Emeritus of History of Islamic Thought at the Sorbonne (University of Paris III)


 * Jean Bauberot, honorary president and chair of History and Sociology of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE)


 * Hanifa Cherifi, inspector general at the French Ministry of Education who mediated disputes between school officials and girls expelled for wearing headscarves


 * Jacqueline Costa-Lascoux, sociologist, research director of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)


 * Régis Debray, philosopher, writer, and then president at the European Institute of Religious Sciences at EPHE


 * Michel Delebarre, former Minister of Labour, Social Affairs, Transport, Public Service, and Urban Planning, Deputy Mayor of Dunkirk


 * Nicole Guedj, a lawyer practicing in Paris, activist in the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism, member of the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights


 * Ghislaine Hudson, high school headmaster in Dammarie-les-Lys


 * Gilles Kepel, Political Science and Sociology professor, specializing in Arab and Islamic studies, at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (IEP)


 * Marceau Long, vice president emeritus of the Council of State


 * Nelly Olin, Senator-Mayor of Garges-les-Gonesse


 * Henri Peña-Ruiz, philosopher and writer, lecturer at the IEP de Paris


 * Gaye Petek, president of the Turkish immigration association, ELELE


 * Maurice Quénet, advisor to the Minister of Education, rector at l’ académie de Paris


 * Rene Remond, university professor, president of the National Foundation of Political Science


 * Raymond Soubie, president of Altédia


 * Alain Touraine, sociologist, director of studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS)


 * Patrick Weil, research fellow at CNRS


 * General Rapporteur: Remy Schartz, State Councilor, senior government commissioner