By Henrietta Billings - 22nd February 2005
A cross party group of MEPs is calling on France to reverse a controversial ban on headscarves in schools.
Five MEPs will on Wednesday launch a “written declaration” in the European Parliament in Strasbourg urging Paris to overturn its ban on “conspicuous religious symbols” brought into force across French schools last year.
The deputies are arguing for the right to wear religious symbols - from headscarves to large Christian crosses - a ban which they say infringes European human rights.
MEPs believe “This ban on the Christian cross, Jewish skullcap, Muslim hijab, and Sikh turban to be an infringement of human rights, in particular Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights”, reads the declaration.
"Blanket national bans like the French one instituted in the name of secularism may be well-intentioned, but they fail to acknowledge individual identity and the diversity of Europe's population. It would be unhelpful if similar action spread across the EU," said ALDE MEP Baroness Ludford.
"The whole EU is debating how to promote integration, but as a Liberal Democrat I am clear that forced assimilation is not the answer."
The declaration is signed by French MEP Alain Lipietz, and his UK colleagues Caroline Lucas, Philip Bushill-Matthews, Baroness Sarah Ludford and Claude Moraes.
It needs the signatories of at least 367 MEPs within three months if it is to become a resolution debated at the full European Parliament.
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