As France seeks to nurture a moderate Islam able to live happily within its secular state, it is getting tied up in knots over the Muslim headscarf.
Calls are growing for its prohibition in school, where young French minds are trained to respect the 1905 law separating the state and religion. A final decision could come next month.
But some fear any such move could backfire, exacerbating tensions between the country's 4 million to 5 million Muslims and other groups.
"This is the wrong battle. Legislation could be dangerous," said Bernard Kanovitch, the official at France's main Jewish organization, CRIF, in charge of with relations with Muslims.
Critics say the headscarf is an affront to France's secular ideal and to sexual equality. Teachers want a law banning the headscarf in school outright, and conservative Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin has said legislation is possible.
Alarmed by signs of a rise in fundamentalism in the country, France extended a hand to moderate Muslims this month by overseeing the launch of the faith's first national representational body. It is also talking about offering state grants for new mosques.
Other religions -- including the predominant Catholic faith and Judaism -- have in the past recognized the primacy of state, either by surrendering church property to it or bowing to secular law over religious commands.
Proponents of a ban say there is no reason why Islam should not make compromises too. And they say now is the time to act.
MUSLIMS FIRST, FRENCH SECOND
Resentment among Muslims about the poor hand generally dealt to them by French society is pushing more of them to view themselves as Muslims first and French second.
The plight of the Palestinians in the Middle East, and the perception that Islam is in the dock for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States is leading to a sense of alienation from the West.
Police figures point to a rise in anti-Semitic attacks, with Muslim youths the prime suspects. Tension is often palpable in the schools of culturally mixed areas. One teacher said he was showered with paper pellets for teaching about the Holocaust.
With its Muslim and 650,000-strong Jewish populations both the largest of their kind in Europe, the last thing France wants is a society dividing along religious lines. But teachers say this is what is happening in some schoolyards.
At present, teachers must grapple with a 1989 constitutional ruling empowering schools to ban any religious symbol -- headscarf, Jewish skullcap or Christian cross -- worn as an "act of pressure, provocation, proselytism or propaganda."
"Teachers feel totally overloaded. For them it means constant negotiation," said Hanifa Cherifi, the Education Ministry official charged with mediating disputes between schools and pupils over the headscarf.
Already, passions are running high.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy was booed by a Muslim gathering in April for insisting that women should remove headscarves for identity card photographs.
The traditionalist Union of Islamic Organisations in France (UOIF) responded by declaring that under Islam the headscarf for women was "an uncontested obligation, a truth."
Opposition Socialists, who shied away from legislating after a similar row in 1988, insist on more time for debate. For now, President Jacques Chirac is also keeping his council.
Indeed, arguments in favor of doing nothing are tempting.
FAR-RIGHT LOOMS
As Education Minister Luc Ferry has acknowledged, any ban could run up against European Union treaties permitting religious symbols in school.
Moreover Cherifi, herself a non-scarf-wearing Muslim, said her agency was having to deal with fewer disputes than before -- some 150 a year now compared to 400 in the mid-1990s.
"Despite more headscarves on the street, it is less prominent in schools thanks to teachers' efforts," she noted.
Kanovitch at the CRIF said Jews saw the headscarf as less of an issue than anti-Semitism and said it was up to Muslim leaders to resolve the issue.
Raffarin has said he would prefer not to pass a law unless necessary, fearing a "futile conflict." But doing nothing may not be a viable option.
Inaction on headscarves could leave the door open for far-right campaigner Jean-Marie Le Pen to exploit the issue in regional and European parliament elections next year. Pressure to act is coming from the top of Chirac's ruling UMP party.
"The legislature must assume its responsibilities," urged its chairman Alain Juppe.