French President Jacques Chirac said on Wednesday anyone who defies a ban on headscarves and other religious headwear when state schools reopen in September could be prosecuted.
Chirac's warning followed an appeal for girls to defy the ban which was issued by the Union of French Islamic Organisations (UOIF), a Muslim fundamentalist organisation.
"If anyone is thinking of getting round or not taking any notice of the law, they will be putting themselves in the wrong and deserve to be punished or prosecuted," Chirac said in a television interview.
"We cannot accept that one organisation or another organisation which thinks it represents something in France can deliberately ignore or criticise the law...The law applies to everyone," he said.
The conservative government says the ban will guarantee religious freedom by keeping all faiths out of state schools, and is intended to preserve the French principle of secularism.
But some of France's five million Muslims oppose the ban and the government fears it could provoke protests when school reopens in September after the summer holidays.
The UOIF says Muslim women should cover their hair as a religious duty and that it has advised girls to wear bandanas to school in September to get around the ban on headscarves.
Chirac also repeated calls for more vigilance against religious intolerance and racism in his interview marking Bastille Day, which commemorates the French Revolution of 1789.
Echoing an appeal he made last week, he said there was a "bad climate" and racist crimes were threatening social unity.
Chirac shrugged off criticism by the opposition Socialist Party that he reacted too quickly by condemning an incident last Friday in which a woman said she was attacked on a Paris suburban train by assailants who mistook her for a Jew.
The 23-year-old woman, who said six youths of Arab and African origin had daubed swastikas on her stomach, later said she had made up the incident and she and her companion have been taken into custody.
Chirac said he did not regret his quick reaction to the incident because racist attacks were on the rise.
"This is unacceptable," he said. "The current atmosphere... shows there is a big problem which must be treated first and foremost at the roots, in school, in children, to explain that they have equal rights and duties and must respect them."