They were tense, upset and nervous, although not outwardly defiant. But as France's controversial headscarf ban came into effect yesterday morning, many students at the Jacques Brel High School were still struggling to understand why the State had apparently picked on them.
The school, in Paris's ethnically mixed north-eastern suburbs, is attended by several Muslim girls who would normally wear their hijab or headscarf. But yesterday with the fate of two French journalists, Tristian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot held hostage in Iraq, linked to the ban, they returned to school after the summer break with heads bare. Most remained opposed to the Chirac Government's attempt to enforce France's secular tradition in state schools.
"I am sad that I can not wear the veil at school," said Safia Ouaicha, a 14-year-old student of Algerian origin. "The ban gives me a feeling of being a criminal ... By not wearing it, it feels like I am ripping off a part of me. But now I would feel scared to wear the veil."
The French Government has moved in recent days to defuse the controversy surround the headscarf by promising that no students would be automatically excluded from school for wearing it. That decision is left up to individual head teachers.
But some parents are already considering the possibility that their children will leave school.
One veiled Muslim parent at Jacques Brel, who would only give her name as Shaima, said it was her 15-year-old daughter's decision whether to continue going to school.
"The veil has nothing to do with ideology," she said. "If a girl doesn't want to show her hair, it's her choice.
"My daughter would like to wear the veil. She understands this law is unfair and she is deeply disturbed by all this. There is no reason to mix up what's happening in Iraq with what's happening here."
The Education Minister, Francois Fillon, said the move to ban conspicuous religious symbols - which also includes the Christian crucifix and the Jewish kippah - had been widely misinterpreted and was not "turned against religion and therefore certainly not against the Muslim religion".
But the students were not so sure. Samantha Ntoya, a 16-year-old student at Jacques Brel, arrived at the school wearing a massive black headscarf which she reluctantly planned to remove. "I don't understand the meaning of this law," she said. "We come here to study. I don't see why the veil changes that. It's intolerant and close to ridiculous."
Agence France-Press reports: French officials were "nearly certain" late yesterday that two journalists were still alive. Jean de Belot, the editor-in-chief of Le Figaro newspaper, which employs one of the men, said there had been "indirect contact" with the hostage takers.