All over an inch of flesh

摘要

They giggle; they blush; they talk very fast. One wears Nike trainers. The other chats incessantly on her mobile phone. In short, Lila and Alma Levy-Omari, pictured above, are just a pair of ordinary teenagers-except that their decision to wear a Muslim headscarf at school has exploded into an affair of state, and plunged official France into panic. The two schoolgirls are from Aubervil-liers, an industrial suburb of Paris. They were kicked out of school earlier this month for wearing the scarf. According to a 1989 court ruling, based on the secular principle at the heart of the French state, it is not illegal to wear religious symbols in schools. But the law does forbid "ostentatious" religious signs that "constitute an act of pressure, provocation, proselytism or propaganda". The girls chose to wear a full headscarf, covering their ears, hairline and neck. The school considered this provocative, and banned them.