Legal Issues

One of the pros of this verdict is that Frances aim of ensuring public order and the rights of its entire citizenry got a boost. France is a multi-ethnic society whose members are drawn from a wide range of cultural, religious and political backgrounds. While Muslims comprise only a minority of the countrys population, allowing them to wear to school attire which manifest their religion is unhealthy (Kelly, 2009). It may attract members of other religions to borrow a leaf and dress in clothes which manifest their religion. There is thus the risk that in the long-run, the country will be split along religious lines.

Further, banning the wearing of such attire in school benefits the affected students too. The search for identity within a group is an important human need. Allowing the few students to wear such items of clothing makes it easier for the students to identify with other Muslim students and draw away from the non-Muslim students. The rest of the students would also find it easier to isolate or victimize the Muslim students as a group. The long-term effect would be that the Muslim students would have a poorly developed sense of social identity, adversely affecting the development of their social skills. The ban therefore not only protects the rights and freedoms of the wider French population, but also protects those of the minority group. Students are reasonably young and dynamic and should be given every opportunity to experiment with and embrace diversity.

The downside of this verdict is that it dispossesses the minority group of an important element of not only its religious identity, but also its cultural identity. It is important to note that the headscarves pose no danger or threat to anyone in the school or neighbourhood (Kelly, 2009). The children, and their parents, wear the headscarves as a symbol of their culture and their religion. It is expected that even many of those who wear such clothes do not visit Mosques. To the students, the attire is more about their culture than their religion which they may not understand well yet. Banning the attire is therefore interpreted as a assault on the affected peoples culture.