February 25, 2003	Tuesday	Zul Hijjah 23, 1423

PARIS, Feb 24: Two hundred professors at the Lycee La Martiniere-Duchere in Lyons say they will go on strike if national school authorities do not hand down clearer guidelines with regard to the wearing of the Islamic scarf in French schools.

Although Education Minister Luc Ferry said recently that he is for a total ban on the wearing of the Islamic veil, nothing has yet been done to clarify the situation of its being worn in French educational establishments.

At Lyons, the high school professors are increasingly up in arms over a sixteen-year-old student who continues to wear her veil, although they let it be known on Friday, in front of the school door, that such a practice flew in the face of the principle of secularity that should prevail in French schools.

The student, whose name was not revealed, says that it is her right to wear the veil. She claims, according to school authorities, that “I’m doing it with the sole purpose of affirming my religious convictions.” Her own father, says the school, was contacted in an attempt to persuade his daughter to wear the scarf only outside classes, but he too has told the authorities that “my daughter is obstinate in her ways and I can do nothing myself to change her mind.”