September 19, 2003	Friday	Rajab 21, 1424

PARIS, Sept 18: As far as French state secretary for social affairs Francois Fillon is concerned, if Paris wants to stop young Muslim women from wearing the veil, it’s not the adoption of a new law that will make them change the practice.

Rather, he says, for the explosion in the number of rules and regulations on the wearing of the veil has only resulted in a greater number of young Muslim women going to classes with the headscarf, and often against the will of their own parents.

Testifying before the presidential commission headed by former minister Bernard Stasi, Mr Fillon said that he is against the wearing of the veil in French schools, but is uncertain as to whether the solution is the adoption of a new law.

“What the directors of our schools need right now is a framework that is clear, and this to back them in their task,” pointing to a present advisory issued several years ago by the Conseil d’Etat, a high-level French administrative court, that he called “ambiguous and difficult to apply.”

“What we need right now,” he continued, “is to extricate ourselves from the ambiguity.” “We need greater integration of Muslims within French society, for without integration we will lose the battle over secularity in French schools”, he added.