SAINT DENIS, Feb 15: While in France debate rages over secular laws which some say make it difficult for Muslims to integrate, Paris daily Le Figaro has suggested that one French-ruled territory , the remote Indian Ocean island of Reunion, may hold the key to peaceful religious coexistence.

Indian Muslims, who originally came to Reunion from Gujarat, have been living in harmony with Catholic, Hindu and Buddhist communities for more than a century, the Le Figaro noted in an article.

The first mosque on French territory, the Noor al Islam, was built here in 1905, after Muslims petitioned the island's French governor to allow them to do so. "Our mosque is inward facing and surrounded by walls, so as not to hurt the feelings of followers of other religions," the Muslims said in an 1887 letter to the governor.

Today the island's 25,000 Muslims, most of whom are Sunnis, in theory have to abide by France's strict laws prohibiting the display of religious symbols in public institutions.

However, in apparent contravention of the law, one can easily spot Muslim schoolgirls wearing headscarves. While the island's Prefect, Dominique Vian, has instructed public school officials to implement the ban, he has asked them to do so "ponderously", Le Figaro noted.

"The reality is that we should explain to the officials in Paris, to the ministers, the specific nature of our Islam," Adam Ravate, a Reunion businessman and a prominent member of the island's Muslim community, told the conservative Paris daily.

"Reunion's Muslims have been able to build their own model of integration," Le Figaro said, noting how the path they have chosen lies somewhere between Britain's system where immigrants and different religious groups are treated as separate communities and France's where authorities seek to abolish religious practices they feel stand in the way of integration and which may jeopardize the fiercely-guarded notion of "secular ness". -By arrangement with AKI