VALENCIENNES, Oct 21: French President Jacques Chirac stepped into the heated debate over Islam and religious insignia on Tuesday, hinting that he will support a law banning the wearing of headscarves in schools.

Speaking on a visit to the economically depressed northern town of Valenciennes, the president gave an impassioned defence of the country’s secular principles and warned of the threat posed by “foreign” values to French democracy.

“Secularism is not negotiable. We cannot allow people to shelter behind a deviant idea of religious liberty in order to defy the laws of the republic or to threaten fundamental principles of a modern society such as sex equality and the dignity of woman,” he said.

“The state will never allow foreign constraints on the laws of our democracy to influence hearts, spirits or behaviour,” he said.

The president said he was waiting for the recommendations of an official committee of enquiry into the issue of religious insignia which is due to report at the end of the year.

“I will draw the necessary conclusions, with recourse — if necessary — to the law,” he said.

France has become embroiled in a bitter argument over whether the wearing of headscarves by teenage girls in school constitutes a breach of the century-old separation of religion and state.

The row reached a new intensity 10 days ago when two sisters aged 18 and 16 from the northern Paris suburb of Aubervilliers were expelled from their school for refusing to loosen their scarves so as to reveal necks, ear-lobes and the roots of their hair.

The issue cuts across party lines, with champions of secularism opposed by libertarians who believe the ban on headscarves is a form of provocative discrimination against the country’s five million-strong Muslim population.—AFP