STRASBOURG, Oct 2: A Muslim high school student who refused to remove her headscarf as required by a new French law when she arrived for classes has shaved her head.

The 15-year-old girl, only identified as Cennet, had been barred from attending classes and spent school days at a study room at Strasbourg's Louis-Pasteur gymnasium since the resumption of school after the summer break.

On Friday she returned to school with her head neatly shaved. "Cennet has tried everything - a hat, a cap, a bandana but she kept being turned away when she wanted to enter the classroom," her mother said in a telephone interview.

Strasbourg school officials said that on Friday she came to school without a headdress and was allowed to return to her class.

In the Strasbourg school district 18 students are still known to refuse to remove their headscarf.

French Education Minister Francois Fillon said almost two weeks ago that last year a little over 1,500 girls had worn headscarves in France throughout the school year.

There were 635 cases at the start of classes this year, Fillon said in a radio interview.

The new law which prohibits the headscarf and other "conspicuous" religious insignia from state schools took effect a month ago despite complaints from some Muslim groups that it was a form of discrimination against Islam.

Under the law school authorities must first try to persuade girls to remove the headscarf and only if they persist in refusing can they be expelled. -AFP