PARIS, Dec 11: Although France has had a significant Islamic population that goes back to the start of its own history, the French Muslim community will be getting its own Islamic high school — the Ecole Averroes — only next year. Indeed, inscriptions will be taken as of January, and the school will start offering courses come September, at the same time as traditional government-operated French schools.

Named after the celebrated philosopher whose writings on Aristotelian metaphysics had an enormous impact on the thought of Christian France of the Middle Ages, the school is to open for the 2003-2004 school year next autumn.

It will be housed on a full floor of a building in Lille, France, that has been serving as the headquarters of the Muslim League of the North, so named because Lille is an important regional centre in northern France.