PARIS, Sept 2: France's academic year got off to a quiet start on Thursday as a controversial law banning headscarves in state schools went into effect, despite the demands of militants holding two Frenchmen hostage in Iraq.

Amid fears that some girls could deliberately wear their headscarves to provoke a confrontation, concern over the fate of the two kidnapped journalists defused immediate tensions over the so-called "secularity law" aimed at preserving France's strict separation of religion and state.

"The first day of school is going smoothly, the pupils have gone into their schools, everything is normal," said Hanifa Cherifi, member of an education ministry crisis team set up to monitor implementation of the new legislation in the country.

More than 12 million pupils attending 60,000 primary and 11,000 secondary schools are obliged to heed the law passed in March by the centre-right government of President Jacques Chirac that prohibits the wearing of all "conspicuous" religious insignia.

Though the law does not single out any specific faith - Jewish skullcaps, large Christian crosses and Sikh turbans are banned along with headscarves - many in France's five-million-strong Muslim community believe the hijab worn by teenage girls is the main target. As students across France headed back to the classroom, the country waited anxiously for news of the two journalists taken hostage in Iraq by militants. -AFP