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Why France values its religious neutrality

With France on the verge of passing a law that would prevent Muslim girls from wearing their head scarves in class, Americans are asking why the French are so attached to secularism.

I always want to respond to this question by asking another, a version of one asked by Montesquieu nearly three centuries ago: How can one be French?

Our uneasiness about head scarves and other religious symbols in schools is a result of our long, often painful history. If we bow to demands to allow the practice of religion in state institutions, we will put France’s identity in peril.

Chirac sinks deeper into mire of scandal

President Jacques Chirac was fighting last night to regain control of a fast unravelling scandal encircling his political power base.

M Chirac seized charge of an inquiry into alleged telephone taps, break-ins and violent threats against judges investigating Alain Juppé, the former prime minister and his heir apparent, convicted on Friday of organising illegal party funding.

The extraordinary intervention came the day after the justice ministry announced it would investigate the allegations.

His gazumping of his own ministry indicates the seriousness with which he is taking the insinuation that he or his allies tried to pressure the judges in the Juppé case.

Fallout from Juppe's conviction

Following Friday’s guilty verdict against former French Prime Minister Alain Juppe, France’s Le Monde has no doubt about the ruling’s wider political implications.

The paper concedes that Juppe was sentenced for his own role in the illegal funding of the RPR party in the 1980s and 1990s.

“But beyond the man,” it says, “it is a system that was condemned. A system from which Jacques Chirac – then RPR president and mayor of Paris – benefited.”

Metro Launches Fifth Edition in France

The new edition in Lille follows the launch two weeks ago of the 30th edition of Metro in the French city of Toulouse and further consolidates Metro’s position as the second largest national newspaper in France. 500,000 copies of Metro are now distributed each morning in France’s 5 largest cities – Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse and Lille, which have a combined population of 14 million. The French advertising market is the third largest in Europe and is estimated to have generated net newspaper advertising spend of US$ 1.4 billion in 2003. Metro France will now attract over 1.6 million daily readers.

Decision day for France's would-be president

France’s Alain Juppe, a man who would be president, finds out in court today whether he can stay in politics at all, let alone dream of one day taking over as head of state from Jacques Chirac.

A judge delivers his verdict in a trial where prosecutors sought an eight-year suspended prison term for the Chirac protege who they say illegally used Paris municipal funds to pay political allies.

The 58-year-old has been steadily clawing his way back to the top since his demise as one of the nation’s most unloved prime ministers in 1997, but a conviction would automatically make him ineligible for public office.

“I’d quit politics,” Juppe said when asked this month what he would do if things went against him. Commentators took that as a sign that he would not even appeal if convicted.

French wine's new woe

French winemakers, shunned by some Americans last year over France’s opposition to the Iraq war, face a new problem in 2004: the rise in the euro.

Industry leaders said on Thursday the currency’s surge to new highs against the dollar could make French wine seem too expensive to U.S. consumers also being offered keenly priced New World rivals from Australia and elsewhere.

“Buyers of fine wines are not overly sensitive to price variations,” Michel Pons, head of promotion at the national Onivins agency, said of the euro’s 40 percent gain since 2002 to a record $1.29 earlier this month. It is now around $1.25.

“But the impact is greater among the less prestigious wines selling for around $10 a bottle — and it is there that the competition is the hottest,” he told Reuters.

Opinion: France: Friend or foe?

On the July day American troops killed Saddam Hussein’s sons Qusai and Odai in the northern Iraqi city in Mosul, a senior NBC News producer called his usual intelligence and military sources trying to learn more about the raid.

As his best CIA source gushed about the American victory, the producer says he noticed a news bulletin on the television behind him: the Eiffel Tower, that great symbol of French grandeur and artistic prowess, had caught fire.

So I asked him, ‘Hey, do you guys know the Eiffel Tower’s on fire’? the producer said.

He was silent for a moment, then he said: Could this day get any better?

A joke, or not?

France agrees draft anti-veil law

The French cabinet has approved a draft law banning most religious symbols in state schools, launching the legislative process Paris says it needs to stem a rise in militant Islam among its Muslim minority.

The centre-right government, pushing through the measure on Wednesday with unusual speed, will submit to the National Assembly next Tuesday the draft law barring Muslim headscarves, Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses from school premises.

“The government bill clearly reaffirms the neutrality of public schools. It does not aim to ban religious symbols in everyday life,” President Jacques Chirac told the cabinet, according to government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope.