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Alma and Lila Lévy Two sisters have been excluded from their high school, the Lycee Henri-Wallon, in the working-class Paris suburb of Aubervilliers, for wearing headscarves. Michel Payard, the local deputy chief education officer, had made one last attempt at mediation by ordering Lila Levy, 18, and sister Alma, 16, to wear headscarves that exposed at least their neck, their earlobes and the roots of their hair.That kind of headgear is called “a light headscarf” by the education authority, as opposed to an Islamic headscarf. The two girls refused to comply. The education authority also criticised their refusal to take off their headscarves during physical education classes. The decision was therefore taken to exclude the girls from school until they appear before a disciplinary committee.

Soon after the ban, 80 fellow pupils improvised a demonstration outside the school. They massed in front of the gates chanting “Freedom for headscarves”, “Down with discrimination” and “Education for everybody”. The great majority of pupils at the school support the two girls: 34 out of 36 pupils in Lila's upper sixth form voted in favour of boycotting classes. After the demo a lively discussion got under way on the pavement in front of the school.

Alma quoted Article 18 of the Declaration of Human Rights guaranteeing the freedom to practise the religion of one's choice. Farida, a girl who sports a Hand of Fatima tattoo on her neck, said: “There are girls who come to school in gothic outfits. Nobody says anything to them, even though they're really scary.”

A girl who has been kept down a year after failing her baccalaureate exam criticised the education authority for the school's lack of resources, for allowing a maths teacher to go absent without leave for three months, and for employing “teachers who don't live in Aubervilliers”. She felt the headscarf issue was “a pretext for hiding the real problems”.

Pupils at the Lycee Henri-Wallon, in the heart of “nine-three”—a pejorative name for Seine-St-Denis, France's departement 93—are very much on the defensive. They are convinced they are the education system's “rejects”.

Lila and Alma deny being responsible for all the media hype surrounding the row over headscarves. “We weren't the ones who kicked up a fuss. Some teachers tipped off the newspapers and now we're accused of disrupting the school's activities,” says Lila. They say they tried to make an effort. “I even wore a headscarf with little hearts on it,” says Alma.

The sisters wear—from bottom to top—trainers and bell-bottomed trousers, a tunic and two pullovers, one with a polo neck to hide their necks, and a headscarf to cover their hair. They cover the whole upper part of their body with a large grey veil, which they take off on entering the school premises.

Lila and Alma do not fit the pattern of classic headscarf rows. They do not come from a Muslim family. Their father, Laurent Levy, a lawyer who works for the Movement against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples (MRAP), describes himself as a “godless Jew”.

He married a Kabyle woman, who is not a practising Muslim. They are currently separated.

Levy is far from delighted with his daughters' stand: “I hope they get over it. It all began three years ago, when they stopped eating pork. A year later they observed Ramadan and learned a little Arabic. They've been wearing headscarves for the past six months.”

Are the girls being manipulated by fundamentalist Muslims? They claim they have attended mosque once or twice, but swear they have nothing to do with Islamist associations. Their father confirms what they say: “This has nothing to do with theantics of the fundamentalists.”

Levy, whose mother taught in a secular state school, now finds himself in the unexpected position of having to defend religious freedom - though he himself would not go so far as to say so: “I don't defend headscarves. I defend my children's right to go to school. This whole affair has opened my eyes to the hysterical folly of certain ayatollahs of secularism who have lost their hold on common sense.” September 25

The Guardian Weekly 20-3-1002 [sic; should be 2003.10.05], page 31

Last change: 2003 November