Fears rise in France as Muslim school flunks application process

PARIS - Plans to open France's biggest private Islamic school threaten to become the country's next arena for religious tensions after officials in the southeastern city of Lyon barred it from accepting pupils.

The dispute has pitted the guardians of the education system against determined Muslim parents and local mosques who set up a combined intermediate and high school in a renovated office building on an industrial estate, a scheme for which they say they have mustered 700,000 euros ($1.34 million).

Objections by the educational authorities have thrown the scheme in limbo, sparking protests and angry accusations at a time when the country is fearing a resurgence of violence among alienated youths on its housing estates.

"We are not fundamentalists. We are fully fledged French citizens," said Hakim Chergui, a lawyer by training, who is vice president of the Al-Kindi Association which is trying to launch the school. "We want the law to apply equally to everyone."

There are hundreds of private Catholic and Jewish schools in France but there is only one private Muslim high school in a country with more than 4 million Muslims.

That high school is located at a mosque in Lille, in the north of the country. It only has places for around 100 pupils and took eight years to get off the ground, finally gaining authorisation in 2003. There is also a Muslim intermediate school, which accepts students aged 11 to 15, opened in 2001 in Aubervilliers, on the outskirts of Paris.

Al-Kindi initially sought the green light for a 500-place school but then scaled it back to 200 places as the technical requirements for a smaller school are less onerous. The goal of the Lycee Al-Kindi, named after a ninth-century Arab philosopher, is to offer an alternative to state education.

The authorities say their objections have nothing to do with religion but with technical and legal problems.

In June, they threw out Al-Kindi's first bid, which aimed to set up the school in a local mosque, saying the rooms were too small and there were insufficient toilet facilities. The second bid, to house the school in a refurbished brick-and-glass office building at a nearby industrial estate, was considered too close to a high-pressure gas mains and its soil contaminated by industrial waste.

Alain Morvan, rector of the Academy of Lyon, which has authority over schools in the Lyon area, objected to the revamped project on the grounds that it lacked a proper school principal. The man who initially put himself forward is a high-school teacher in the state system who walked away from the proposed scheme and stayed with his state job, apparently because of a row within the association.

The final word lies with the Academic Council of the French Education Ministry, which will ponder the request on November 8.

Muslim moderates argue it is better to have such schools out in the open where they can be scrutinised by the authorities. Unlicensed schoolrooms in mosques or homes are far bigger potential sources of religious hatred, they say.

A report by the intelligence division of the French police, the Renseignements Generaux, has warned of a rise in the number of clandestine Muslim schools set up in mosques and private homes across the country.

Al-Kindi has upped the pressure by staging an "open day" at the school for some 50 pupils, including girls in headscarves. There have also been two protest rallies, supported by Muslim leaders, where several hundred demonstrators attacked Morvan for "islamophobia" and called for his resignation.

Morvan says these tactics are "fascistic".

"Soon they'll be issuing a fatwa against me," he told the daily Le Monde.

Kamel Kabtane, head of the Lyon Grand Mosque, said the clamour for the school was directly caused by the authorities' clampdown in 2004 on the wearing of the Islamic headscarf (as well as the crucifix and other religious tokens) in state schools, but not in private ones.

"I am in favour of everything that brings people together, but if others have this, why should the opening of a Muslim high school rouse suspicions?"