France: Court Says Head Scarf Is No Grounds for Firing
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Version 0 of 1. France’s highest court ruled Tuesday that a French Muslim woman was unjustly fired in 2008 for wearing a head scarf at work in a private child-care center in a Paris suburb. The court ruled that the dismissal violated the woman’s religious freedom. Religious symbols of all kinds are banned from public schools and institutions under French law, but the child-care center is private. The ruling overturned an appeals court decision, which had said the center had the right to set its own rules about religious neutrality. Interior Minister Manuel Valls told Parliament that the court’s ruling was regrettable because it “calls into question the principle of secular education.” |