San Francisco Frontiers - Paris officials rally in support of school headmaster in hijab row

This week the headmaster at the Maurice-Ravel senior school in eastern Paris quit after receiving death threats online following an altercation with a student last month.

His departure sparked outrage, with Prime Minister Gabriel Attal saying France would seek to defend secularism.

On Friday morning around 50 people gathered in front of the school in the French capital's 20th district, heeding the call from the Socialist Party, an AFP journalist saw.

Lawmakers and officials including Paris deputy mayor Emmanuel Gregoire took part in the gathering amid heightened security. Several parents also turned up.

Frederic, a parent at the school who declined to give his last name, said that for the past month pupils there had been "a bit agitated".

The headmaster's resignation had left parents feeling guilty, he told AFP.

"We wondered if we'd shown enough support."

Secularism and religion are hot-button issues in France, which is home to Europe's largest Muslim community.

The headmaster's departure comes amid tensions in France following several attack threats aimed at schools, and the murder of two teachers by radicalised former pupils, in 2020 and 2023.

In 2004, authorities banned school children from wearing "signs or outfits by which students ostensibly show a religious affiliation" -- such as headscarves, turbans or kippas -- on the basis of the country's secular laws, which are meant to guarantee neutrality in state institutions.

- 'Collective failure' -

Martin Raffet, head of parents' association FCPE Paris, said that some pupils did not understand the concept of secularism.

"The law needs to be discussed. Some pupils don't understand it.

"We need to take the time to explain it to them and show them that we don't stigmatise religions," Raffet said.

"We can't protect school heads from this type of attack," he added.

In late February, the headmaster had asked three students to remove their Islamic headscarves on the school premises.

But one of them -- an adult who was attending for vocational training -- refused and an altercation ensued, according to prosecutors.

The principal later received death threats online.

He said that he had taken the decision to leave, citing his safety and that of the school.

Education officials said he had taken "early retirement".

The SGEN-CFDT teachers' union called his departure "a collective failure".

"The repetition of this type of scenario, against a backdrop of the instrumentalisation of religious beliefs, is unacceptable and could lead to tragedy," the union said.

"We know this only too well in the French education system, following the murder of Samuel Paty."

Paty, a 47-year-old history and geography teacher, was stabbed and then beheaded by a radicalised Islamist near his secondary school in the Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine in 2020.

S.Hall--SFF