Immigration Laws: November, 1994 - Number #9

Under instructions from Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, French police in August, 1994 increased identity checks of foreigners and foreign-looking nationals. Under 1993 legislation aimed at combating terrorism, police are permitted to "control" persons suspected of being foreigners. In opinion polls, 57 percent of those surveyed support the identity checks.

Some observers believe that the police are targeting dark-skinned immigrants who refuse to assimilate into French society. France has some of Europe's most liberal naturalization policies, as well as a tradition of expecting newcomers to "act French" in public.

There are about three million Muslims in France, and 500,000 of them are French citizens. Frequent identity checks, plus the detention of "hundreds" of Muslims for immigration irregularities, may threaten what some call the "fragile truce" between French society and Muslim immigrants.

The crackdown is reportedly motivated by fears of Islamic terrorism and several well-publicized incidents of Islamic non-conformity in French schools. France has expelled at least 20 Algerian-born immigrants accused of terrorism, and the French Education Minister in September 1994 reminded school principals to prohibit girls from wearing "ostentatious" Islamic head scarves to school.

Classes were suspended for two weeks at the beginning of the school year in a northern Paris suburb by demonstrations in support of four girls who appeared on the first day of school wearing head scarves, leading to their suspension from classes--they sit in the library instead of participating in class. Newspapers report that both Islamic extremists and National Front supporters stand outside school gates, waiting to proselytize among the youth who are upset by the debate over head scarves.

On October 21, a Muslim cleric from Metz who urged girls to defy the ban and wear head scarves to school was expelled to Morocco under an "absolute emergency" procedure that bypassed the usual judicial proceedings. This iman allegedly opposed the integration of Muslims into French society.

Scott Kraft, "Crackdown by Color in France," L.A. Times, September 28, 1994 Al, 10. The Economist, October 8, 1994, 53; Andrew Gumbel, "Covered in Confusion," The Guardian, October 6, 1994; UPI, October 23, 1994. Peter Webster, "French Minister 'Condoned' Police Shooting of Aliens," The Guardian, October 12, 1994.

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