Since theFrench law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools was enacted there have been reports of Muslim girls being expelled from public schools for wearing headscarves. The law also affects Jewish boys who were yarmulkes, Christians who were large Crosses, and Sikh boys who wear turbans. Have any Jews, Christians, or Sikhs been suspended or expelled since this law took effect? Have there been any incidents of non-Muslims wearing prohibited items to school?
Yes, there have been a few incidents involving Sikhs. Sikh males are obligated to cover their heads at all times, and they were not taken into consideration when the law was created. Several incidents involving Muslims have also occurred, and a few have been expelled (although most have agreed not to wear head-coverings). You should be able to find quite a few articles with Google but here are some about Sikhs: 1, 2. And one about Muslims: 1.
Muslim women in certain French overseas territories are permitted to wear bandanas and light veils, but this is not permitted in France proper. Muslims argue that wearing hijab is a cultural and not a religious practice, or an obligation rather than a choice. Many also say that the head-covering is a symbol of their faith and of submission to God rather than to men, as is often believed, although many Muslim women in Western countries choose not to wear head-coverings. A rule that bans all symbols of faith would thus include these head-coverings, and this has been the case in France, though a majority of Muslim women in French public schools have voluntarily stopped wearing head-coverings. The head-coverings are also forbidden in Turkey, as part of that country’s move to secularization initiated by Kemal Ataturk in the 1920s.
Sikhs are forbidden to cut their hair, a religious requirement called kaysh (one of five requirements). Male Sikhs wear a turban over their hair as a symbol of faith, but it is more than a practical way of covering long hair. This site expresses the opinion of Sikhs ordered to remove their turbans or face death: ‘You may take off our heads but not our turbans’. Most accounts of the difficulties facing France’s small Sikh community after the religious symbols ban say that ‘everyone forgot about the Sikhs’. Another of the requirements is that Sikhs carry a ceremonial or symbolic knife or sword at all times – surprisingly, I’ve never read of any opposition to that despite all the concern about weapons in schools.
There’s plastic ones available, which are acceptable just about everywhere. Except US airports, I suspect. And I recall a news story about a kid banned from his US school graduation because he had a plastic sgian dubh (another knife) as part of his Scottish traditional dress.
A case concerning a student in Montreal will be heard by Canada’s Supreme Court in the near future.
A Sikh is not required to carry a 20 cm long knife, there really is no religious angle to that story so long as a school will allow the plastic version of a Sikh’s knife.
Apparently, there has been some hundreds students who came to school with prohibited garnments at the beginning of the year. Most of these cases have been settled by agreements between the schools, the children, the families…
However, some dozens students have defintely refused to comply and will be (or already have been) excluded.
As mentionned by previous posters, besides muslim students, the only cases I heard about involved Sikhs. I’m not aware of any mention involving a Christian or a Jew. I would assume that Jewish children who absolutely wanted to wear a kippa joined private Jewish schools.