"No blood on our headscarf" [Der Spiegel]

[Kellanved]

France knew no parties and no religious controversy, only republicans and patriots. As in times of war, this otherwise highly divided nation, with its many social, ethnic and religious fractures, came together last week in a frequently-invoked "holy unity."

The kidnapping of the two French journalists, Georges Malbrunot, 41, and Christian Chesnot, 37, in Iraq triggered a remarkable solidarity between Muslims and non-Muslims. The entire country anxiously monitored the dramatic negotiations for the release of its reporters, negotiations that involved the mobilization of all social, religious and diplomatic forces.
Malbrunot and Chesnot, two experienced Middle East experts, had disappeared on August 20 while driving from Baghdad to Najaf. They fell into the hands of the mysterious "Islamic Army in Iraq," a faceless and voiceless radical group. Last weekend, the kidnappers communicated for the first time in a videotape sent to Arab television network Al Jazeera. Their demand: The Paris administration was to revoke its controversial ban on the wearing of Islamic headscarves in public schools.

In issuing this demand, the kidnappers clearly intended to gain the support of the entire Islamic world, especially French Muslims, who perceive the law against "prominent religious symbols," enacted by all parties last spring, as discriminating. They achieved the opposite. France' minority group of five million Muslims (more than in any other European country), otherwise disadvantaged, despised and marginalized, have never felt as strongly that they are Frenchmen and "citoyens" of the Republic than during this crisis. It was as if the drama in Iraq had produced an emotional push toward integration. For the first time, French Muslims felt that they had been taken hostage – and profoundly hurt – by their extremist fellow Muslims.
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http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/english/0,1518,316836,00.html