France. A tragic twist of the scarf

The kidnapping of two newsmen in Iraq turns a domestic problem into an international crisis, testing France's relationship with Islam

THE coming into force of a ban on headscarves (and other conspicuous tokens of faith) in French schools was always going to cause tension. But nobody foresaw a full-blown crisis whose human and diplomatic effects have stunned the nation.

The kidnapping of two French journalists by the Islamic Army of Iraq, which demanded an end to the headscarf ban, prompted a massive diplomatic effort to secure their release. The newsmen, along with their guide, went missing in late August while travelling from Baghdad to Najaf. Both are freelance Middle Eastern hands, who report for various media including the newspaper Le Figaro and state-owned Radio France Internationale. Not until they appeared on the al-Jazeera television channel this weekend was their kidnappers' demand known. The group set, and later extended, a deadline for France to comply. It had previously executed an Italian journalist, Enzo Baldoni.

The French government has reacted swiftly. President Jacques Chirac made it plain in a televised address that the law would stand. While not bending to the kidnappers, the French strategy has been twofold: to isolate the hostage-takers by inviting a show of Muslim condemnation and, second, to use various channels to try to secure the journalists' release. To these ends, Michel Barnier, the foreign minister, flew this week to Egypt, Jordan and Qatar; a diplomatic envoy went to Iraq.

On the first count, the French seem gratified by an overwhelming show of support. There had been concern earlier this year that the Muslim world would see the headscarf ban as an attack on Islam. Some Islamist groups, notably those close to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, called for protests against France. Veiled women took to the streets in Beirut, Cairo, Tehran, Gaza and Amman. The worry in France was that this resentment could wreck the influence the country had gained by opposing the war in Iraq. (A year ago, a Gallup poll in Iraq put Mr Chirac's rating at 42%, against 29% for George Bush.) This week, however, even as the ban came into force, Muslim support flowed in. Abroad, those calling for the journalists' release included political leaders such as Jordan's King Abdullah, but also militant Islamist groups such as the Palestinians' Hamas. The Muslim Brotherhood, hard-line Salafist groups in Iraq and prominent Sunni religious leaders, all echoed the appeal, as did al-Jazeera television.

At home, French Muslims put aside their differences. Dalil Boubakeur, moderate head of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, held a joint prayer meeting, attended by the centre-right interior minister, and Bertrand Delano, the Socialist mayor of Paris, as well as tougher Muslim leaders. Mr Boubakeur said he was “appalled” by the kidnappers. More impressively, they were also denounced as “enemies of Islam” by Lhaj Thami Breze, a more militant figure who heads the Union of French Islamic Organisations (UOIF) - which is close to the Muslim Brotherhood - and who had called for defiance of the headscarf ban.

Some Muslim girls will still turn up for school this week with heads covered. But they would be more numerous if the hostage crisis had not happened. The UOIF's Mr Breze now says the law should be respected, while calling for a mild interpretation, to allow a modest head-covering. An issue which had split France's 4.5m Muslims seems, oddly, to be uniting them.

The second bit of the French strategy was far less certain of success. A special team has been sent to Iraq, reportedly including Philippe Rondot, a general who helped to negotiate the release of hostages in Lebanon in 1986. Yet little is known about the Islamic Army or its real motives. While France is pleased that it has not exhausted the Muslim sympathy it won during the Iraq war, it is not clear that any of its friends have any sway, direct or indirect, over the captors.

Whatever the hostages' fate, the crisis has underlined the vulnerability of France to Islamist terror. Some French commentators have been indignant, as if their stance on Iraq should have offered them immunity. “In the light of its position on the Iraq war, France could have hoped to be sheltered,” commented Le Figaro. The government similarly stressed its hostility to the American-led occupation as grounds for preferential treatment. In Iraq, said Mr Barnier, “France has always pleaded for the independence, the sovereignty of this country and supported its people and their suffering.”

Yet, in truth, France has few illusions about its exposure. After the Madrid bombs in March, President Chirac warned the nation it was “not sheltered from terrorist acts”. Security was tightened across the country, home to Europe's biggest Muslim population. What irks the French is the idea, implied in comments made by Iyad Allawi, Iraq's prime minister, that they might be nave on terror. He said the French were “deluding themselves” if they thought they could remain untouched.

Indeed, many in France feel groups like the “Islamic Army” are a by-product of the general ferment caused by the war. At a Franco-German-Russian summit this week, Russia and France firmly agreed; they had stood together against the war and were united again in feeling its effects. But for France, this is cold comfort.

The kidnapping of two French newsmen in Iraq turns a domestic problem into an international crisis, testing France's relationship with Islam.