Religion France

In a move certain to enliven an already intense national debate over immigration and education, teachers at a public school in this industrial town north of Paris voted Monday to prevent Muslim girls from wearing head scarves to class. The girls, two sisters, 14 and 15, and a companion, 14, were turned away from class on the first day of school after a weeklong holiday. They had arrived wearing the head coverings they say are required by their faith.

The European Court of Justice ruled Tuesday against a French law requiring prior notification of foreign direct investment--a law challenged by the Church of Scientology, the Los Angeles-based church founded by the late U.S. science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. The court ruled that the French law breached European Union rules on free movement of capital.

France's top court has upheld a lower court ruling that said Scientologists are free to proselytize and practice their religion. However, the Court of Cassation emphasized that it was not recognizing Scientology as a religion. The high court's ruling came in connection with a 1997 appeals court decision that found that nine Scientologists in the city of Lyon had been convicted of corruption and theft without sufficient evidence.

Scientology, the Los Angeles-based religion treated with suspicion and hostility by several Western European governments, is now under siege in France, where an official report has called for disbanding church operations here. A blue-ribbon government panel studying what French officials define as "sects" has concluded that the faith, founded by the late U.S. science fiction writer L.

The European Court of Justice ruled Tuesday against a French law requiring prior notification of foreign direct investment--a law challenged by the Church of Scientology, the Los Angeles-based church founded by the late U.S. science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. The court ruled that the French law breached European Union rules on free movement of capital.

Scientology, the Los Angeles-based religion treated with suspicion and hostility by several Western European governments, is now under siege in France, where an official report has called for disbanding church operations here. A blue-ribbon government panel studying what French officials define as "sects" has concluded that the faith, founded by the late U.S. science fiction writer L.

Are you a Francophile? Take this quiz and find out. 1. Why do baguettes (French bread) become stale so quickly? 2. On average, how many times a day does a Frenchman visit the bakery? 3. In what year did a Parisian tailor jump off the Eiffel Tower with wings and a cape, believing he could fly? 4. What American state is roughly the same size as France? 5. What is France's largest auto maker? 6. What French author wrote "Planet of the Apes"? 7.

"My life could have been otherwise but it wasn't," Jim Harrison writes in his disjointed memoir of an author's life, "Off to the Side," employing the trademark take-it-or-leave-it manner he used in "The Road Home" and "Legends of the Fall" and declining to draw specific conclusions about the paths he traveled.

Religious and ethnic toleration did not emerge in the West simply out of the good intentions of wise rulers. In the 16th and 17th centuries, European Catholics and Protestants slaughtered each other with abandon. The Wars of Religion in France, the 30 Years' War in Germany, the English Civil Wars all killed millions.

Tens of thousands of young Catholics from France, elsewhere in Europe and around the world have converged on Paris this week to rally around a faith that means less and less to their contemporaries and around an institution trying hard to use the millennium as an occasion for a Roman Catholic revival. As many as 300,000 young people are expected in this city in time to greet Pope John Paul II as he consecrates the 12th edition of one of his treasured innovations: World Youth Days.

France's top court has upheld a lower court ruling that said Scientologists are free to proselytize and practice their religion. However, the Court of Cassation emphasized that it was not recognizing Scientology as a religion. The high court's ruling came in connection with a 1997 appeals court decision that found that nine Scientologists in the city of Lyon had been convicted of corruption and theft without sufficient evidence.

In a move certain to enliven an already intense national debate over immigration and education, teachers at a public school in this industrial town north of Paris voted Monday to prevent Muslim girls from wearing head scarves to class. The girls, two sisters, 14 and 15, and a companion, 14, were turned away from class on the first day of school after a weeklong holiday. They had arrived wearing the head coverings they say are required by their faith.

President Jacques Chirac proposed a law Wednesday to ban Muslim head scarves, Jewish skullcaps and large crucifixes in public schools, stepping into a divisive cultural conflict by reaffirming the secularism at the core of the French national identity.

On one thing, at least, the Church of Scientology and German authorities agree: The issue is tyranny. They disagree, however, on just who the tyrant is. German officials say the Los Angeles-based church "aims at world domination and the destruction of our society," in the words of Family Affairs Minister Claudia Nolte.