DHAKA: France on Monday unveiled a new charter designed to reinforce rules banning religion from schools which have been a recurring cause of tension with Muslims and other faiths.

The ‘Charter for Secularity in School’ is to be displayed in poster form in every state-funded school in the country in a move pioneered by the Socialist government’s education minister, Vincent Peillon.

The 15-point statement contains nothing new in legal terms, reports The Straits Times.

Instead, Peillon says, it represents an attempt to promote better understanding, and more consistent enforcement, of long-established principles which have their roots in the anti-clericalism of the French revolution and the country’s 1905 law enforcing a strict separation of church and state.

BDST: 2023 HRS, SEPT 09, 2013
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