France vowed Monday to press ahead with a controversial law banning Islamic head scarves in schools, despite demands by militants holding two French journalists hostage in Iraq that Paris revoke the legislation.
Government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope told Canal Plus television France would not compromise its values to win the release of the journalists, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot. Militants claiming to hold them demanded the law be overturned within 48 hours — a deadline that expires late Monday.
"The law will be applied," Cope said, rejecting the militants' warning.
The head scarf law goes into effect when school resumes on Wednesday. It forbids public school students from wearing "conspicuous" religious apparel. Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses will also be banned, but the true target of the law are head scarves — seen by authorities as a sign of rising Muslim fundamentalism in France.
French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier arrived in Cairo on a mission to help win the journalists' release. He said his country respects all religions and human rights and noted that Muslim leaders in France also had called for the journalists' release.
"I call for their release ... for all these reasons, and especially because the respect for human life is sacred," Barnier told reporters at the French Embassy in Cairo. Barnier said French officials were going to Baghdad to help the embassy there handle the situation. Asked whether he would go, he said: "Nothing is excluded."
Chesnot and Malbrunot were last heard from on Aug. 19, just before heading from Baghdad to the southern city of Najaf. Chesnot works for Radio France-Internationale and Radio France and Malbrunot for RTL radio and the dailies Le Figaro and Ouest-France.
The abduction shook the notion that France's opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq gave some safety to French citizens amid the rash of kidnappings in Iraq. Some Iraqi militants have previously spared French passport holders — even freeing one man in April after he was able to prove his citizenship by showing his knowledge of French geography.
The demand to end the head scarf ban was the first time hostage-takers sought to reverse a nation's domestic law. Insurgents in Iraq have kidnapped dozens of people, but until know their demands have focused on pushing nations' troop or companies out of Iraq.
Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said the hostage crisis showed France cannot escape terrorists.
"France will not be spared — no more than Italy, Spain, or Egypt," Allawi said in an interview published Monday in Le Monde newspaper. "Governments that decide to remain on the defensive will be the next targets of terrorist ... Avoiding confrontation is not a response."
In a video aired on Arab TV station Al-Jazeera on Saturday, militants calling themselves the Islamic Army of Iraq demanded France revoke the headscarf law, calling it "an aggression on the Islamic religion and personal freedoms."
They gave no ultimatum, Al-Jazeera said. The station showed a brief tape of the journalists saying they were in captivity — the first word on their fate since they disappeared.
A militant group with a similar name to the one holding the French journalists is believed to be responsible for the death last week of Italian freelance journalist Enzo Baldoni. Before his murder, the group had said it could not guarantee his safety unless Italy announced within 48 hours that it would withdraw its troops from Iraq.
French President Jacques Chirac vowed Sunday to spare no effort to secure the reporters' freedom and dispatched Barnier to the Middle East.
The foreign minister arrived in the Egyptian capital for meeting with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit and with Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League. In July, Egyptian diplomacy secured the release of one of Cairo's diplomats in Baghdad, Mohammed Mamdouh Helmi Qutb, held by militants for three days.
Speaking at the French Embassy in Cairo, Barnier did not directly address the militants' demand but said: "This ultimatum is incomprehensible, given the reality of French society." Barnier also planned to visit Qatar. The Foreign Ministry in Paris said that a diplomatic envoy, Hubert Colin de Verdiere, was heading to Baghdad.
Chirac appealed on Sunday to the kidnappers, implicitly reminding them that France opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
"France ensures equality, the respect and protection of the free practicing of all religions," a solemn-looking Chirac said in a televised address. "These values of respect and tolerance inspire our actions everywhere in the world ... They also inspired France's policy in Iraq."
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat joined Middle Eastern religious and political leaders in condemning the kidnappings. Arafat called for the journalists' "immediate release," saying France was a friend of the Palestinian cause, according to a statement issued by the Palestinian news agency WAFA. Other critics of the kidnappings included Egypt's largest opposition group, the banned Muslim Brotherhood.
The European Union also appealed for the reporters' liberty. Their kidnapping means "not only freedom of expression is again at stake, but also the values of tolerance and respect for others to which all Europeans are profoundly attached," said Javier Solana, the EU's top foreign policy official.
Al-Jazeera added its voice, as well, issuing a statement to condemn "all acts that threaten the safety and security of journalists," demanding the "the immediate release of all journalists held hostage so they can carry out their noble duty and bring the truth to viewers."
Chirac postponed a Monday visit to Russia, where he was scheduled to hold two days of talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Chirac planned to join the meeting on Tuesday, his office said.
Even French Muslim leaders who opposed the law on head scarves urged the government Sunday not to capitulate and condemned the kidnapping.
"We must not negotiate. It is blackmail which the Muslims of France reject," said Lhaj Thami Breze, president of the powerful Union of Islamic Organizations of France. France's Muslim community of 5 million is western Europe's biggest.