A letter issued by France's Minister of Education last week will make it easier for students to receive religious exemptions from school attendance on Saturdays
A letter issued by France’s Minister of Education last week will make it easier for students to receive religious exemptions from school attendance on Saturdays.
While affirming that the principal of each school still has the discretion to grant or deny requests, the letter by National Education Minister Jack Lang identifies religious accommodation as a valid reason for a principal to grant an exemption.
“This is a significant breakthrough,” says Dr. John Graz, director of the public affairs and religious liberty department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church worldwide. “There has been an ongoing, deteriorating situation in France where Adventist students have been denied permission to be absent from school on Saturday-their day of worship.”
Graz says that from 1950 to 1981, France’s Minister of Education issued an annual letter recommending such exemptions “almost as a matter of course.”
“Since that time it has became more difficult,” Graz says. In the past three to four years, dozens of Adventist students have failed to gain their principals’ approval for Saturday absences. An Adventist student from Versailles was denied Sabbath accommodation and took his case to the European Court of Human Rights in 1999. Although the court ruled in the student’s favor, teachers at his school went on strike when the ruling was implemented.
The timing of the minister’s letter is significant, coming just weeks after France’s National Assembly adopted a proposed anti-sect law. The law, which prompted expressions of concern from religious and human rights groups around the world when it was adopted on June 22, targets a list of 172 so-called sects. If passed by the Senate, the law would provide for the dissolution of religious organizations engaging in the poorly defined crime of “mental manipulation.” Although the Adventist Church was not included on the list of sects, Graz says the law foreshadows an increasingly hostile environment for all religious minorities in France.
“There is an ideological battle against the principles of religious liberty in France,” says Graz. He says that “widespread secularism,” “public apathy towards religious freedom issues,” and “a media-driven fear of small or unknown religious groups” has contributed to the current environment.
Graz says that it is difficult to know why France’s Ministry of Education released the letter last week after stalling on the issue for more than three years. International bodies-including the United Nations and the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom-expressed concern about France’s increasingly hostile attitude towards religious minorities, which may have played a role, Graz believes.
Jean-Paul Bargoun and Jimmy Trujillo, Adventist church leaders in France, have been credited with obtaining the letter. They say that while the minister’s letter has no binding legal effect, it may have “persuasive influence” on the decisions made by school principals.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church, which teaches that Saturday-the seventh day-is a day of worship and rest, has operated in France since the 1880s. The Adventist Church is a longtime proponent of religious liberty principles, believing that individuals should have the right to follow the dictates of conscience in matters of religion and worship.