France’s third Muslim high school welcomed its first students on Monday, March 5, after a months-long battle with local education authorities. “We are very pleased,” Rachid Guergour, head of the Lyon Mosque, told reporters outside the Al-Kindi private school in the Decines suburb of the eastern city of Lyon, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP). The school, named after Muslim philosopher Yusuf Ya`qoub ibn Ishaq Al-Kindi (801-873), initially opened to one entry-year class. It will eventually cater to 140 students, making it the largest Muslim school in France. The school will cost some 700,000 euros a year to operate. It will mainly teach state curricula in addition to Qur’an, jurisprudence, Islamic civilization and history. The school got the green light to open last month after the French Higher Education Council (CSE) overruled a decision by the Lyon education board. The school was banned from opening its classes last September after the Academy of Lyon had argued that the school failed to meet hygiene and safety standards. But the Administrative Court in Lyon dismissed the Academy’s rationale as unsubstantiated. Victory Hakim Chergui, deputy head of the Al-Kindi association behind the project, hailed the school’s opening. “I will cry victory when I see our students’ results in the high-school exams. That is what matters,” he said. Guergour said that the Muslim school will be abiding by the French laws. “The judiciary has enabled us to reach a compromise,” he said. “We will continue like this, in full respect for the laws of the Republic.” Private Muslim schools were an urgent demand by many Muslim families in France, especially after the state banned hijab and religious symbols at public schools. A 2004 religious insignia law forced many French Muslim girls to enroll at schools in neighboring European countries or at private schools at home. However, not all girl pupils at the Muslim school wear hijab. Mohammed Minta, the local imam in charge of religious education classes, insists students will be free to dress as they please. France’s first Muslim high school opened in the northeast Paris suburb of Aubervilliers in 2001, and now caters to around 100 pupils.
