Excerpt:
France's education minister on Monday warned against "militant secularity" in a country where a long-standing ban on veils, Jewish kippahs and other religious signs in schools continues to cause controversy.
"We have to be careful not to have a form of militant secularity in our country, which is counter-productive for children we would like to see adhere to secularity," Najat Vallaud-Belkacem told reporters.
France has a long-established secular tradition that has its roots in the anti-clericalism of the French Revolution and a 1905 law enforcing a strict separation between church and state.