Quotes of the Day

Asasma Butt walked up to the entrance of the Lycée Rabelais in northern Paris last Thursday — the first day of school for students across France — she did something she didn't want to do. She removed her black head scarf, a symbol of her Muslim faith. France's new law prohibiting all religious symbols from public schools had come into effect that day, and though Butt, 18, opposes the ban — "taking off the veil bothers me every time," she said — she was submitting to it. It is, after all, the law of the republic.

Almost 4,000 km to the east, a group of insurgents calling themselves the Iraqi Islamic Army were inviting French Muslims like Butt to take sides against that republic. The insurgents were threatening to kill two abducted French journalists unless the government rescinded the head-scarf ban. But the government refused to do so, and even though they disagree with the law, French Muslims rallied behind their secular leaders. "The drama in Iraq must not lead us to renounce this law," said Lhaj Thami Brèze, president of the Union of Islamic Organizations of France, which has ferociously denounced the ban in the past. "It's a question of legality. After all this, despite all this, we must abide by French justice in this country."

Outside the lycée Rabelais, the students were just as emphatic. Hostage-taking is "simply wrong and anti-Islamic," said Sabrina Benyounnes, 17. "It has nothing to do with the law and nothing to do with Islam." Late last week the Iraqi Islamic Army was said to have handed the two hostages over to another insurgent group, which had agreed to deliver them to safety, and the furor over the secularity law was put into a new perspective.

The debate over head scarves in schools has been raging since the late 1980s: the government says the display of religious symbols undermines the mission of public schools to educate without regard to race, religion or gender; Islamic officials counter that the law is really intended to target Muslims. The debate had become so partisan that much of French society was convinced that Muslims put their religious beliefs ahead of allegiance to their country.

But the events of last week changed many minds. Thousands of Muslims and non-Muslims demonstrated against the abductions. Many of the protests included women in head scarves who oppose the secularity law but viewed the Iraqi blackmail attempt as worse. Though perhaps nearly a million Muslim students showed up for class last week, just 240 wore head scarves; 170 agreed to remove them on campus. "The kidnappers ignored the reality of the Muslim community," says Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Mosque of Paris and president of the French Council for the Muslim Religion. "They ignored our strong sense of patriotism toward France."

Muslim leaders demonstrated that patriotism by taking a leading role in the effort to free the hostages. After months of battling the French government over the head-scarf ban, officials from the main Islamic organizations in France were dispatched to Baghdad to attempt to contact the insurgents and negotiate a release. President Jacques Chirac launched an all-out diplomatic push too, sending Foreign Minister Michel Barnier on a whirlwind tour of Arab capitals. King Abdullah II of Jordan and the Qatar Foreign Minister called on the Iraqi Islamic Army — which is believed to have abducted and executed Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni last month after Italy failed to meet demands to pull its troops from Iraq — to free the hostages. Even Hamas, which earlier in the week claimed responsibility for a deadly double bus bombing in Israel, and an aide to Iraq's rebel Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for the men's release. The reporters were on their way to Najaf to cover clashes between al-Sadr's Mahdi army and Iraqi government and American forces when they were captured on Aug. 20.

Over the past five months, more than 100 hostages from nearly 20 countries have been seized in Iraq. In some cases they were freed. Seven truck drivers abducted in July were released by their captors last week after a ransom of $500,000 was paid by their employer, the Kuwait and Gulf Link Transport Company. But a group calling itself the Army of Ansar al-Sunna announced last week that it had executed 12 hostages from Nepal abducted in August, accusing the country's leadership of assisting U.S. forces in Iraq. But French journalists had been largely spared. "The few times French journalists were [apprehended], they always released us because we are French," says Sammy Ketz, Baghdad bureau chief for Agence France-Presse.

The French government tried to parlay its relatively good standing in the Muslim world — a result of its traditional backing for Arab causes and its opposition to the Iraq war — into a positive outcome. "Because of France's distinguished position in rejecting the Anglo-American occupation of Iraq, we appeal to the people who kidnapped the journalists to spare their lives," the Jordanian Islamic Action Front declared in a rare display of unity with the national government. Negotiating a release, though, is a tricky business. "The problem is, the nature and control of these groups are evolving and radicalizing all the time," says French terror expert Roland Jacquard, who has worked as an adviser to the Elysée in the hostage crisis. "Alliances are made and cut over night. It's total chaos."

Will the rapprochement between France's Muslims and the rest of society last? Some say that the government should reward the country's Muslims by making Eid al-Adha, the festival marking the end of the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, a school holiday. And it could be difficult for Islamic leaders to reverse last week's acceptance of the head-scarf ban once the hostage crisis has passed. As the school year begins, both sides still have a lot to learn.

• BRUCE CRUMLEY | Paris
• After French journalists are taken captive in Iraq, France's Muslims rally around the republic