Recently, the French government banned Islamic headscarves, Jewish skullcaps and Christian crosses from their classrooms. As most know, the main purpose of this was to remove the Islamic symbols – banning Jewish and Christian symbols was just done to be fair. Now a minister in the French government has called for something equally as ridiculous: banning “religious” beards and bandannas in the classroom.

This is clearly a method to target Muslim religious dress. Muslim women often wear the bandannas now in replace of the Islamic headscarf. The French, revealing that they are thought police, are in debate over if all beards and bandannas should be banned or just ones that are “religious signs.” “How will teachers identify religious facial hair? Would they reprimand a ‘religious’ bandanna but allow it as a fashion statement?”

I want you to breathe in the marvel of this. It isn’t the United States, who was attacked by Muslim terrorists two years ago, that is banning Muslim religious symbols. It’s France: the most vocal country opposed to the war. The question is really begged: why has the French government become so hostile to the Muslim religion?

An article entitled, “France: Ripe for a Muslim Coup d'Etat?" describes the situation in France.

“President Jacques Chirac says the law's [banning Islamic headscarves] goal is to protect France's secular underpinnings. However, it also is seen as a way to hold back Islamic fundamentalism in the nation's Muslim community, at an estimated 5 million the largest in Western Europe.”

The French aren’t banning Muslim religious signs because they believe “all Muslims are responsible for 9-11.” France is the least likely place to do this. They are doing it to restrain violence and harassment committed by Muslims, which is an ever-growing problem in France.

In the article linked above, it describes some of the things Muslims have been responsible for in France: Muslim radicals insulting and harassing non-Muslim teachers in classrooms; Muslims vandalizing supermarkets that carry products not approved by the Koran; Muslim males harassing and threatening their fellow Muslim females into wearing the Jihab – just to name a few of the things happening there.

So much for those who say that radical Islam only exists in the Middle East.

“Islamists have the clear goal of transforming France into the first Islamist regime of the West.”

Because they are opposed to war, racial profiling, and other effective tools to stop violence and crime, the French have been gutted of any ability to protect their own streets. Their only option has been to ban headscarves and now beards – all in the name of “secularism.”

Indeed, one can easily see those in the United States doing such a thing, except in the United States they are only trying to remove Christian religious signs from the classroom – not Islamic. At least the French are consistent, although at this point they have to be.

Of course, radical Muslims knew what Western country to hit first in their effort to Islamicize the rest of the world. France, being France, was the most vulnerable country to go after. Is France the world’s canary? Are the rest of us watching, like coal miners as the canary falls over and dies, knowing what will happen to us next?

France got itself into this mess by being such a “progressive” and “tolerant” country. Now the rest of us watch while they, like a hippopotamus trying to do ballet, try to get themselves out. And what do you know. The United States's "unilateral" mission in Iraq and the Middle East may very well end up saving them.