I've written quite a bit about the French law forbidding students from wearing "visible religious symbols" or clothing. Howard Friedman is reporting that the French government has now decided, after much lobbying, that Sikhs can wear patkas (an under-turban) or headscarves, but not turbans, in school. Meanwhile, no other religious group has gotten such a dispensation from the government. Muslims are forbidden from wearing headscarves or burkas, Jews from wearing yarmulkes and Christians from wearing visible crosses. The current French prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, said several months ago that the government was willing to negotiate over this policy with the Sikhs due to "the specificity of Sikh community, which is very well respected in France." Apparently the Sikhs are more "specific" than Muslims...whatever that could possibly mean. This is discrimination, plain and simple. And it is a violation of multiple human rights treaties that the French government has signed.
This happens too often in european nations (and canada) because they don't seem to have as clear of a freedom of speech as we luckily do. It's a shame because many less economically affluent nations have better protection of speech, Brazil for example.