wfn.org | Breakthrough for Sabbath-keepers in France

[APD_Info_Schweiz@compuserve.com]

August 30, 2000
Adventist Press Service (APD)
Christian B. Schaeffler, Editor-in-chief
CH-4003 Basel, Switzerland
Fax +41-61-261 61 18
APD@stanet.ch
http://www.stanet.ch/APD

Breakthrough for Sabbath-keeping Students in France

Paris, France.   A letter issued by France's 
Minister of Education last week will make it easier 
for students to receive religious exemptions from 
school attendance on Saturdays.  

While affirming that the principal of each school 
still has the discretion to grant or deny requests, 
the letter by National Education Minister Jack Lang 
identifies religious accommodation as a valid reason 
for a principal to grant an exemption.

"This is a significant breakthrough," says Dr. John 
Graz, director of the public affairs and religious 
liberty department of the Seventh-day Adventist 
Church worldwide.  "There has been an ongoing, 
deteriorating situation in France where Adventist 
students have been denied permission to be absent 
from school on Saturday-their day of worship."

Graz says that from 1950 to 1981, France's Minister 
of Education issued an annual letter recommending 
such exemptions "almost as a matter of course."

"Since that time it has became more difficult," Graz 
says. In the past three to four years, dozens of 
Adventist students have failed to gain their 
principals' approval for Saturday absences. An 
Adventist student from Versailles was denied Sabbath 
accommodation and took his case to the European 
Court of Human Rights in 1999. Although the court 
ruled in the student's favour, teachers at his 
school went on strike when the ruling was 
implemented. 

The timing of the minister's letter is significant, 
coming just weeks after France's National Assembly 
adopted a proposed anti-sect law.  The law, which 
prompted expressions of concern from religious and 
human rights groups around the world when it was 
adopted on June 22, targets a list of 172 so-called 
sects. If passed by the Senate, the law would 
provide for the dissolution of religious 
organizations engaging in the poorly defined crime 
of "mental manipulation." Although the Seventh-day  
Adventist Church was not included on the list of 
sects, Graz says the law foreshadows an increasingly 
hostile environment for all religious minorities in 
France.
	
"There is an ideological battle against the 
principles of religious liberty in France," says 
Graz. He says that "widespread secularism," "public 
apathy towards religious freedom issues," and "a 
media-driven fear of small or unknown religious 
groups" has contributed to the current environment.  

Graz says that it is difficult to know why France's 
Ministry of Education released the letter last week 
after stalling on the issue for more than three 
years. International bodies-including the United 
Nations and the U.S. Commission on Religious 
Freedom-expressed concern about France's 
increasingly hostile attitude towards religious 
minorities, which may have played a role, Graz 
believes.  

Jean-Paul Barquon and Jimmy Trujillo, Adventist 
church officials in France, have been credited with 
obtaining the letter. They say that while the 
minister's letter has no binding legal effect, it 
may have "persuasive influence" on the decisions 
made by school principals.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church, which teaches that 
Saturday-the seventh day-is a day of worship and 
rest, has operated in France since the 1880s.  The 
Adventist Church is a long-time proponent of 
religious liberty principles, believing that 
individuals should have the right to follow the 
dictates of conscience in matters of religion and 
worship.

There are currently 30,000 Adventist Christians, 
including 9,700 baptized adult members, worshipping 
in 113 local congregations in France. (258/2000)