France to open first Islamic high school

Paul Michaud, Contributor, Paris

Although France has a significant Islamic population that goes back to the start of its own history, the French Muslim community will be getting its own Islamic high school -- the Ecole Averroes -- only next year.

The school will start enrolling students in January and start offering courses in September, at the same time as traditional government-operated French schools.

Named after the celebrated philosopher whose writings on Aristotelian metaphysics had such an enormous impact on the thought of Christian France in the Middle Ages -- the school will occupy a full floor of a building in Lille.

The building itself has served as the headquarters of the Ligue Islamique du Nord (the Muslim League of the North), because the city is an important regional center of northern France, not far from the border with Belgium.

Makhlouf Mameche -- who has fought for so many years to establish the school and who will quite appropriately become Averroes' first director -- said an Islamic high school for France was a dire necessity.

It is a way of telling the French that the country's Islamic community is able to establish its own educational institutions, just like French Catholics who over the years have given France an important educational infrastructure and have attracted students from other religions, which is something Mameche hopes to do.

Mameche said his school would be "quite open" and nothing would be imposed upon students. Female students would not be required to wear the Islamic veil, but they would be welcome to do so if they chose.

"Besides offering the identical curriculum offered by traditional French schools of the same educational level," added Mameche, "we will also provide special instruction in Islamic civilization and religion."

Just like the Catholics and other religious communities who have officially recognized schools in France, Mameche said the Ecole Averroes expected to sign a contract with the French government to be able to award legitimate and recognized degrees.

It will take five years before the school is able to receive certification, allowing the school to sign a contrat d'association with the government. Once the school has signed the contract, it will be eligible to receive financial assistance from the government.

Mameche said that for the moment he had found private financing for the school, as much as 137,000 euros (US$137,000) annually over the next five years. Although he declined to mention the donor, Mameche said they would not be involved in running the school.

"We've turned down generous offers from foreign benefactors whose money always turns out to be conditional. We want to run Ecole Averroes just like other traditional French schools, offering the best education for our children," he said.

There are so many preliminary applications being submitted by local children that Ecole Averroes will be obliged to preselect candidates and create a shortlist, from which it will make a final choice of those children who will become part of Ecole Averroes' first class.

"We fully expect to take only the best candidates," said Mameche, who also promised that the final criteria he used "will have nothing to do with religion".