France's Socialist government has denied claims that it is preparing to scrap the ban on Islamic headscarves in schools, reports RFI.
Right-wing politicians claimed that the French republic was "in danger" after a newspaper reported suggestions by study groups set up by the government to discuss integrating immigrants into French society.
The "report" - in reality a summary of analyses and proposals by community workers and researchers - is a "total breach with our vision of republican assimilation", thundered Jean-François Copé of the mainstream right UMP after the right-wing newspaper Le Figaro published its version of what was contained in its 300 pages a month after it was submitted to Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault.
"It would no longer be up to immigrants to adopt French culture but to France to abandon its culture, its values, its language, its history and its identity to adapt to the cultures of others," he went on before concluding, "Our republic would be in danger if you ceded to the temptation to implement even the smallest part of a report whose intention is to deconstruct this republic ..."
Copé vowed to defend "secularism" and the "indivisible" French republic, throwing in the ban on the burka in public places and Clovis and Joan of Arc for good measure.
Read more of this report from RFI.