FRANCE: FRENCH GYNAECOLOGISTS CHALLENGE MOSLEMS TO ACCEPT SECULARISM

Muslims challenged by gynaecologists
By David Rennie, Europe Editor

France's leading gynaecologists have challenged hard-line Muslims to bow to France's secular, "modern" rules of society, and to stop insisting that their wives are examined by female doctors.

The heads of the French National College of Gynaecologists and Obstetricians issued a public declaration, rejecting any moves to undermine the principle that public hospitals are part of a secular state, in which patients must accept being examined by a doctor of the opposite sex.

The move came after a consultant in Paris was punched by a Muslim who was concerned that a male doctor wanted to examine his wife after complications in childbirth. Though incidents of gynaecologists being attacked on religious grounds remain rare, the declaration said Muslim rejection of secular norms appeared to be rising.

The college said: "Thirty years ago, Muslim women came into our hospitals without any alarm at being taken into the care of doctors, most of whom were men, and there were none of these difficulties. Why are things going backwards? It is for Islam to adapt to the liberties that all must possess in a modern state." Xavier Bertrand, France's health minister, wrote to the college offering support and expressing his "indignation" at assaults on doctors.

The French constitutional requirement of "laïcité", the separation of state and religious activities, led to a law banning the wearing of "conspicuous religious symbols" in schools, such as the Muslim headscarf.

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