They take an interesting stance on freedom. It is the difference between freedom to and freedom from. Freedom of Religion can be expressed several ways,
1) Freedom to express yourself religiously, brings you down the road withere everyone can pray, preach, and express yourself in a religious fashion... (whether it be carrying a bible, wearing the muslim head scarf, a large t-shirt that reads "I found Christ", or a jacket with a large pentacle emblazoned on the back...), the problem with this technique is that if you are being truful to it, you cannot disallow anything, that includes tshirts with slogans that would be deemed offensive to members of opposing viewpoints or by those who would prefer not to be religious. It also in schools opens your religion up for peer review.
2) Freedom from religious oppression. Going down this path eventually at its extreme leads you to the path that Chirac is going down. I don't personally agree with what he is doing but considering for the moement that france is a very (TM) christian country, typically its politicians in order to be seen as good citizens make a point of being seen going to mass on easter and christmas at least. In order to prevent a highly entreched religious society safe for others of differing beliefs (or no beliefs) to be left alone, one has to remove the ability of people to say "you must not be one of us since you are wearing x or not wearing y"... it is just a different way of looking at protecting its citizens from prejudice.
Now that being said, I personally would prefer 1. The reason is simple, most people don't take it to extremes and I anticipate after several generations things tend would even out to a more tolerant setting, plus it preserves the right to express oneself as you see fit... But as you can see from the above it may not be as clear cut a problem as you would think.
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1) Freedom to express yourself religiously, brings you down the road withere everyone can pray, preach, and express yourself in a religious fashion... (whether it be carrying a bible, wearing the muslim head scarf, a large t-shirt that reads "I found Christ", or a jacket with a large pentacle emblazoned on the back...), the problem with this technique is that if you are being truful to it, you cannot disallow anything, that includes tshirts with slogans that would be deemed offensive to members of opposing viewpoints or by those who would prefer not to be religious. It also in schools opens your religion up for peer review.
2) Freedom from religious oppression. Going down this path eventually at its extreme leads you to the path that Chirac is going down. I don't personally agree with what he is doing but considering for the moement that france is a very (TM) christian country, typically its politicians in order to be seen as good citizens make a point of being seen going to mass on easter and christmas at least. In order to prevent a highly entreched religious society safe for others of differing beliefs (or no beliefs) to be left alone, one has to remove the ability of people to say "you must not be one of us since you are wearing x or not wearing y"... it is just a different way of looking at protecting its citizens from prejudice.
Now that being said, I personally would prefer 1. The reason is simple, most people don't take it to extremes and I anticipate after several generations things tend would even out to a more tolerant setting, plus it preserves the right to express oneself as you see fit... But as you can see from the above it may not be as clear cut a problem as you would think.