Just when Canada recently allowed Sikhs to carry daggers in school, France declared yesterday that Sikhs must take off their turbans when taking their driver's license photos. Associated Press reports:

France Says Sikhs Must Remove Turbans

France's highest administrative body ruled Monday that Sikhs must remove their turbans for driver's license photos, calling it a question of public security and not a restriction on freedom of religion.

The Council of State's ruling reversed its own decision in December in favor of Shingara Mann Singh, a French citizen who refused to take off his turban for a license photo in 2004. The case gained attention amid tensions between France's religious minorities and the government over a law banning conspicuous religious signs in public schools, aimed at Islamic headscarves.

For Sikhs, the turban is an article of faith. Singh took his case to the Council of State, which ruled in December that he could wear his turban because a ban on covering the head in official photos came from the Interior Ministry, not the Transport Ministry. The council said a Transport Ministry order concerning identity photos was not precise enough to apply to Singh's license.

The following day, the Transport Ministry changed its order, specifically saying that the Interior Ministry ban was applicable on driver's licenses.The case went back to the Council of State, which ruled Monday that Singh must take his turban off for the photo. The council said the requirement did not trample on religious freedoms but was necessary for "the interests of public security and protection of order."

Singh's lawyer, Patrice Spinosi, has said they could take the case to other tribunals, such as the European Court of Human Rights. The small, quiet Sikh community in France began making its voice heard after France banned religious signs in public schools in 2004, which forced Sikh students to remove turbans or be expelled.

     A few years ago, a Florida judge rejected a Muslim woman's request to have her face covered by a veil in the photograph on her state driver's license. The ruling claimed that there are people who could use religious customs to execute activities that would threaten lives. Two years ago, France introduced a bill that would ban religious symbols in public schools, including the wearing of head scarves by some Muslim women: this law is necessary to protect France's secular culture.  

 Expatica.com gives us this chilling report:

'Barbarian' kidnap gang lured victims with sex

PARIS, Feb 17, 2006 (AFP) - French police were hunting Friday for the mastermind of a kidnapping ring suspected of using sexual advances to lure a young man to his death, following the arrest of a dozen gang members south of Paris.

     They are suspected of abducting a 23-year-old Parisian, Ilan Halimi, and subjecting him to horrific tortures before dumping his naked and mutilated body in the street near a suburban train station on Monday. Handcuffed, gagged and covered in burns and torture marks, he died on the way to hospital. Twelve suspects, aged 17 to 32, were held in overnight raids in the south Paris suburbs, most on a housing estate in Bagneux, while a 13th was arrested in Belgium, Paris

Police are still hunting for the gang's suspected leader, a 26-year-old black man named Youssef Fofana, (photo left) who nicknames himself "Brain of Barbarians" and is described as "extremely dangerous". Halimi went missing in late January after agreeing to a date with an unknown woman who approached him at his workplace, in a Jewish neighbourhood of Paris.

Using beautiful women as 'bait', the gang are thought to have attempted six or seven other botched kidnappings, Marin said. Halimi's abduction has sent a shockwave through France's Jewish community, since Halimi and several other targets were Jewish, leading France's Jewish council, the CRIF, to issue an appeal for calm on Friday. Some 500 people attended the young man's funeral at a Jewish cemetery in Paris on Friday.

     But the Paris prosecutor said there was "so far no evidence of an anti-Semitic motive" and that the gang was apparently driven by money. Text messages and emails showing pictures of him, captive and blindfolded, had been sent to his family along with demands for a 400,000-euro ransom. According to the prosecutor, however, Halimi was tortured in scenes reminiscent of the abuse of prisoners at Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib jail. Held prisoner in a Bagneux apartment, "naked, with his face covered," he was abused in "a repetition of scenes seen elsewhere", the prosecutor said.

     Marin also said the ringleader had repeated his ransom demands in a telephone call to Halimi's family on Thursday, days after the young man's body was found, threatening them with death unless they paid. Police quoted in the French press had questioned whether money was the real motive, one saying the gang appeared to playing a sadistic 'game'. The gang had lowered its ransom demands from EUR 400,000 to 100,000 then dropping them as low as EUR 5,000, before it eventually broke off contact.

     The breakthrough in the investigation came on Thursday, when a young blonde woman turned herself in to police, saying she had recognised herself in a computer-generated portrait of a suspect circulated to the press. She confirmed that she had been asked to entice two young men, without knowing what they risked, but had failed to draw them in. The young women, who has also been detained, agreed to lead police to the other gang members. The gang's method of using sex to lure in kidnap victims mirrors the plot of a 1990s French film, 'L'Appat' (The Bait).

Copyright AFP

     Read in French.

     What was the Paris prosecutor thinking when he said that there was "so far no evidence of an anti-Semitic motive" and that the gang was apparently driven by money? Youssef Fofana seems like one of those disgruntled Muslim youths who probably also organized a string of violent riots in the outskirts of Paris last Fall. If money was what he wanted, then he could have kidnapped and tortured a wealthy Arab or fellow Muslim. Or perhaps an haut-bourgeois Asian department store owner. But no! He had to kidnap, torture and kill a Jew. So it was not really about the money as much as it was the Islamic goal of killing Jews.