(August 26, 2004) WIDE ANGLE explores the ban on Muslim headscarves in French schools in the town of Dammarie-les-Lys, a racially diverse, working-class community on the outskirts of Paris, where young Muslim women face a choice to obey the ban - or flout it.

This film covers a racially diverse, working-class community on the outskirts of Paris, where Muslim women face a choice to obey a headscarf ban — or flout it.

Since 1989, the appearance of the hijab (Muslim headscarf) in French public schools has opened the most impassioned debate over the role of laïcité (secularism) in French society since the separation of church and state in 1905.

Professor Fawaz Gerges discusses secularism in France with host Mishal Husain.