PARIS - French companies are increasingly facing religious demands from their employees and need a change in the labour code to be able to reject requests they find unreasonable, an official report said on Thursday.

Most cases concern Muslims seeking time off for prayers or halal food in company cafeterias, but demands have also come from other faith groups as well as workers resentful of colleagues who get special treatment, officials said. In recent years, France has banned religious dress such as Muslim headscarves in state schools and full facial veils in public, but it has no laws covering religious issues that may arise in private companies.

The High Council for Integration (HCI) report suggested a labour code amendment allowing companies "to include in their internal rules clauses about clothing, religious insignia and religious practices in the company." Giving legal force to rules restricting religion in the workplace would ensure equal treatment for all employees and protect companies from discrimination suits based on religion, it added.

"The principles of neutrality and impartiality favour the correct functioning of a company," the report said. "So the absence of any expression of religion, be it a practice or ostentatious insignia, is strongly recommended." Alain Seksig, author of the report, said the proposal would go to Prime Minister Francois Fillon and any change in the labour code would need to be approved by parliament.

HUNDREDS OF CASES

France's legal separation of church and state relegates religion to the private sphere, an approach challenged by a growing Islamic identity among some of the five million Muslims in the country's 65 million population. The report gave no figures for the extent of demands for exceptions linked to religion but said they came up so often in hearings the HCI had conducted that they merited attention.

HCI chairman Patrick Gaubert told journalists his council had learned of hundreds of cases of religious demands in companies in recent years and found they were appearing in many regions around the country.

Peur de l’islam, amalgame islamisme –- islam, théorie du choc des civilisations mais dans le même temps, jamais autant de livres, d’articles, de dossiers spéciaux n’ont été publiés après le 11 Septembre sur une religion mal connue, perçue en Occident comme inconciliable avec les valeurs de la démocratie et de la modernité.

2001-2011 la décennie de l’islam avec la montée de mouvements fondamentalistes extrémistes, l’islamisation grandissante des sociétés musulmanes partout à travers le monde fragilisant les minorités notamment chrétiennes, avec la manifestation en Occident de revendications identitaires ouvrant des débats inédits comme celui en France de l’interdiction du port de la burqa. Mais la fin de cette décennie a contredit les prévisions les plus pessimistes avec le surgissement inattendu des révolutions arabes menées par une jeunesse assoiffée de liberté politique mais aussi de liberté individuelle.

2001-2011 : une décennie difficile pour le monde musulman victime à la fois de la manipulation de l’islam à des fins politiques, de la suspicion à l’égard de leur religion mais aussi de la paralysie de leurs sociétés construites sur un système religieux sclérosé. La décennie 2001-2011 a ainsi mis en lumière l’impérative nécessité de réforme de l’univers musulman quant à la relecture de ses textes fondateurs, à commencer bien sûr par le Coran. Des voix existent dans ce sens.

Le monde musulman marche t-il vers son émancipation? Ce sera une des questions de la table ronde qui réunira :

- Rachid Benzine : islamologue , enseignant à l’Institut d’études politiques d’Aix- en-Provence au sein du master « Religion-société ». Il est l’auteur d’un ouvrage remarqué : « Les nouveaux penseurs de l’islam » Albin Michel. Format poche 2008.

- Tom Heneghan, en charge des religions à l’agence Reuters où il anime un blog « Faithworld ». Tom Heneghan est né à new York, il a reçu le prix Templeton du meilleur journaliste européen d’information religieuse pour ses articles sur l’islam. Tom Heneghan a été notamment en poste à Islamabad.

- Jean-François Bayart : chercheur en géopolitique, spécialiste de l’Afrique sub-saharienne et aujourd’hui de l’islam. Directeur du Ceri (1994-2000), cofondateur de la revue Politique africaine et fondateur de la revue Critique internationale. Jean- François Bayart a publié chez Albin Michel « L’islam républicain : Ankara , Téhéran , Dakar, Paris » (2010) et travaille actuellement sur l’islam républicain dans le contexte des révolutions arabes.

Right after 9/11, Reuters editors asked correspondents with experience in Afghanistan and Pakistan if they wanted to go back there to report. Within days, I flew from Paris to Islamabad, a city I’d left 15 years earlier. Soon, I set up a temporary bureau in Peshawar for several weeks of reporting from there. Among my trips outside of Peshawar was one to Chitral, a mountain town to the north that was close to the Afghan border. One morning, I visited the local mosque and sat down with the teenaged boys gathered in a corner to avoid the disapproving gaze of the imam giving Koran recitation lessons in the main hall. After I introduced myself in Urdu as a journalist from New York, all they wanted to talk about was 9/11. My story is repeated here to show the confused mix of reactions I found.

CHITRAL, Pakistan, Oct 3, 2001 (Reuters) – It was a hot, lazy morning at the Jamia mosque in Chitral, high in Pakistan’s mountainous north, and the teenage boys here to learn the Koran were talking more about Afghanistan than about Allah.

"The Americans will attack Afghanistan and all Muslims will go to fight against them," Mohammad Karim, a sharp-eyed boy with a whispy beard, declared with a certain bravado. "Yes, jihad (holy war)!" others sitting in the circle chimed in, pointing to the Afghan border only 60 km (40 miles) to the west. "Amreeka murdabad! (death to America!)," they murmured. Then something their Koran training never prepared them for happened. An American reporter sat down with them and began asking each one if he really was ready to go fight.

"I’m ready," one piped up, adjusting his prayer cap. "Me, too," another said, grinning. Boys sitting in other circles with teachers stole furtive glances over to the discussion, but then buried their faces back in the Koran. When his turn came, Attaullah hesitated before blurting out, "It’s dangerous there. I don’t want a war. Islam is a peace-loving religion." Slowly, others backpedalled too, despite the efforts of an older boy named Saidullah to end this talk with the infidel and herd the students back to their Koran readings.

"Stop talking to that American!" he shouted in the local Khowar dialect, rather than the Urdu they were speaking. "Doesn’t he know the Jews did it? The Jews destroyed the World Trade Center to get America to start a war against Islam." The youngest boys, maybe about 10 or so, watched in fascination, even if they could not follow the whole discussion in Urdu, Pakistan’s national language. One waif nibbled absentmindedly at a corner of his Koran as he listened to the bigger boys talk war.

These are taliban (Koran students) with a small "t" – poor Muslim boys whiling away their days at the madrassa (religious school) at the local mosque like millions of others around Pakistan who have no other school to go to. Pakistani madrassas have earned a bad name abroad ever since the Afghan Taliban, a movement of fire-and-brimstone fundamentalists, transformed seemingly overnight from studying at hardline Koran schools at refugee camps in this country to seizing power in Kabul in 1996. Their draconian rule, including barring females from work and school and destroying unique Buddhist art from the pre-Islamic past, made them world pariahs even before September 11.

CAMBRIDGE, England (Reuters) - When Henry Kissinger published "Diplomacy," his study of international relations, in 1994, it had no index entries for Islam or religion.

Ten years later, another secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, wrote her own study on world affairs: "The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God and World Affairs." Almost half the book dealt with Muslims and Islam.

The contrast between the two books highlights the way the world changed after 19 Muslims flew hijacked planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field on September 11, 2001.

The attacks brought religion back into public affairs for many western countries where faith had largely faded into the private sphere.

"9/11 showed religion can no longer be ignored," Scott Appleby, a historian at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, told a seminar on religion after September 11 at Cambridge University.

"It is a critical element in many national systems and in radical and extremist movements, but also in movements oriented to human rights, peace-building and civil society," he said.

Since that day, governments and researchers in North America and Europe have turned to sociology, psychology, anthropology and other disciplines trying to understand religiously motivated violence and work out how to prevent it.

"SECULAR MYOPIA"

The results are mixed. Religion's exact role in radicalism is unclear. Psychology and group dynamics may drive extremists more than faith. The Arab Spring could become a democratic option that trumps the jihadist ideology of al Qaeda.

For decades before September 11, policymakers and analysts in western countries exhibited what Appleby called a "secular myopia" about religion in politics. Since faith was supposed to be private, they mostly left it out of their analyses. This happened despite the fact that ultra-conservative religious movements had appeared in many world faiths in those years and were often reflected in political action.

(Reuters) - When the officials guiding Libya's post-Gaddafi transition list their most urgent tasks, they talk about supplying water, paying salaries or exporting oil, and then add something quite different -- fostering reconciliation.

The focus on forgiveness might have seemed out of place at meetings in Paris on Thursday and Friday where world leaders and Libya's new administration discussed problems of democracy, investment and the unblocking of Libyan funds held abroad. But the example of Iraq, which plunged into chaos and bloody strife after the United States-led invasion in 2003, convinced the Libyans planning the transition from dictatorship and war that the country's needs were more than just material. "You cannot build a country if you don't have reconciliation and forgiveness," said Aref Ali Nayed, head of the stabilization team of the National Transitional Council (NTC).

"Reconciliation has been a consistent message from our president and prime minister on, down to our religious leaders and local councils," he told Reuters in an interview.

The stabilization team, about 70 Libyans led by Nayed from Dubai, was so versed in the mistakes following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein that they made sure they didn't repeat one of the more shocking -- the looting of Baghdad's main museum. "I'm happy to report that no museum was looted in Tripoli," said Nayed, stressing the country's cultural heritage had to be protected. "The banks were also safeguarded early on."

WRONG ROAD TO TAKE

In contrast to Iraq, where the U.S. decision to sack all members of Saddam's military and Baath party helped drive men into an armed insurgency, Tripoli will keep almost all Gaddafi-era officials in their posts to ensure continuity. "Destruction and disbandment is the wrong road to take," said Nayed. "It's better to take a conservative approach, even if it's not perfect, and build on it slowly."

The focus on reconciliation comes naturally to Nayed who, apart from being the head of an information technology company and the new NTC ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, is an Islamic theologian active in interfaith dialogues.

CAMBRIDGE, England (Reuters) - Egyptian chemist Ahmed Zewail first proposed building a $2 billion science and technology institute in Cairo 12 years ago, just after he won a Nobel Prize. Then-President Hosni Mubarak promptly approved the plan and awarded Zewail the Order of the Nile, Egypt's highest honor. Within months, the cornerstone was laid in a southern Cairo suburb for a "science city" due to open in five years.

But while Zewail, who has taught at Caltech in California since 1976, went on to collect more awards and honorary doctorates abroad, his pet project got mired in a jungle of bureaucracy and corruption.

His growing popularity in Egypt, where he was touted as a possible presidential candidate after mass protests brought down Mubarak this year, seemed to threaten the officials overseeing the institute, so they blocked it every way they could. "We didn't get anywhere," Zewail told Reuters back in February.

But with revolution now sweeping the Middle East, Egypt's ruling military council and interim civilian government gave the project the green light in June. Supporters hail the decision as a positive step toward a new, more modern Middle East.

"Some people in the old regime were not happy with the limelight focused on Dr Zewail," said Mohammed Ahmed Ghoneim, a professor of urology at Egypt's University of Mansoura and a member of the board of trustees. But now, he noted with satisfaction, "the decision makers have changed."

The project is a "locomotive that will pull the train of scientific research in this country," he said.

The poor state of science in the Middle East, especially in Arab countries, has been widely documented. Only about 0.2 percent of gross domestic product in the region is spent on scientific research, compared to 1.2 percent worldwide. Hardly any Arab universities make it into lists of the world's 500 top universities.

But Arab scientists say the first steps toward change have been taken. A recent Thomson Reuters Global Research Report showed countries in the Arab Middle East, Turkey and Iran more than doubled their output of scientific research papers between the years 2000 and 2009. The progress admittedly started from a low base, rising from less than 2% of world scientific research output to more than 4% at the end of the decade, but the curve is definitely pointing upwards. "The region is taking a growing fraction of an expanding pool," the report said.

"The Arab-Muslim world has improved greatly, even if the universities are still pretty mediocre by and large," said Nidhal Guessoum, an Algerian astrophysicist who teaches at the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. "The educational system in primary and secondary schools is still lagging behind world standards, but relative to what it was 30-50 years ago, there is clearly a huge improvement."

(Reuters) - Middle East Christians are struggling to keep hope alive with Arab Spring democracy movements promising more political freedom but threatening religious strife that could decimate their dwindling ranks. Scenes of Egyptian Muslims and Christians protesting side by side in Cairo's Tahrir Square five months ago marked the high point of the euphoric phase when a new era seemed possible for religious minorities chafing under Islamic majority rule.

Since then, violent attacks on churches by Salafists -- a radical Islamist movement once held in check by the region's now weakened or toppled authoritarian regimes -- have convinced Christians their lot has not really improved and could get worse. "If things don't change for the better, we'll return to what was before, maybe even worse," Coptic Catholic Patriarch of Alexandria Antonios Naguib said at a conference this week in Venice on the Arab Spring and Christian-Muslim relations. "But we hope that will not come about," he told Reuters.

The Chaldean bishop of Aleppo, Antoine Audo, feared the three-month uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad spelled a bleak future for the 850,000 Christians there. "If there is a change of regime," he said, "it's the end of Christianity in Syria. I saw what happened in Iraq."

The uncomfortable reality for the Middle East's Christians, whose communities date back to the first centuries of the faith, is that the authoritarian regimes challenged by the Arab Spring often protected them against any Muslim hostility.

DEPENDENT ON DICTATORS

Apart from Lebanon, where they make up about one-third of the population and wield political power, Christians are a small and vulnerable minority in Arab countries. The next largest group, in Egypt, comprises about 10 percent of the population while Christians in other countries are less than 5 percent of the overall total.

Under Saddam Hussein, about 1.5 million Christians lived safely in Iraq. Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, so many have fled from Islamist militant attacks that their ranks have shrunk to half that size, out of a population of 30 million. Arab dictators led secular regimes not to help minorities but to defend themselves against potential Islamist rivals. Christians had no choice but to depend on their favour.

Reuters) - European Union leaders assured senior religious figures on Monday they would defend the freedom of belief in the Middle East as part of their support for the spread of democracy in the Arab world. European Commission President Jose Barroso told 20 Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist leaders at an annual consultation in Brussels that the EU aimed to promote democracy and human rights.

Several of the Christian representatives present expressed concern about religious freedom in the mostly Muslim Arab world, which has seen more freedom of speech in recent months but also more violent attacks on Christian minorities in some countries.

Barroso said the changes in the Arab world were "of historic proportions" and compared the challenge of anchoring democracy there to the task the EU found in post-communist Europe. "I strongly believe these challenges cannot be met without the active contribution of the religious communities," Barroso told the meeting. Democratic rights included freedom of religion and belief, he stressed.

European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said "there is no contradiction between Islam and democracy. This period of openness must be maintained after the revolutions and religious and other minorities must be respected."

CHRISTIAN CONCERNS

Rotterdam Bishop Adrianus van Luyn, head of the COMECE commission of Roman Catholic bishops conferences in the EU, said the progress and stability the EU sought in the Arab world would depend on an improved relationship between religions there. "This requires freedom for all faiths, an end to the discrimination of smaller religious communities and the participation of moderate forces in the construction of society," he said.

In recent months, Arab Christians and Muslims have both prayed together and clashed, he said. "Religious differences have often been manipulated or even whipped up on purpose," he said. "The role of the different regimes in this is unclear."