29 Sep 2008, 2028 hrs IST,PTI
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MARSEILLES: Insisting that France is not discriminating against Sikhs wearing turbans, President Nicholas Sarkozy on Monday said that he expects the community to respect the customs and traditions of the French people.
"We respect their traditions and customs and I hope they also respect France's rules," Sarkozy said in a joint interaction with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who also belongs to the Sikh community, after the India-EU summit.
"We respect Sikhs, their customs, their traditions. They are most welcome to France. But we have rules concerning the neutrality of the civil servants, rules concerning secularism and these rules don't apply to just Sikhs, they apply to the Muslims, they apply to all on the territory of the French Republic." Sarkozy said.
France in 2004 had imposed a ban under which Sikh students were prohibited from wearing turbans to schools, a decision that has incurred world-wide protests from the community.
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