Presently aged 21 and 22, two young women were expelled at the beginning of 1999 from the school of Flers, in l’Orne, France after having refused to remove their headscarves during physical education class, despite repeated requests by their professor. The European Court of Human Rights observed that the purpose of the restriction on the applicants’ right to manifest their religious convictions was to adhere to the requirements of secularism in state schools.
