BRUSSELS: The proposed French law banning the Islamic headscarf and other "conspicuous" religioussymbols in schools and public administrations has brought to the surface the uncomfortable issue of the roleof minorities in European societies. Not all of France's neighbors share the country's passionate commitmentto secularism and the republican ideal of a strict separation between church and state, arguments used by theFrench government to demand the headscarf ban. But many are equally afraid of the veil as a symbol of risingmilitancy among Muslim communities.