MOSCOW, Aug 29 (AFP) - A Russian Orthodox Church leader on Sunday criticised a French decision to ban Islamic headscarves from public schools, as Paris faced an ultimatum set by hostage-takers in Iraq to rescind the ban.
Father Vsevolod Chaplin described the French ban on conspicuous religious insignia as a "desperate act on behalf of secular civilisation, which has lost its bearings and is defenceless faced with stronger conceptions of the world".
"The time when the state decided which clothes people should wear should belongs to the past," the number two of the Patriarchy's external relations department told Moscow's Echo radio.
A group of Islamic militants in Iraq announced late Saturday that it had kidnapped two French journalists and gave Paris 48 hours to rescind its ban on the Islamic headscarf in state schools, according to Al-Jazeera television.
The French ban, which applies to headscarves, Jewish scullcaps and large Christian crosses, is due to come into effect with the start of the academic year this week.
Chaplin described the ban as an example of "the extreme measures" which people resorted to in defence of "a strongly secular Western liberal society".
Al-Jazeera late Saturday released video footage of journalists Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, saying they were being held by a group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq, which has already claimed the execution of an Italian journalist.