ABSTRACT
A crucial element in dealing with the Muslim headscarf pertains to the legal regulations, that is, the normative setting by which political and everyday practice is strongly influenced – and also vice versa. Legal cultures and traditions vary across Europe. Greece has no general law, administrative decree or other legislation regulating the wearing of headscarves or other religious symbols. The wearing of religious clothes and symbols is explicitly covered by these rules, which were intentionally worded to prohibit the Muslim headscarf. The states applying a prohibitive model of regulation are portrayed, followed by ‘tolerant’ models. In France, the principle of strict state neutrality applies to all public services as well as to courts. In Turkey, students and academics at public or private universities are banned from wearing the headscarf on campus. The different modes of state-church relations, of identifying or not identifying the state with religions/churches, are themselves the effects of historical processes in Europe.
