We have to be careful not to have a form of militant secularism in our country, which is counter-productive for children we would like to see - adhere - to secularism.

How can a child adhere to school and the notion of secularism when they see their mother rejected from a school outing, stigmatized, left on the sidelines, just because she has a scarf on her head?

Some Muslim students experience secularism as an act of aggression.

We have to reappropriate the concept of laicite (secularism) so we can explain to our young pupils that whatever their faith, they belong to this idea, and they're not excluded. Secularism is not something against them; it protects them.

The fact of leaving one's country, one's family, one's roots, can be painful. My father had already found his place, but for us, for my mother, it was very difficult to get our bearings.

If a big number of young pupils felt secularism was an attack on them, it was because the term had been misused and deformed in the public debate for years by the extreme-right and the right as an attack on Islam. The term had often been misused to point out how Muslims were different to others, and that is clearly problematic.