. . . Chirac's Yarmulke

What a contrast with the developments in France, where the president of what's left of the Fifth Republic, Jacques Chirac, on Wednesday threw his support behind the idea of banning Jews in France from wearing traditional skullcaps, or yarmulkes, in public schools. "It is not negotiable," the French leader said, according to an Associated Press account of his speech. Mr. Chirac wants also to ban Muslim headscarves and Christian crosses in France's public schools.

Mr. Chirac's claim is that France is doing this to beat back the rise of Muslim fundamentalism and the attacks on Jews that go hand in hand with it. France would not be the first country to try a ban on Muslim headscarves; a similar ban is on the books in Turkey, which is a NATO ally of France and of America and a friend of Israel and has served for decades as an example of how Islam and democracy can coexist.

But the ban on the wearing of skullcaps comes at a time when Jews are under daily, vicious attack in France. To mark the point again, the Jews of France are the ones under attack. They aren't the ones doing the attacking. For Mr. Chirac to move to prohibit Jewish students from adhering to one of their religious practices would be another form of attack.

It's all a logic worthy of Voltaire. If those young Jews would stop wearing those yarmulkes, maybe they won't get beat up. If that works, the French could proceed to banning synagogues. After all, if there were no synagogues, they wouldn't be defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti. Right? Alas, the experience of Malaysia and of many of the Arab lands shows that it is possible to have anti-Semitism without Jews.

That could be France's future if Mr. Chirac's thinking holds sway. A recent survey, reported by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, found that a quarter of France's Jews are considering emigration because of anti-Semitism in the country. The desire to emigrate is no doubt fueled by the sense that the government can't, or won't, protect the Jews of France.