with the socio-economic status of parents providing a major factor in determining the length and level of education (EUMC 2004: 46).
Anti-Terrorism and Security Laws The fight against terrorism has played a key role in debates about Islam in France. Public officials often linked domestic policies with fears of international Islamic terrorism. Implicitly, if not explicitly, the institutionalisation of Islam, which culminated in the establishment of the CFM, as well as the wider project of constituting a “French Islam” (un islam de France), have been related to domestic security concerns. A recent survey conducted for the British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on “Counter-Terrorism Legislation and Practice” outlines in detail the French anti-terrorist apparatus. Terrorist acts are a criminal offence in France by virtue of articles 421-1 and seq. of the Penal Code. This was amended in Law 96-647 of 22 July, 1996. Acts of terrorism are defined as offences which are committed intentionally and undertaken by an individual or collective with the purpose of seriously disturbing the public order through terror or intimidation. These can be wilful attacks on life and the physical integrity of persons, the production or keeping or sale of explosive devices and weapons, financing of terrorist organisations and money-laundering operations. Since 1986 the Trial Court of Paris has a section of prosecutors and investigating magistrates who specialise in cases of terrorism. This has led to the establishment of a specialised and expert corps of counter-terrorism magistrates, facilitating networking between the investigating magistrates and the domestic French intelligence agency, the Direction de la surveillance du territoire (DST). Following the terrorist attacks of the mid1990s Law Number 96-647 of 22 July, 1996 stipulated that conspiracy to commit terrorist acts amounts to the act itself. Building on the codification of broader criminal conspiracy offences, this allows for investigating potential terrorist activity through the targeting of logistics networks that support terrorists. Furthermore, it provides the possibility for removing the French nationality of any person who has acquired it within the previous ten years and who has subsequently been convicted of an act of terrorism. In addition, France has signed a number of international treaties such as the European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism, the International Convention
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