The French system is: We are one republic and we must follow some principles which fonded this republic. Through these ones there is the fact that religion is a private thing that you don't have to practice publicly or following certain conditions.
I don't say I approve the system, I tried to describe it. France is maybe the most secular country of the world.
Outside of this, I agree with the description that has done GMantis on Western Europe situation with immigration. I just would add that it is not so simple. Muslim do not retain their culture by principle.
In France, Muslim immigrations is from the 60's, workers have been invited for the hard works of building French new facilities and then to work in it. They stayed in the country, their wife joined them and they had children, born in France.
But then, French society had a lot of problem to integrate them, not because of them, because of the society. This one didn't really want of these young peoples, they were kept in their ghettos, wasn't really accepted in jobs, in finding a place to live out of their ghettos, in entertaining themselves, refused at nightclubs, this was an heavy trend in France. And so this young peoples, grew in their ghettos, made children who grow with the feeling that nobody wanted of their families, nor of them.
And then? They take the easy way of rejecting the society which didn't and doesn't want of them and of their family, for some it goes until the hate legitimated by some salafist preachers which are more and more numerous in french poor suburbs. These young peoples try to find repairs and pride of themselves and of their community. And lot of them say more "Vive le Maroc" or "Vive l'Algérie" than "Vive la France", even if they don't really care about the situation of this countries, they just want to say they don't like their real country, France, which didn't like them, so, that's normal.
Then, for the more recent immigrants in Western Europe, sure they prefer to keep their culture, they need identity repairs, immigration seems to be a hard thing, especially if imposed by life conditions.
The solution? Clearly, I don't have it. I understand that a society want to keep repairs and that it want immigrants to adapt them to these ones, but I also like tolerance. I don't know what to think about it but I still find this French decision strange...
