The French have been beating up on Arabs since the time Napoleon invaded Egypt. They created a special force for the job, the French Foreign Legion. What they didn’t expect was that the Arabs would flock to France in return for the lesson in French culture. As to secularising Moslems, the French think they can do to Islam what they did to the Catholics. After the French Revolution in 1798, religion in France was brought under state control, discouraged as anti-revolutionary, and monastic orders were abolished. Moslems don’t give a fig about French concepts of the secular, laic. Strictly speaking, wearing outwards signs of religious identification such as clothes, images, headgear or any other religious apparel is prohibited in France but you try telling that to a Moslem. Capiche.