A day after French President Jacques Chirac arrived in India, Sikh school children wearing turbans held a protest march against France's [Images] ban on the distinct headdress at state schools.

Led by religious leader Manjit Singh, they carried placards urging the visiting French President to exempt Sikh pupils in France from the ban.

France banned religious symbols such as Sikh turbans and Muslim headscarves in state schools in 2004 in a move aimed at checking what officials said was the rising influence of radical Islam among France's large Muslim population.

"This march does not just challenge a law but the Western way of thinking," Singh, a senior member of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee and head of the Shiromani Akali Dal (Panthak), said.

The school children, who walked from Gurdwara Bangla Sahib to the Parliament Street, later submitted a memorandum with the French Embassy also.

Several Sikh pupils in France have been expelled from school for breaking the law.

Text: Press Trust of India

Photograph: Manan Vatsyayana/AFP/Getty Images