Mobile telephones are to be banned from French primary schools, and operators must offer handsets that allow only text messages, under government measures to reduce the health risk to children.
Companies will also be required to supply phones that work only with headsets, to limit the danger to the brain from electromagnetic radiation, Rosalyne Bachelot, the Health Minister, said.
The measures, which emerged from a six-week review of mobile phone and wi-fi radiation, have been attacked as inadequate by campaigners who accuse the State of playing down dangers from phones and transmitter masts. The campaign groups, which walked out on the government consultation on Monday, wanted a ban on mobile use by children under 14 and drastic measures to limit the power and location of masts. The Government refused to act against masts, citing the absence of any evidence that they affected human or animal health. Experiments are to be carried out in three cities to test the feasibility of reducing the power of transmissions.
The Government will limit children’s use of mobile phones pending the results of international and French studies in the autumn. The Education Ministry is to issue a decree on the primary school ban. At the moment most French schools bar the use of mobile phones only in classrooms. The Government and telephone operators have been thrown on the defensive by hundreds of groups around the country that are demanding the removal of phone masts near schools, hospitals and homes.
Radiation is commonly blamed for insomnia, headaches, fatigue and cancer. Libraries and other public spaces in several cities have switched off wi-fi internet after reports that the radio waves were harmful.
News Source :- http://www.timesonline.co.uk/
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