OUTLAWING THE VEIL, BANNING THE MUSLIM? RESTRICTING RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN FRANCE (original) (raw)
Related papers
2020
This thesis aims to examine how the March 15th, 2004 law prohibiting all "ostentatious" religious signs and symbols in public schools in France, despite targeting all religious outfits in its labeling, might lead to a significant negative impact on French Muslim populations. This thesis reaches mixed conclusions. This research finds that there was initial extensive media and political focus on the headscarf brought a strongly negative image of the veil, which constituted a trigger for the establishment of the law. I also discuss the ambiguity of the concept of laïcité allowed for an application of the law that is equal yet "indirectly" unfair to French Muslim schoolgirls, and even affecting Muslim women wearing the veil outside of schools. Finally, I find that the subjectivity of the concept of "conspicuousness" on which the 2004 law relies allows for unfairness of application. It does not constitute decisive evidence to draw an answer about whether the...
Keeping Identity at a distance: Explaining France's new legal restrictions on the Islamic headscarf
Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2006
Since 1989, France has endured repeated, contentious debates about the 'Islamic' headscarf. In February 2004, French legislators approved a new law prohibiting students from wearing conspicuous 'religious signs' in public schools. Contrary to some observers' assumptions, this measure was not caused mainly by new efforts to combat terrorism or by pro-Christian prejudice. Explaining France's decision to pass this surprising new legislation requires attention to both historical continuities of French political thinking and the changing French and international context. French republican understandings of citizenship and secularism have long made the headscarves issue peculiarly sensitive in France. However, the new law marks a clear departure from previous French policy. Explaining that rupture requires attention to more immediate social and political factors, most importantly: dissatisfaction with the previous policy; effective mobilization of public sympathy by new feminist groups; concern about rising anti-Semitism; and, somewhat paradoxically, developments in international human rights law.
Why the French Don't Like the Burqa: 1 Laïcité, National Identity and Religious Freedom
This article examines the controversies over and implications of the 2010 French ban on the covering of the face. It carries out an internal critique of the new law and, in a broader European context, questions its compatibility with the European Convention on Human Rights. It argues that the ban has strayed away from the confines of laïcité by encompassing activities and people who in no way emanate from the State. Far from being a flagship of a secularism ʻà la françaiseʼ or a French way of life, the ban -it is argued -goes against entrenched French legal traditions and unduly conflates the concept of national identity at the cost of individual liberties, thus forgetting the true goal of secularism: the conciliation of different beliefs and
The Burka Ban: Divergent Approaches to Freedom of Religion in France and in the USA
2012
Six years after prohibiting the wearing of headscarves by students in public schools, the French state passed a law prohibiting the wearing of burkas in public places. Compared to France, in the United States there is more tolerance for wearing signs of religious affiliation. The difference in legal responses can be understood in reference to a different background understanding of the fundamental presuppositions of republicanism in the two legal and political orders, which also define their conception of secularism. The law enacted in France can be understood in a general frame of a paternalistic state, which is seen as permitted to dictate the proper exercise of their reason to the citizens. In the United States, the dominant understanding of republicanism attempts to reconcile the natural rights philosophy with the conception of the common good. The trust in the use of collective power and the legislature dominant in France can be opposed to the distrust towards the same elements...
The Qur’an, Islamic Veiling, and Laïcité French Law and Islamophobia
The Canopy Forum, 2021
Controversy abounds regarding the immigration and integration of migrants in both Europe and America. Nowhere has the debate been more evident than in France where the legacy of French colonial history brought millions of Muslim immigrants from North Africa and where tens of thousands of Syrian refugees seek refuge. Although the United States under the Trump Administration has sought to reduce or eliminate immigration through the so-called “Muslim ban” (see Executive Order 13780, March 6, 2017; Presidential Proclamation 9645; and Trump v. Hawaii (2018) in which the United States Supreme Court found Trump’s executive orders constitutional), France developed a policy to marginalize and isolate the Muslim community through the doctrine of laïcité. In particular, the French National Assembly passed legislation to ban the wearing of signs and symbols that embody religious identification in French public schools. Although suggesting that the ban applies to all religions, equally prohibiting the Sikh kiske, Jewish kippah, and large Christian crosses as well as the Islamic hijab worn by female children and teenagers, proponents of the law specifically targeted the Muslim community. For American university students, accustomed to the First Amendment’s free exercise clause which bars governmental interference with religious practices, absent evidence of criminal activity, this French statute is nothing less than shocking. The purpose of this paper is to examine the Qur’anic practice of Islamic veiling, the historical origin of French laïcité, the political and legislative context of the educational statute prohibiting the wearing of religious signs and symbols in French public schools, the adjudication of appeals to the European Court of Human Rights, and the reaction of American students.
Indivisibilité, Sécurité, Laïcité: the French ban on the burqa and the niqab
French Politics , 2021
In France, secularism is celebrated in the public sphere. The paper makes general arguments about France's changing identity and specific arguments about the burqa and niqab ban. It explains how French history shaped the ideology of secularism and of public civil religion, and how colonial legacy, immigration, fear of terrorism and security needs have led France to adopt the trinity of indivisibilité, sécurité, laïcité while paying homage to the traditional trinity of liberté, égalité, fraternité. While the motto of the French Revolution is still symbolically and politically important, its practical significance as it has been translated to policy implementation has been eroded. The emergence of the new trinity at the expense of the old one is evident when analyzing the debates concerning cultural policies in France in the face of the Islamic garb, the burqa and the niqab, which are perceived as a challenge to France's national secular raison d'être. The French Republic has attempted to keep public space secular. Is the burqa and niqab ban socially just? Does it reasonably balance the preservation of societal values and freedom of conscience? It is argued that the burqa and niqab ban is neither just nor reasonable in the eyes of the women and girls who wish to wear the Muslim garb, their families and community, and that paternalism that holds that the ban is for the women's own good is a poor, coercive excuse. Claims for paternalistic coercion to protect adult women from their own culture when they do not ask for protection are not sufficiently reasonable to receive vindication.