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Fall/Winter 2006
Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves: Islam, the State and Public Space
by John R. Bowen
Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford (2007) 290 pages
Reviewed by Lauren Zoebelein
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In France, questions about the assimilation
– or lack of it – of the country’s
large and often problematic Muslim
minority are encapsulated in a debate
about whether Muslim women should
be allowed to wear headscarves in state
schools and other public institutions.
The issue erupted in 2003 when two
French Muslim girls – Lilia Levy, 18, and
her sister Alma, 16, – wore Islamic-style
headscarves to their lycée. Such attire
(not veils covering the face but partial
head coverings that hide a woman’s hair)
have taken on powerful symbolic and
political importance in France because
some Muslims have started to wear them
as a sign suggesting their special feeling
of Muslim identity.
The Levy girls were sent home by the
head of their school, but the incident
sparked a national controversy amid
mounting national concern about
France’s Muslim minority in the aftermath
of the U.S.-led overthrow of the
regime in Iraq. The girls’ school was located
in Aubervilliers, one of the suburbs
of Paris that are home to many of the
country’s Muslims and have become the
scene of rioting and violent protests by
young French Muslims complaining that
they are discriminated against. The
headscarf incident, a symptomatic forerunner
of this eruption of social tension,
led to a government decision in 2004 for
state-run schools to ban headscarves
(along with any other “conspicuous” religious
symbols such as large neck crosses
or yarmulkes).
This measure received overwhelming
political and public support in a
country where the separation of church
and state has been enshrined in public
consciousness not just as a law but as
part of a secular political system of “republicanism”
installed by the French
Revolution. Modern France has consistently
prided itself on its “republican”
model of democracy that postulates a
system of citizens living together in a
single society with a strong sense of national
identity in which all people are
treated equally without regard to race,
color or creed. French leaders reject the
“multi-cultural” models they see in the
United States and Britain, which recognize
the separate identities of minorities
and sometimes takes special steps (such
as affirmative action) to foster integration. Interestingly, the issue of Islamic
sartorial restrictions on women has recently
arisen even in Britain, where the
Blair government has publicly suggested
that British Muslim women should not
wear veils, arguing that it is socially divisive
for women to hide their faces when
dealing with government officials, teachers
or other citizens.
John Bowen’s book, Why the French
Don’t Like Headscarves: Islam, the State
and Public Space, focuses on the intellectual
foundations for France’s “republican”
philosophy of the state. This civic
model stems from France’s rules of separation
of church and state adopted in the
19th century in the wake of the French
Revolution. Blandine Kriegel, advisor to
President Jacques Chirac and chairperson
of the high council on integration,
argues that, “In Anglo-Saxon thinking, it
is the concrete individual who has rights;
freedom of conscience is the foundation.
In our tradition these liberties are guaranteed
through political power, which
guarantees a public space that is neutral
with respect to religion.”
The outright ban in France reflects
the intensity of emotion aroused by the
issue. Many members of the Muslim
community in France seem to pride
themselves on being “different’’ – a sort
of rebellion. The government (and most
French people) sees this, as it is often intended,
as a challenge to a French social
model. But some people in France –
mainstream or Muslim – criticize the
French approach as too rigid to deal with
contemporary issues.1 This critical judgment
is shared by this book’s author,
John Bowen, an American anthropologist
who specializes in the assimilation of
minorities and questions of diversity in
the contemporary world.
The scarf issue is intertwined with a
range of French political debates relating
to Muslim extremists and colored by the
global threat of Islamic terrorism.
France, like Britain, has seen a surge of
violence in urban suburbs, much of it
against Muslim women who are persecuted
by their families, often over sexual
freedom. “Islamists,” often operating in
conjunction with foreign-educated
imams who are hostile to European culture,
are viewed by French leaders as
rigid and radical in pursuing political
programs deemed incompatible with
those of French democracy.
Islam – or at least fear about angry
young Muslims’ potential extremism – is
a domestic problem for France, where
Muslims, most from former French
colonies in North Africa, constitute a
growing minority of about 15 percent of
the population. No one knows the exact
number because France’s nominally
color-blind “republicanism” dictates that
no census can collect statistics about ethnic
origin or religion. As a result, many
French people perceive headscarves as a
threat to their own sense of French national
values.
Why do some school-age French
Muslim women want to wear headscarves?
These young women cite diverse
motives: religious obligations, the desire
to maintain a special identity, parental
satisfaction. Muslim women also say
they wear headscarves to show men that
they should be respected because they
are “respectable and respected” women.
Critics contend that these young women
are often being coerced by their male relatives, who want to keep their daughters
and sisters under their authority and
away from Western ideals of personal independence.
Of course, there are Muslims, too,
who dislike the scarves but defend the
right of their co-religionists to wear
them. This more liberal approach is
practiced in Britain. There are no legal
bans on apparel in Britain, and schools
are allowed to create their own dress
code, sometimes integrating headscarves.
Recently, there was a problem
with Sikh men who wanted to hold government
jobs in the police or public
transport and yet continue to wear their
turbans to hide their hair, which they
wear long as an article of religious faith.
British officials came up with a solution
that involved designing turbans that \t
with various official uniforms. This approach,
officials said, is intended to avoid
making minorities feel that they are
being intimidated or discriminated
against on religious grounds. This attitude
is contrary to the French view that
immigrants must assimilate by subscribing
to the language and laws – and in
practice, the cultural norms – that prevail
in France’s civilization.
Bowen concludes that too often
French leaders see integration solely in
terms of a mono-cultural model, meaning
a stress on the need for immigrants
to assimilate and shed or hide any separateness
that they might feel because of
their roots in another culture. Many
Muslims argue that this French ideal is
really an excuse to practice exclusion
against large parts of the nation’s Muslim
community.
In practice, it is hard not to see a
pattern of discrimination. As many observers
have noted, conditions in many
Muslim-populated poor suburbs are too
poor, in terms of housing and schools, to
give young people there a real opportunity
to master French culture.
On a positive note, Bowen reports
that France has many immigrants and
their children, notably Muslims, who see
the strength of “the republic’’ residing in
its promise to accept all those who wish
to become part of France, despite their
differences.
But Bowen – admittedly, approaching
the question from his American perspective
– concluded that the basic social contract
of “republican France” is too narrowly
defined by French leaders. Instead,
he writes, the basic approach should be
broadened to focus on making people feel
the possibilities of sharing a national destiny
despite differences in appearance,
history or religion. In his view, this secular
and republican faith, when properly
understood, allows the nation’s citizens to
explore their differences, rather than hiding
them.
For the moment, the evidence shows
many European countries swinging toward
the French model, particularly
after episodes of deadly violence on their
soil. The once ultra-liberal Netherlands
is an example: it has now adopted proactive
measures to make Muslim immigrants
conform to Dutch cultural norms.
The Blair government, too, is being affected.
It was perhaps ironic that Britain,
with its high tolerance, suffered terrorist
attacks at the hands of home-grown
Muslims while France, with its less welcoming
attitude, has recently been immune
from such attacks. Now Britain
shows signs of turning away from its
“multiculturalism” as a model for British
society. Is this a temporary swing? Or is
it a turning point in Europe?
Lauren Zoebelein is a recent intern at
We European Institute.
1 For a scholarly, extensively documented study of all these issues, see another recent publication: Integrating Islam:
Political and Religious Challenges in Contemporary France by Jonathan Laurence and Justin Vaisse (Brookings Institution
Press, 2006). Its thoughtful foreword is by Olivier Roy, a pre-eminent French specialist.
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