Controversy over the veil: 30 years of debate on secularism

Laicity. One word, several interpretations. In full controversy over the wearing of the veil, Gerard Collomb, Mayor of Lyon and former Minister of the Interior, asks Emmanuel Macron to speak on this concept systematically brandished. "There are always different sounds that speak, and the one who gives the 'in the end' is always the President of the Republic," he said Sunday, October 20 on FranceInfo. "So indeed, he has to express himself."

On October 11th, Julien Odoul, president of the Rassemblement National (RN) group of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region, asked the president of the region to remove the Islamic veil from a school accompanist present in the regional hemicycle. As soon as posted, the video provokes an uproar. "It's the Republic, and it's secularism!", Hears it hammered, filmed by another member of the audience. The grenade is an umpteenth time unpinned, the controversy revived.

At school, or not at school. Retired by students, but not by their chaperones. Hijab, but not niqab ... Thirty years that the controversies related to the wearing of the Islamic veil revive the eternal debate around secularism. The question of the meaning of the term "laïcité", a principle enshrined in the preamble, of the affair of the headscarf of Creil (Oise) in 1989, to that of the Regional Council of Burgundy Franche-Comté, just ten days ago of the French Constitution, again arises.

With each controversy, his refrain on this famous "laïcité". For thirty years, the many controversies on the wearing of the veil lead to an extension, or a precision, of the legal framework to all the dimensions of the public space. A legal framework that must articulate the concepts of secularity and neutrality with that of freedom of conscience. Not without evil.

🔴 [RT] In the name of our Republican and lay principles, I asked @MarieGuiteDufay to remove the Islamic veil from a school counselor present in the Chamber. After the assassination of our 4 policemen, we can not tolerate this communitarian provocation pic.twitter.com/3WzqDEC3nn

October 1989, three college girls and their headscarves

Leila, Fatima, Samira. It is through these three names that the great debate on secularism is propelled to the forefront of the media and political scene, in October 1989. These three girls, middle school students at the Gabriel Havez College in Creil, in Paris. Oise, stop attending their establishment at the request of the principal, on the grounds that the Islamic veil they wear is a religious mark incompatible with the proper functioning of a school. "Our goal is to limit the excessive exteriorization of any religious or cultural affiliation," he wrote to their parents, urging them to give their children instructions to respect the secular nature of the school. But parents do not disarm, and their daughters are excluded from college.

Several associations, supporting teenage girls, are stepping up to the plate. Among them, SOS Racisme demands the reinstatement of schoolgirls, stating that "under no circumstances can a punishment be imposed on students by virtue of their faith".

Public opinion, media and politics are tearing themselves apart on the subject, and a forum signed by five intellectuals, including Alain Finkielkraut and Élisabeth Badinter, is published in Le Nouvel Observateur to ask Lionel Jospin, then Minister of Education, not to "capitulate" in front of the schoolgirls. The latter will eventually decide. According to him, it is necessary to respect "the secularity of the school which must be a school of tolerance, where one does not display, in a spectacular way or ostentatious, the signs of his religious belonging".

Nearly a month after the start of the affair, while the medico-political wave is at its highest, an agreement is found: Leila, Fatima and Samira will be able to wear their veil as soon as they are out of class, and must remove it before entering. "The school is made to welcome children and not to exclude them", said at the time Lionel Jospin.

In the aftermath of the Creil affair, the Movement Against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples (Mrap) is seized by the brother of a young Tunisian woman in the process of naturalization, refused in class because she wore sail. Cases far from being isolated: if the issue of the wearing of religious symbols is now at the heart of the debate, no legal framework is posed.

In November 1989, the Council of State, seized by Lionel Jospin, says that as long as it does not constitute "an act of pressure, provocation, proselytism or propaganda", the expression of religious beliefs can not be prohibited at school. Teachers decide whether or not to accept the veil in class.

The ban voted in 2004

It was not until 2003, fourteen years after the famous "headscarf affair", that a think-tank was formed on the application of the principle of secularism, on the initiative of the President of the Republic, Jacques Chirac. From this Stasi commission (named after its president, Bernard Stasi, then mediator of the Republic) follows the "law on the Islamic veil", voted on March 15, 2004.

The legal framework is beginning to emerge: although the law allows the wearing of discreet symbols such as religious medals, it prohibits the signs or ostensible outfits manifesting a religious affiliation, such as the veil, the kippah or the big crosses, in public schools, colleges and high schools.

Accompanying mothers, no prohibition provided by law

After children, what about parents? If students in public schools are subject to the 2004 law that prohibits them from wearing the Islamic veil or any other religious sign, the question arises two years later for mothers accompanying school trips. In October 2006, Senator Alima Boumediene-Thierry throws a stone into the pond, denouncing "the abuses committed by some agents of public authority."

"In many cities, mothers wearing headscarves are excluded from extracurricular or extra-curricular activities organized by the schools where their children attend school," she says.

A debate that has since reemerged regularly, reflects the recent controversy. But in 2006, when this question arose for the first time, Christian Estrosi, then Minister Delegate for Spatial Planning, replied that "likened to an occasional employee of the public service", the parent supervising an extracurricular activity was "respect for the principle of neutrality".

That nay, believes the High Authority against discrimination and for equality (Halde). The independent authority points out that "neither the principle of secularism nor the principle of neutrality of the public service is a priori opposed to the fact that mothers of students wearing headscarves collaborate, as parents, in the public service of the public. teaching as part of educational activities and school trips.

The issue of the wearing of the veil by mothers accompanying extracurricular outings interferes like a grain of sand in the mechanism of application of the concept of secularism. In 2012, the circular Chatel requires attendants to respect the principle of neutrality during field trips, but the Council of State recalls a year later that they are not subject to this principle.

The Ministry of National Education has since distanced itself from the circular, although it has not been repealed. Case law, in any case, seems to go in the direction of the Council of State. The latest decision, issued by the administrative court of Amiens, allowed to cancel the directive of the academic inspector who prohibited mothers veiled Méru (Oise) to accompany school trips.

The video of Julien Odoul, on October 11th, put the question of the wearing of religious symbols for school counselors at the heart of the debate. In the Senate, a bill "to ensure the religious neutrality of school chaperones", at the initiative of the LR group, will be examined at the end of the month. For no, as reaffirms the chairman of the LR group in the Senate, Bruno Retailleau, "contrary to what the regional elected representative said RN, the Islamic veil is not prohibited for school chaperones".

Contrary to the assertion of the regional elected representative RN, the Islamic veil is not forbidden for school attendants. A bill will be debated in a few days in the Senate to ban it. #Secularism

Baby-Loup, or the application of the principle of secularism to the private sector

In 2008, it is the employee of a nursery of Yvelines - Baby-Loup crib - which gives birth to a new controversy. Rejected for serious misconduct after refusing to remove her veil, Fatima Afif is accused of insubordination and violation of her obligations.

Discharged in the first instance after seizing the tribunal, the employee then sees her appeal dismissed. However, the judgment will be quashed by the Court of Cassation on the grounds that "the principle of secularism established by Article 1 of the Constitution is not applicable to employees of private employers who do not manage a public service". The highest court of the French judiciary then considers that the dismissal of the employee is "null" because "discriminatory".

Faced with the refusal of the Court of Appeal to follow the opinion of the Court of Cassation, several proposals for laws come into being. Proposals to ban religious symbols in private businesses and child-care facilities, none of which have been successful so far.

Burkini : hygiene problem or secularism ?

From the headscarf business in Creil to the Baby-Loup nursery, to the controversy over mothers accompanying school trips, "the target has grown a lot," says Ismaïl Ferhat, a senior lecturer at the school. University of Picardy, interviewed by AFP.

In August 2016, it is not only the veil that is targeted, but a new garment, so far not widespread in France. The "burkini", contraction of burqa and bikini, then becomes an object of controversy, waking up tensions between religious practices and respect for secularism.

Censed to allow Muslim women to bathe while keeping their body and their head covered, the bathing suit was banned on the beaches of Cannes by decision of the mayor of the city, David Lisnard (LR), which had been followed by the mayors seaside towns of Villeneuve-Loubet (Alpes-Maritimes) and Sisco (Haute-Corse), where violence had broken out between young Corsicans and families of North African descent whose women bathed in burkini.

Since 2010, a law punishes the wearing of the full veil (covering the face) a fine of 150 euros. Legislation that does not apply to the wearing of burkini, which leaves him face uncovered. Yet, violating the municipal decree taken by the mayor of Cannes, several women had to pay fines ranging from 11 to 38 euros. Despite the suspension of these orders by the Council of State, which considered that they were "a serious and obviously illegal violation of fundamental freedoms", several mayors have nevertheless reoffended the following summer season.

Two years later, while the controversy over the burkini resurfaced after an organized civil disobedience operation, in March 2019, in a swimming pool of Grenoble (Isère), an Ifop survey reveals that 66% of the French are in favor of a law prohibiting the burkini port on French beaches, and 73% are for swimming pools.

Today, the frequent ban on burkini is nevertheless mainly justified by reasons of hygiene and safety, leading to the prohibition of the wearing of bathing clothes without having to rely on the principle of secularism.

The running hijab, the other controversy of 2019

If France prepares to end the year on yet another controversy related to the wearing of the veil, it should be remembered that it began in the same conditions. In February 2019, the running hijab that the sports brand Decathlon is about to market causes a real tidal wave on social networks.

Convictions and calls for boycott are multiplying, and the executive is torn on the issue. Some members of Édouard Philippe's government see it as a rupture "with our values", others point to the "French obsession" for the veil and Islam. Divergences that betray the need to set a clear line on the issue.

Six days after the beginning of the controversy, Decathlon decides to go back and renounces marketing the veil in question. End of the episode in France. Teasing abroad. "Once again, France has plunged into ridicule by talking about the clothes that Muslim women can choose to wear or not," writes the correspondent in France for the Washington Post. Drawing a scathing observation, this one ironizes on the delicate subject of secularism in France. "The clothes that Muslim women choose to wear are controversial in France, an officially secular society that bans religious signs and symbols in public life - with the exception, of course, of cribs and Christmas trees that decorate town halls in winter. "

Our customer service has received more than 500 calls and emails since this morning. Our teams in our stores have been insulted and threatened, sometimes physically.
To give you an idea, here is the type of messages we receive: pic.twitter.com/4ZjkRlgm2U

On the subject, the Head of State had simply declared to remain "attached to the philosophy developed by Aristide Briand in 1905", at the origin of the law of separation of the Churches and the State. On October 17, in the face of the growing controversy over the wearing of the veil, Emmanuel Macron called not to "stigmatize" Muslims.

In 2016, before declaring himself a candidate for the presidential election, he had mentioned his vision of secularism: "In our country, everyone is free and must be free everywhere to believe or not to believe," he said. said. "Everyone is free to practice or not a religion, with the level of intensity he desires in his heart, because secularism is a freedom before being a prohibition."