Excluding Muslim Women:

From Hijab to Niqab,

from School to Public Space
Sylvie Tissot

On July 13, 2010, French deputies voted in favor of a law

that forbids women from wearing the integral veil (or niqab, an outfit hiding
the entire face except the eyes) in public spaces. If women do so, the police will
be able to arrest them and fine them or, alternatively, force them to attend a program aimed at teaching them citizenship. Like many people, President Nicolas
Sarkozy used the wrong word to state clearly that the burkha is not compatible
with the values of the French Republic1 (the burkha, unlike the niqab, has a
grid for the eyes, unlike the niqab targeted by the law). The countrys top juridical body, the Conseil dtat, has questioned the constitutional validity of the law,
and many jurists have warned that the European Court of Human Rights will very
likely overturn it. Yet the government has dismissed all legally grounded arguments, and the conservative parliamentary majority voted for the law, which was
also approved by a few prominent socialist and communist leaders.
Beyond the affairs legal dimension is another quite striking aspect: the huge
gap between what politicians and commentators suddenly insist is a serious problem in need of urgent action and the evidence for such a claim. This discrepancy
was already evident in 2004, when the government banned pupils from wearing
a simple hijab (a religious head covering of any kind) in public high schools,
even though teachers complaints about this issue had dropped from 300 in 1994
Many thanks to Todd Shepard and Nolle Dupuy for their careful reading of this article. All
translations from French to English are mine.
1. Declaration of President Sarkozys spokesperson, April 21, 2010.

Public Culture 23:1

doi

10.1215/08992363-2010-014

Copyright 2011 by Duke University Press

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Public Culture

to 150 in 2003.2 It was unclear why there was a pressing need to pass a national
law to address this declining number of disputes, which were, for the most part,
settled locally. Similarly, in June 2009, a parliamentary commission decided to
investigate the problem of women wearing the niqab, at a time when, according
to official estimates, somewhere between a few hundred to two thousand inhabitants (out of 64 million) wore them. The commissions head deputy even declared
it a marginal phenomenon; nonetheless, he urged the government to take action
to free these women from the willful servitude they indulged in and to fight
the talibans living in our neighborhoods.3 The hearings exposed a striking
double standard in how people were treated. The deputies expressions of respect
for intellectuals and feminists eager to explain their anxieties about religious fundamentalism were in sharp contrast to the open suspicion directed at the few
individuals who questioned what the commission had decided ahead of time: the
burkha was a problem that required immediate action.
How is it that leading political figures were able to sideline legal considerations
and the basic rules of democratic debate? Why, in turn, did this legislation evoke
so little public protest? In 2004 a range of community organizations, activists,
and intellectuals denounced the proposal to exclude from school pupils wearing
headscarves. They staged rallies and demonstrations; published op-eds, analyses,
and books; and protested ardently against the repressive redefinition of French
secularism. Yet aside from a few isolated petitions, no action was taken in 2010,
despite the new measures obvious threats to human rights: not only to freedom of
speech and of religious beliefs but also to womens right to access public spaces.
Since 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan, a rhetoric that relies on feminist arguments has emerged as central to the growing stigmatization of racialized populations in Western countries and notably of Muslim or Arab people. Public debates have contributed to fixing a boundary between a West committed
to equality between men and women and an East utterly opposed to it and
thus potentially fertile ground for religious fanaticism and terrorism. Although
this rhetoric has taken root in numerous countries, it is worth focusing on how
it is being used in France. Two related incidents that took place several weeks
before the deputies voted for the law are telling: the police arrested and fined two
women; their crime was driving a car while wearing niqabs, hence presenting a
safety risk because the drivers niqab could potentially obscure her vision (and
2. Pierre Tevanian, Le voile mdiatique: Un faux dbat; Laffaire du foulard islamique (Paris:
Raisons dAgir), 2324.
3. Andr Grin, interview by Jean-Pierre Elkabbach, Linterview de 8h20, Europe 1, January
14, 2010.
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supposedly endanger traffic). After the media revealed that the husband of one of
these women was polygamous, the minister of justice suggested that the government deprive him of his French citizenship4a punishment normally applied
only to individuals deemed to pose a serious threat to the country. In France, the
new orientalism is moving beyond shaping and producing representations: it
is now materializing in judicial and repressive measures targeted at a racialized
population.
The first explanation of how this situation is happening in France relates to
the way that, since 2000, feminism has entered public debates. French governments had long been reluctant to embrace a forthright stand in favor of women
and womens rightsinfluenced, in part, by the idea that, because the country
had a unique tradition of libertinism, power relations between men and women
were less conflictual. Yet since the early 2000s, not only activists but also the
media, politicians, and intellectuals have repeatedly invoked feminism as a crucial ground of their arguments. For example, the 2003 death by immolation of a
young woman in an impoverished area on the outskirts of Paris at the hands of
her boyfriend (both of Maghrebi origin) prompted a widely relayed public outcry
and mobilization in the name of protecting women from male violence. The same
year witnessed the creation of the organization Ni Putes Ni Soumises (Neither
Whores Nor Submissives), which benefited from this intense media coverage. A
particularity of the new mainstream feminism is that it rarely points to a structural sexism in France but prefers instead to focus on the sexism of one group of
men, racialized men. Thus, since 2003, the media have regularly devoted articles
to news items involving racialized men and/or women, although rarely discussed
are statistics showing that domestic violence takes place in all socioeconomic and
ethnic groups.
The new focus on masculine domination was both restricted in scope and targeted within noticeably geographic boundaries. The newly mainstream feminism
relies on very peculiar images of women and men. Women of foreign origin, specifically those living in housing projects (cits)and, more specifically, Muslim
4. In July 2010, Sarkozy revealed that he intended to apply the same sanction to certain delinquents of foreign origin. The same month he also targeted the Rom, arguing that this communitys
behaviors caused problems and calling for deportations and the dismantlement of their camps. All
these projects are clearly unconstitutional and the government knows it: a vast majority of Rom are
French, and the Romanian Rom are European citizens. This attitude reveals how the governments
stigmatization of foreigners and people of foreign origin ignores any respect for constitutional frame.
Note that these developments suggest that the strategy deployed for enacting the law on the niqab
marked a turning point.
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womenhave replaced the traditional housewife as the symbol of female subservience. Now public authorities claim to offer these female victims the means to
escape the oppressive culture of cits and to emancipate themselves. A widespread
consensus on this territorial definition of sexism took hold, in part, because, in the
1990s, references to quartiers sensibles (literally, at-risk neighborhoods) became
the most accepted way to analyze Frances social questions. Of course, the fact
that riot locations could be mapped onto certain spaces also attracted attention
to those spaces. But this spatial focus is not just self-evident: it conveys a peculiar vision. References to quartiers sensibles work to designate such spaces as at
once homogenous and utterly unique, totally separate and distinct from the rest
of the society. As a consequence, the structural phenomena that people, many of
them immigrants, deal with in impoverished neighborhoods on the outskirts of
large cities, notably racial discrimination, housing policies, and unemployment,
remain unquestioned. From this spatial perspective, sexism in the city outskirts
is a phenomenon that results from the particularities of the city outskirts. Thus in
2005, in commenting on the case of a woman of Maghrebi origin who had been
attacked by a Pakistani man on the outskirts of Paris, Sarkozy expressed a deep
commitment to the principle of equality between men and women. This principle,
he argued, is the foundation of the laws of the republic, according to which, he
contended, women are free.5 The violation of this principle was blamed on a
violent culture that came from outside France.
The focus on racialized women as the only victims of sexism in France has
logically nurtured a vision of women wearing the niqab as the most outrageous
expression of masculine domination, a situation that cannot be compared with
any other behaviors and attire. Thus, to many, the condemnation of the niqab is
just common sense. But how could such condemnation result in a law excluding
women who wear the niqab from public spaces? If these women are so alienated,
why should they be punished? While in 2004 the issue of repression was rarely
raised regarding pupils, who are minors and thus expected to be subject to adult
authorities, the same should not have been the case for women wearing the full
veil, since they are adults. Yet far from considering these women as such, the
defenders of the law have oscillated between two visions, both of which deny
the women status as citizens. On the one hand, they tend to see these women as
alienated individuals who should be savedagainst their will if necessary: a
vision epitomized in the notion of willful servitude. On the other hand, to several members of the parliamentary commission and various media commentators,
5. Interview by Arlette Chabot on A vous de juger, France 2 Channel, November 30, 2006.
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they represent a threat to French society, albeit a masked one. Women in niqab
are the Trojan horse of extremist Islamism. In this view, the cloth hides not only
a face but secret intentions as well: to attack secularism and impose Islamic rule.
Totally deprived of free will, or, on the contrary, suspected of having superpowers, these women are denied the condition of citizens, much less that of human
beings. This is why, in public debates, the impact of the law on the women themselves has rarely been taken into account. For example, because the women are
highly religious, most of them now might well stay in the domestic sphere rather
go outside the home without covering themselves. In the debates, this possible
relegation behind walls was ignored; the issue at stake was saving the country
from the rise of fanaticism.
Excluding women from public space to save them was not the only paradox
commentators noticed.6 Some have also pointed to the striking limits of the governments commitment to equality between men and women. While the situation
of a few hundred individuals became a national emergency, the government has
still to implement its plan against domestic violence. The few feminist groups
that oppose the law also see a real double standard in the governments attitude.
In their view, it has shown no concern for other practicesall more widespread
than the wearing of the niqab and highly visible in the public spherethat could
also be considered symbols of women deeply alienated by the workings of patriarchy: the use of cosmetics and diet products or the wearing of high-heeled shoes
and miniskirts.
Faced with such criticism, the laws defenders progressively shifted from the
image of alienated women in need of saving to a more threatening vision based
on the specter of religious fundamentalism. Even though the parliamentary commission proved unable to identify a specific link among wearing the burkha or
niqab, Salafist movements, and terrorism, the deputies have repeatedly invoked
the issues of public order and safety, which supposedly require uncovered
faces. This position has reinforced the idea of fully veiled women as a security
threat and has been stated quite explicitly. An expression that the head of the parliamentary commission used is telling: rather than represent a danger, the niqab
is the tip of the iceberg, an iceberg that, in his view, threatens French society.7
6. See, for instance, the declaration of the French section of Amnesty International, published on
Amnesty Internationals Web site on July 13, 2010 (www.amnesty.org/fr/news-a nd-updates/france
-votes-ban-full-face-veils-2010-07-13); and Jacques Rancire, Modeste proposition pour le bien des
victimes, Libration, January 11, 2010.
7. Andr Grin, interview by Jean-Pierre Elkabbach, Linterview de 8h20, Europe 1, January 14,
2010.
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As in the war on terrorism waged in the United States or the United Kingdom, a
logic of prevention tends to prevail to the detriment of human rights.
To understand the priority given to repression, it is necessary to grasp the atmosphere of Islamophobia that has developed in France over the past years. Here
is the second major factor that explains the consensus on the danger of niqab.
Islamophobic feelings have deep historical roots in France and are linked to longstanding hostility toward Muslims in general and, more specifically, toward the
specter of Algeria. But the debates about immigration and national identity
have played a major role in how Islam has come to embody the interior enemy.
One of Sarkozys first measures after being elected in 2007 was to create the controversial Ministry of Immigration and National Identity, thus implying both that
French identity is a clear, homogeneous entity needing protection and that immigrants have still to prove worthy of that identity. In 2009 the government decided
to start a countrywide debate, based on the same premises, about what being
French means. Prefects were asked to organize public discussions in every city.
Demeaning public declarations by members of the government fully discredited
the undertaking: one urged Muslim youth not to talk slang or wear their caps
backward; another, filmed by a journalist, joked to a member of his conservative party that one Arab is fine, but when there are several, problems arise (a
court eventually condemned him for that remark, but he was not forced to resign).
These incidents led to public outcry, causing the debate on national identity to
fail. The government buried it but then turned its attention, almost immediately,
to the debate over the burkha.
Clearly, such debates reveal an inability to address other problems such as the
financial crisis, the rising unemployment rate, and widening inequalities. To brandish the threat of Islam and to emphasize cleavages between real French and
others only work to obscure socioeconomic divisions and help fuel the anger of
white working-class people toward immigrants. But this debate is not only about
diversion. This debate, and its continuation through the discussion of the burkha,
is also part of an ideological attempt to promote a French identity that works,
at the same time, to create and institutionalize a category of others. Sarkozys
presidency epitomizes this phenomenon, because it is the first time that this goal
has been so clearly and emphatically embraced. But the obsession with national
identity, far from being new, appears to be a broader response to the declining
cultural, economic, and political role of France. References to an eternal set of
values provide comforting answers to identity questions. At the same time, what
is particular about recent assertions of French identity is how Islam has become
so crucial to definitions of the other. Although the titles of countless TV pro44

grams and weekly newspapers offer a variety of (often contradictory) answers,

they reveal what everyone agrees is the one issue that needs to be addressed in any
discussion of French problems: the problem of Islam.
If left-wing parties and organizations all condemned the national identity
operation, then why have they been so silent about a law that obviously participates in that debate? First, part of the Left, and more particularly the Socialist
Party, has accepted the idea that the burkha or niqab is first and foremost a social
problem (rather than an individual right). The Socialist Party did not support
the law, but it failed to question the terms of debate and thus asked for a less
repressive and more educative approach toward women whose behavior it both
condemned and saw as opposed to French culture. This attitude reveals how
the government succeeded in not only passing a law but also reinforcing the division between us and them. This partial success results from the ambiguous
attitude of the Socialist Party (but also more left-leaning groups) toward racial
issues in France. For many progressive activists and leaders, cultural diversity
and multiculturalism are not legitimate issues at all or are merely secondary ones.
They prioritize the fight against the dismantlement of the welfare state; as a consequence, they tend to urge the Left to unite on socioeconomic issues and not delve
into divisive questions or attempt to address the complex links between class and
race in France. Thus connecting the fate of Muslim women to traditional left-wing
causes is extremely difficult. At the same time, while women and, indeed, the
Muslim population now make up a large percentage of the French working class,
the definition of the working class as white and male continues to prevail, hindering the Lefts ability to address the symbolic and political integration of racialized
populations. Finally, many progressive leaders are deeply hostile to religion in
France. They consider all spiritual faith as antinomic to emancipation and social
rights and therefore pay no attention to the governments use of Islam to advance
its ideological undertaking.
During the parliamentary hearings on the burkha, Ni Putes Ni Soumisess
president (whose predecessor Sarkozy appointed to his administration) declared
that, unlike women wearing the full veil, she was not ashamed of her body. As
an illustration, she dramatically took off her jacket to reveal her naked shoulders. It is strange to see a woman undress in front of a panel of men to prove her
feminist commitment. But even more incredible was the declaration she made
about France, claiming that it was the only country able to solve the problem of
the burkha.8 Her whole talk fiercely encouraged the commissions undertaking,
8. Hearing of Sihem Habchi, before the Mission dinformation sur la pratique du port du voile
integral sur le territoire national, September 9, 2009.
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and she came out in favor of a repressive law. The deputies burst into applause
when she was finished, her praise of France no doubt having contributed to their
contentment. Yet is it not agreeable to hear a myth one wants to believe, that is,
that France has had and still has a leading role in promoting human rights worldwide? Many commentators have questioned this rosy picture of French history.
But the more important point, I suggest, is that if France does play a leading role,
it might not be such a glorious one. France did not introduce the clash of civilizations rhetoric, but its public authorities might well have pioneered a new form of
exclusionary practice targeting racialized populations on the basis of religion and
gender. Discussions on the problem of the burkha began in France and are now
spreading out to many other European countries . . .

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