The ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) had initially foreseen a law criminalizing the facial veil. Falling short of backing this approach, which the commission recognized would be difficult to implement, it recommended instead a parliamentary resolution making it clear that any religious garment covering the face is considered an assault on human dignity and therefore not welcome in the French Republic.This outcome will no doubt fail to satisfy those who wanted a major crackdown, while still managing to alienate many French Muslims, who feel they are being unnecessarily picked on since such garments are only worn by a few hundred Muslim women in France.
The full facial veil makes its wearer socially invisible and presents a challenge in liberal societies where interaction between men and women is considered normal. Security and women’s rights are the two main arguments most often invoked in the debate. School teachers cannot hand pupils over to unidentified strangers claiming to be their mothers, advocates of a ban pointed out.
While feminist arguments are invoked in support of a prohibition, the issue is made more complex by the fact that those who choose to hide themselves under full covering in Western Europe rarely fit the stereotype of the oppressed woman. In fact, the facial veil tends to be worn by modern young women who choose it as a way to express a different identity, often against the advice of their families. Jean-François Copé, head of the UMP parliamentary group, apparently conscious of this reality, advocated a ban precisely out of a concern that, as he told Le Monde, the burqa might become a chic fashion accessory.
Why young women should choose to render themselves invisible in their quest for a social identity is, of course, a question worth examining, but bans, sanctions and condemnations are unlikely to provide satisfactory answers. Nor does it fall within the remit of a parliamentary commission to interpret Islam and decide which particular garment fit its prescriptions.
For all the consultations that took place in France, it is hard to shake off the impression that politicians are still talking above the heads of those most directly concerned. In fact, the exchanges bear strong similarities with the heated polemic over the “turban” that divided Turkey a couple of years ago. At the time, the discussion often appeared limited to intellectual and political spheres and rarely involved the women most directly concerned.
It is no coincidence that this reflection on the place of Muslim religious symbols in French public life takes place just as France is busy debating its own national identity. Concerned about their country’s place in the world and the decline of its cultural influence, some French people now appear to define their own values against those of an immigrant “other.” To what extent this malaise, also felt in other parts of Europe, creates a sense of rejection among migrant communities and fuels radicalism is, of course, an important issue.
It is worth noting that France’s clumsy attempt to deal with the integral veil has not been universally welcome in the Western world. In fact, many intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic have expressed their opposition to the French approach. The French Socialist Party (PS) too has distanced itself from the process.
Just like the recent ban on minarets in Switzerland, the French parliamentary recommendations will no doubt be seen in Muslim countries as yet another example of creeping Islamophobia. While the criticism is justified, it is unlikely that we will see much debate in the media of the Muslim world on the validity of forcing women to cover up in Afghanistan, preventing them to drive in Saudi Arabia or flogging a teenage rape victim while her assailant got off scot free as was recently the case in Bangladesh.
It is partly these excesses and the absence of a challenge from within the Muslim world that continue to undermine Islam in the eyes of many Westerners. Minority phenomena such as the burqa are seen as part of a broader radical movement, which represents a threat. While Westerners must combat prejudice and stereotypes, it also falls to Muslims to find ways of changing these perceptions.
