Editor Insight
Headscarves threaten France's national unity

February 13, 2004
by Angela Doolin
Opinions Editor

What’s the best way to deal with difference?

According to French government officials, the answer is to hide it.

A parliamentary bill that would bar French public school students from wearing any ostensibly visible symbols of their religion was made into law on Tuesday. The law will take effect next September.

“Ostensibly visible” symbols include Muslim headscarves, Jewish yarmulkes, and large Christian crosses.

The French government policies assert that a secularized state is the best way to construct a unified French identity. The new parliamentary initiative emerges from France’s historical need to impose republican values on an increasingly diverse nation. In terms of governing, it’s easier to control a heterogeneous population—if differences can’t be seen, they don’t exist.

This law would drive a wedge between groups that are already isolated. By forcefully promoting integration, the French government creates an “us-against-them” attitude. Suppressing religious expression in schools worsens the problem on a national and international level. With Muslims making up about 8 percent of France’s population, France puts its relations with Muslim-dominated countries at risk.

A secondary purpose of this law stems from efforts to minimize outbreaks of violence in schools due to the rising tensions between Muslim and Israeli groups.

The best way to cope with intolerance, apparently, is to tell people to camouflage their differences. What’s next, paint and masks for those of different ethnicities? Is it back to the closet for homosexuals? Intolerant people will always seek out those who are different from themselves, whether that person is “marked” or not. Surely living in fear isn’t the solution.

The law is also a grossly misguided attempt to “liberate” Muslim women from their cultural and religious tradition. The French government claims that it is trying to break the militant influence of Islamic parents and that by banning the veil they are inviting the girls to enjoy the freedom of equality that France has to offer.

Irony, anyone? The very freedom that France offers these girls is the same one that challenges their religious conviction and denies them the freedom to express it.

Jean-Pierre Raffarin, prime minister of France, was quoted in The New York Times on Feb. 4 as saying that, “Religion cannot be a political project.”

Everything is political--it’s undeniable. But there are positive and negative politics, and the choice between the two lies with those who are in power. Hopefully, if diversity issues in the United States were to come down to a decision like the one in France, our nation’s leaders would remember that dichotomy.