French Muslims. Sharif Gemie
the Une école pour tou-te-s reference appears to be factually incorrect. Thirdly, during most of this debate, most commentators seemed to be blissfully unaware that contradictory claims were being made about the nature of laïcité. Occasionally, some left-wing critics argued that President Chirac presented too minimalist a concept of laïcité.75 But apart from these rare dissonances, the ‘debate’ in 2003–4 seemed to take the form of a surrealistic ballet, in which each participant danced to a separate tune, while claiming that the performance as a whole was an marvellous example of coordinated national unity.
Looking at these varied interventions, some patterns emerge. The concept is being exploited tactically, as a means of persuading audiences of the speaker’s mastery of words and ideals.76 But in fact, for all the references to universal values and rationalism, these empty sound bites are the very opposite of rational debate and analysis. Laïcité is perhaps the key concept which differentiates contemporary French ideals about the state from British or American ideals. Rather than seeing the state in its classical liberal concept as a neutral arbiter between the competing claims of individuals, these emotionally charged references often refer back to the rival, Rousseau-ian concept of the state as the embodiment of a collective ‘general will’. This concept can be linked to the origins of modern political culture in France: the primary goal of the first Republicans of the 1790s was not to create a political party, but to re-configure France in such a form that its natural political unity would be revealed and strengthened. A consequence of this stance was the slow and uneven creation of modern political parties in modern France: arguably, the first true national party was the Radical Party, created in 1901.77
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the decline of Marxism, there has been a re-creation of republicanism in France, leading to a distinctive form of neo-republicanism which presents republican ideals as a fully formed political philosophy, as intricate and as demanding as Marxism.78 To date, these initiatives have not been successful in creating mass political movements, but they have decisively changed the manner in which politics is debated in France. The war of the veil was one episode in this development.
The political function of laïcité was illustrated in a comment by Jean-Marc Ayrault, the leader of the Socialist Group in the Chamber of Deputies: without a stronger assertion of laïcité, France would become a land which was dominated by the principle of ‘Each for himself and God for all!’79 Laïcité here is presented as a neo-republican principle which binds isolated individuals together in some collective endeavour. It carries a surprising social interventionism: Régis Debray explicitly argues that laïcité has to be legislated, it can never be produced spontaneously.80 This is not a new feature. Jean Baubérot, a Stasi Commission member, analysing the debates that took place a century ago, notes a revealing contrast. Catholics argued for ‘freedom of teaching’, meaning that churches and other groups should be allowed to create their own schools with minimal control from the state. Defenders of laïcité replied that what counted was ‘the teaching of freedom’: the Republican state had to intervene through the schooling system to ensure that the condition of freedom was created.81 In a sense, the same debate is being replayed today: the chief aim for the state school is to equip its pupils with the necessary moral, political and cultural vocabulary to attain the neo-republican, quasi-Rousseau-ian state of freedom. The veil not only prevents the individual schoolgirl from attaining this condition, it also disrupts the teaching of freedom to the other pupils. Therefore, its ban is justified. Mohammed Abdi, a reluctant convert to the necessity of the law, explains his attitude by citing a quotation from abbé Grégoire, an important politician from the early years of the French Revolution: ‘When comparing the weak and the strong, [it should be remembered] that it is liberty which oppresses the weak and it is the law which liberates them.’82
From this type of thinking also comes the stress by many left-leaning participants on the importance of ‘dialogue’ with veil-wearing girls rather than a simple process of immediate expulsion: for the self-image of the schooling system, one must attempt to win over even the lost sheep by an appeal to reason. As will be seen shortly, in practice the law worked differently.
There are many problems with such arguments. One is that it is clear that there are many incompatible, rival conceptions of this ‘teaching of freedom’. For some, particularly those on the political left, laïcité expressed anti-clerical values and amounted to putting religion in its place: subordinate to the political sphere, faith was reduced to an individual practice within the private sphere, as in the example cited in the last chapter: ‘Jews indoors, French citizens outside’. This interpretation was certainly the dominant idea a century ago. However, the practice of laïcité evolved over the decades: in the words of France’s most senior religious representatives, it moved from ‘fighting laïcité’ to ‘calm laïcité’.83 The appearance of laïcité in the constitution of 1946 was an indication of a new spirit, as a revitalized France shook off the stains of collaboration and Occupation, and a new type of modern, liberal Catholicism accepted a form of moderate, consensual laïcité.84 Thus, within the quotations cited above, Catholics and conservatives tend to refer to laïcité in more pragmatic terms, seeing it principally as a structure to enable the diverse elements of a society to negotiate competing claims peacefully. As the quotations from Chirac, Raffarin and Fillon demonstrate, such a stance can easily degenerate into an amorphous list of good causes which no one could contest. While the first concept of laïcité tends to be positively anti-clerical, the second is more genuinely neutral in spirit.
There are, however, some rather more fundamental problems. Given the diversity of opinions concerning laïcité, given its cloudy, semi-legal, semi-public nature, how does one ensure that one has understood and accepted these principles? The Muslim activist Dr Abdullah makes a telling point about such processes: ‘often what is not said is more important than the principles to which people refer’.85 For example, a Muslim woman is first informed that religious symbols are not permitted in her workplace, as they would break the code of laïcité. Later, she is told that, of course, a Christmas tree is not a religious symbol and so it is permitted. How is she to react?86 To protest would merely reveal that she has not understood the principles of laïcité, which are immediately obvious to all true French citizens. Laïcité’s confused nature is thus politically useful: it permits inconsistencies and double standards where a clearer, more rational code would better enable minorities to situate themselves within French political culture.
Furthermore, while the values which are asserted in the name of laïcité may sound wholesome and uncontroversial – who could object to freedom and toleration? – the assertion of these values should not be confused with the real embodiment of them. Many pupils find their schooling to be an alienating, meaningless experience. Brenner describes a situation in which Muslim pupils bring prejudices into the school: he ignores another scenario, through which it is the teachers themselves who are prejudiced, and who abuse their position of power to bully and stigmatize pupils. The ‘war of the veil’ certainly provided many examples of ill-treatment, for it stimulated greater public hostility to Muslims in general and veiled women in particular. Examples of ill-treatment in schools are easy to find. First, there was the absurdity of the law, whereby non-Muslim girls were allowed to wear bandanas, but Muslims were often not allowed to do so, because their bandanas were defined by the school authorities as religious symbols. Thus Mona, at school in the Nord, was told that her bandana counted as ‘ostensible’ because she had been a veil-wearer.87 Mariame experienced a ridiculous variant of the same theme: she was wrongly entered in the class register as ‘Marianne’, and therefore not suspected of being an Arab. Under these circumstances, she was allowed to wear a bandana.88 As the law was enforced, more serious incidents took place. A 16-year-old girl, forced to remove her veil, recalls this as a moment of ‘shame, guilt and a burning sense of injustice’. For her, the school becomes a place of ‘hate, never-ending pain and bitterness’.89 One veiled 15-year-old girl, temporarily excluded from classes in September 2004, reported that ‘I was shut in a room with a window. I was forbidden to go out during the breaks.