Laicité, a concept that essentially means “secularism” but is largely more complicated and politically charged has become an integral part of France’s contemporary political scene. A term that created controversy by being applied harshly on Muslims starting from the late 1990s. The French government regardless of who is the president has always been committed to laïcité creating tensions between the republic and religion. Moreover, the notion of Laïcité continued to evolve until it became a defining feature of the French nation. Essentially, it is used as a mean to an end which is serving the political agenda.
Notably, Since Islam is now the second largest religion in the French Republic, after Catholicism, this slow transformation has contributed to the current debate over the hijab. Additionally, the recent law further to ban the covering of the face in public spaces “niqab” in 2011 reignited old conceptual divides between multiculturalism and secularism sparkling controversy everywhere.
On the other hand, secularists claims that Laïcité grants everyone’s right to practice and declare their faith. Hence, Since Laicism is used as a mean for assimilation, it is fair to claim that Laïcité could strongly justify some laws like the 2004 law and the 2010 law ban on burqa.
1 Laicism as Concept and Theory
Laïcité, a term that first appeared in France’s 1958 constitution came to signify a distinctively French Secularism. Laïcité is an essentially contested concept in France and it is as politicised as secularism is elsewhere.[1] To be more precise, Laicite’ is the French word of more radical form of secularism. [2]
In the most abstract form, Laïcité is derived from the Greek word “laos”, which means population. It therefore refers to a principle of union of the population based on values, or demands, that ensure that no one will be the victim of pressures on their beliefs, or of discriminations because of their spiritual desires. [3]
Reading article 1 in the 1958 Constitution, it says; “France is an indivisible, laïque, democratic, and social Republic” [4]. Putting laïque before democratic essentially shows how Laïcité is a core value in the French heritage. According to the French system, religious views should not be discussed in public.[5] Moreover, Laïcité refers to state neutrality towards religion creating a society where different religions exist in the social and political sphere but they no longer shape it. [6]
Notably, President Sarkozy has used the phrase “Laïcité positive,” which he defined as “a Laïcité that guarantees the right to live one’s religion as a right fundamental to that person.”
Additionally, President Macron claimed that Laïcité is not the anthesis to Islam, Ideally, Laïcité refers to the freedom to believe or not believe, as well as the capacity to practice one’s religion so long as law and order are maintained. Laïcité means the neutrality of the State; in no way does it mean the removal of religion from society and the public arena Religions are not a threat to Laïcité. In fact, the complete opposite is true. [7]
2 Is the female Islamic headscarf acceptable in France’s laïque society?
Notably, France’s Muslim population increased during the previous two decades to the point that, by the start of the twenty-first century, Islam was the second most practiced faith in France, raising tensions between the free exercise of religion and local or French national institutions.[8]
President Chirac 2004 law prohibiting “ostensible” signs of religion:
President Jacques Chirac established the Stasi Commission in July 2003 with the objective of looking at how the concept of Laïcité should be implemented. This initiative was a response to the “affaire du foulard,” which started in 1989 when three Muslim girls were expelled from school for refusing to take off their headscarves.
This nationwide period of controversy led the the French Senate voting for a law prohibiting the wearing of ostentatious religious symbols in French public schools.[9] This ban included the yarmulke and large crosses, in addition to the hijab. It was believed that these symbols caused pupils to be treated differently, going against the neutrality and secularity ideas. Additionally, wearing a headscarf or any religious symbol might be seen as proselytising, which is forbidden in French schools. Although the yarmulke and cross were prohibited, it was evident that the hijab was what had sparked all of this controversy.[10]
Hence, the new law was brought into effect on 2 September 2004, banning all ‘ostentatious’religious symbols in state schools and the enactment denies Muslim schoolgirls the right to wear the ‘hijab’ in French public schools.’ The new enactment has stirred controversy within the Islamic world where many have considered the law to be an example of ‘Islamophobia’and the West’s intolerance towards the religion of Islam.
One of the major concerns of the French government was the need to suppress ‘radical Islam’ or ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ that, it was argued, had spread to the heart of France and was in danger of fuelling violent attacks against non-Muslims. There was a widely held belief in the National Assembly that Islam is an oppressive religion and is politically threatening to France and the government argued that the hijab has now become a threatening symbol representative of extremist Muslims. It was argued that the hijab has now become an item of dress with immense political implications.[11]
Burqa ban 2011
In April 2011, France introduced a law against covering your face in public. Muslim women in full-face veils, or niqab, are now banned from any public activity including walking down the street, taking a bus, going to the shops or collecting their children from school. French politicians in favour of the ban said they were acting to protect the “gender equality” and “dignity” of women. But five months after the law was introduced, the result is a mixture of confusion and apathy. Muslim groups report a worrying increase in discrimination and verbal and physical violence against women in veils.
There have been instances of people in the street taking the law into their hands and trying to rip off full-face veils, of bus drivers refusing to carry women in niqab or of shop-owners trying to bar entry. A few women have taken to wearing bird-flu-style medical masks to keep their face covered; some describe a climate of divisiveness, mistrust and fear.[12]
The French law banning the burqa, a full-body covering that includes a mesh over the face, and the niqab, a full-face veil with an opening for the eyes, went into effect in April 2011.
It has pitted religious freedom advocates against those who say the Islamic veil is demeaning to women and inconsistent with France’s rigorously enforced secularism.
Notably, A 24-year-old French woman brought the case to Europe’s top rights court in Strasbourg because she says the ban infringes on her ability to live according to her religious faith, culture and personal convictions. But the court argued that it found that the French law doesn’t breach the European Convention on Human Rights in 2014.
The French Constitutional Council said in 2010 that the law does not impose disproportionate punishments or prevent the free exercise of religion in a place of worship, finding therefore that “the law conforms to the Constitution.” But critics argue the government has no business telling people what clothes to wear or how to practice their religion.
The law drew criticism from some human rights and religious organizations and some Muslims as discriminatory. France has Western Europe’s largest Muslim population.The French law imposes a fine of 150 euros (about $205) for wearing the items. The person breaking the law can be asked to carry out public service duty as part of the punishment or as an alternative to the fine.
When the legislation came into effect, some analysts said it was largely born out of internal French politics, with former President Nicolas Sarkozy’s center-right party seeking to fend off a challenge from a more hard-line right wing.[13]
Anti-separatism bill
On Feb. 16 2021, The French National Assembly approved a controversial “anti-separatism” bill meant to protect the country against the dangers of what the government deems “Islamist separatism,” despite strong criticisms from parliamentarians from the Left and the Right. The government argued the legislation was needed to bolster France’s secular system, but critics say it breaches religious freedom. The bill was debated in a highly charged atmosphere in France after three attacks late last year by extremists including the beheading in October of teacher Samuel Paty, who had shown his pupils cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed during a civics class. France, home to Europe’s largest Muslim community, is still shaken by the succession of massacres committed by Islamist militants from January 2015 that left hundreds dead.[14]
Critics have however slammed the legislation as going contrary to the liberal values of the Republic that it seeks to protect. Moreover, despite plenty of centrist support, including from President Emmanuel Macron, the bill has proved controversial, especially with French Muslims, who feel the legislation—which doesn’t name Islam or Muslims—unfairly targets them. An official in the French president’s office said the bill “is not against Islam. It is against people who in the name of a wrong or reconstructed vision of a religion behave in a way contrary to the republic.”[15]
Broadly speaking, the bill is meant to reinforce France’s lay tradition by discouraging behavior seeking to impose religious viewpoints in the public sphere.
First, the bill expands the “neutrality principle” forbidding not only civil servants but “all private contractors of public services” from sharing political opinions or even wearing physical representations of their religion. The bill also allows French authorities to temporarily shut down places of worship to stop preachers from spreading hatred. Lastly, French associations with specific religious ties that receive any “foreign funds will have to provide a strict accounting,”.[16]
Conclusion
Everyone knows about “Liberté, egalité, fraternité.” But it is laïcité that defines the most ferociously contested battle lines in contemporary France. The term has come to express a uniquely French insistence that religion, along with religious symbols and dress, should be absent from the public sphere. In truth, France, like the United States, is one of the most sophisticated multiethnic and pluralistic polities on Earth, a country of immigration, a thriving democracy with freedom of religion and freedom of speech where 67 million people, including the largest Muslim and Jewish communities in Europe, live mostly in harmony. France has arguably the most secularized Muslim community in the world. But because the terrorist threat remains high, and France is heading toward an election, a variety of distinct matters—freedom of worship, freedom of expression, national identity, law enforcement—combine into a volatile and often toxic argument over the idea of Frenchness itself.
In other words, it is obvious how France came to view religion as a threat to national identity issuing some laws like the 2004 law and the 2010 law ban on burqa.
Works cited
1- Adrian, M. Laïcité Unveiled: A case study in human rights, religion, and culture in France. Hum Rights Rev8, 102–114 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-006-1018-3
6- Idriss, M. (2005). Laïcité and the banning of the ‘hijab’ in France. Legal Studies,25(2), 260-295. doi:10.1111/j.1748-121X.2005.tb00615.x
7- O’Halloran, K. (2021). France: Laïcité. In State Neutrality: The Sacred, the Secular and Equality Law (pp. 308-356). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108674430.010
8- Minority Rights Group International, World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples – France, May 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/4954ce0223.html [accessed 20 August 2023]
9- Jansen, Y. (2013). Laïcité and assimilation in the Third Republic and today. In Secularism, Assimilation and the Crisis of Multiculturalism: French Modernist Legacies (pp. 195–202). Amsterdam University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt6wp7qd.10
10- Peña-Ruiz, H. (2014 ). Laïcité and the Idea of the Republic: The Principles of Universal Emancipation . In: Berlinerblau, J., Fainberg, S., Nou, A. (eds) Secularism on the Edge. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137380371_7
11- “Constitution of October 4, 1958.” Assemblée Nationale. http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/english/8ab.asp (5 Dec 2011). Original text: “La France est une République indivisible, laïque, démocratique et sociale.”
Original text: “La France est une République indivisible, laïque, démocratique et sociale.”
12- Daly, E. (2012). The Ambiguous Reach of Constitutional Secularism in Republican France: Revisiting the Idea of Laïcité and Political Liberalism as Alternatives. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 32(3), 583–608. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41682794
Jansen, Y. (2013). Laïcité and assimilation in the Third Republic and today. In Secularism, Assimilation and the Crisis of Multiculturalism: French Modernist Legacies (pp. 195–202). Amsterdam University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt6wp7qd.10
[2] O’Halloran, K. (2021). France: Laïcité. In State Neutrality: The Sacred, the Secular and Equality Law (pp. 308-356). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108674430.010
[3] Peña-Ruiz, H. (2014 ). Laïcité and the Idea of the Republic: The Principles of Universal Emancipation . In: Berlinerblau, J., Fainberg, S., Nou, A. (eds) Secularism on the Edge. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137380371_7
[4] “Constitution of October 4, 1958.” Assemblée Nationale. http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/english/8ab.asp (5 Dec 2011). Original text: “La France est une République indivisible, laïque, démocratique et sociale.”
Original text: “La France est une République indivisible, laïque, démocratique et sociale.”
[5] Idriss, M. (2005). Laïcité and the banning of the ‘hijab’ in France. Legal Studies,25(2), 260-295. doi:10.1111/j.1748-121X.2005.tb00615.x
[6] Daly, E. (2012). The Ambiguous Reach of Constitutional Secularism in Republican France: Revisiting the Idea of Laïcité and Political Liberalism as Alternatives. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 32(3), 583–608. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41682794
[7] O’Halloran, K. (2021). France: Laïcité. In State Neutrality: The Sacred, the Secular and Equality Law (pp. 308-356). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108674430.010
[8] Minority Rights Group International, World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples – France, May 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/4954ce0223.html [accessed 20 August 2023]
[9]10 Idriss, M. (2005). Laïcité and the banning of the ‘hijab’ in France. Legal Studies,25(2), 260-295. doi:10.1111/j.1748-121X.2005.tb00615.x
[11] Adrian, M. Laïcité Unveiled: A case study in human rights, religion, and culture in France. Hum Rights Rev8, 102–114 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-006-1018-3
