France and Islam

A burqa barrier
Jul 17th 2008 | PARIS
From The Economist print edition

How Islamic headgear can stop a woman becoming French

WHAT is the right balance between public expressions of religious faith and legally enshrined national values? France, with its 6m Muslims and secular constitution, faces that question in acute form. In 2004 it banned the Muslim headscarf in state schools and other public buildings.

Now the wearing of the burqa has been ruled “incompatible” with French values—and nationality.

A young Moroccan, Faiza M, married a French citizen in Morocco and came to live near Paris. In 2005 her application for French nationality was rejected for “lack of assimilation”. Now the Conseil d’Etat has rejected her appeal on the ground that she “adopted a radical practice of her religion, incompatible with the essential values of the French community, and particularly with the principle of sexual equality.” This is the first time the court has refused nationality on the grounds of religious expression. The court heard that the couple followed salafism, a radical form of Islam. The woman adopted the burqa at her husband’s request in France, where she “lives in total submission to the men in her family”.

The court decision has been welcomed. Fadela Amara, the cities minister, who is of Algerian origin, says the burqa is a prison. “It is not a religious sign but the visible sign of a totalitarian political project preaching sexual inequality,” she said. The new (Moroccan) head of the French Council for the Muslim Faith, Mohammed Moussaoui, called the burqa “neither an obligation nor even a recommendation” of Islam. In Britain and the Netherlands, the burqa has also stirred political controversy recently.

The paradox is that it was only when Faiza M came to France that she felt obliged to don the burqa. Ni Putes Ni Soumises, a group founded by Ms Amara to campaign for sexual equality, says many second-generation women in France come under pressure from Islamist radicals. Efforts to secure women-only sessions in local swimming pools and gyms are seen as similar attacks on equality. Last month a court in Lille caused a row by annulling a marriage between two Muslims because the bride falsely claimed to be a virgin, and the case was sent back for review. The latest court ruling may signal a more robust reaffirmation of secular values.