Five French Muslim Women Debate the Veil

This interview is printed in "What Do We Do With A Difference? France and the Debate Over Headscarves in Schools". 

At the beginning of 2000, France experienced increasing social tensions.  Social Unrest in predominantly French-Maghrebian neighborhoods, combined with religious tensions, ethnic conflicts, and fears of Islamic radicalism created an atmosphere of insecurity and distrust.  These tensions crystallized in a debate around the right to wear a hijab, or Islamic veil in schools. (Since the French Revolution, France has defined itself by laïcité, a strict secular separation of church and state and since schools are a state institution, many on the left and right argued, the hijab, a religious symbol, should not be allowed.)  President Chirac took one of the suggestions of the Stasi commission and banned wearing the hijab and other "ostentatious" religious symbols in schools.  However, little attention was paid to the question of why Muslim girls and women were wearing the veil.

Sociologist Caitlin Killian attempted to answer this question. During the debate she interviewed female Muslim immigrants about a range of related issues including racism, assimilation, school curriculums, and teachers' attitudes towards the veil (or, in the case of men, the beards some Muslims wear). The findings pointed to a broad spectrum of opinions regarding all of these issues. Focusing on the veil, Killian found, on the one hand, women who vigorously defended its ban in schools and, on the other, women who thought that the veil was a legitimate form of self-expression.

Here are actors reading the actual interviews of five of these women:

Besma (a 34-year-old Tunisian):  I'm going to repeat what a lot of Arabs say, there are schools in France, or universities in France, where there are no exams on Saturday because it's the Jewish Sabbath, in the public schools, in the secular schools too, and nobody talks about it. All that it takes is for the universities to agree. ...The students manage to make an informal arrangement with the teachers....On Friday, they eat a lean meal, meaning a meatless meal because Catholics don't eat meat on Friday. We do Lent Friday in school cafeterias, and nobody protests. Nobody finds anything to say. So I find it completely petty to hide behind arguments that don't hold up, that aren't at all convincing, and now all of a sudden there are different rules for different groups.

Nour (a 34-year-old Algerian):   You know the secular school, it doesn't miss celebrating Easter, and when they celebrate Easter, it doesn't bother me. My daughter comes home with painted Easter eggs and everything; it's pretty; it's cute. There are classes that are over 80 percent Maghrebian in the suburbs, and they celebrate Easter, they celebrate Christmas, you see? And that's not a problem for the secular school. And I don't find that fair.... I find that when it's Ramadan, they should talk about Ramadan.

Honestly, for me, it wouldn't be a problem. On the contrary, someone who comes into class ... with a veil, that would pose a question actually, that we could discuss in class, to know why this person wears the veil.... Why is it so upsetting to have someone in class who wears a veil, when we could make it a subject of discussion on all religions? Getting stuck on the veil hides the question. They make such a big deal out of it, the poor girls, they take them out of school; people turn them into extraterrestrials. In the end we turn them into people who will have problems in their identities, in their culture and everything. ...

For a country that's home to so many cultures, there's no excuse.

ISMA:   The girls who veil in France, especially the high school and junior high students, it's first of all a question of identity, because these girls are born in France to foreign parents....  At a given time an adolescent wants to affirm herself, to show that he's someone, that she's an individual, so she thinks, I'd say, she thinks that it's by her clothes that she shows that she comes from somewhere else, that she's from someone different. So then, I think you should let them do it, and afterwards, by themselves, people come back to who they really are.

Cherifa (a 44-year-old Moroccan): I believe that if they have to wear the veil then they should do it at home. Me, I'd be a bit radical. I wouldn't make concessions, because if I want to wear a "djellaba" ... then I should stay in my country. I feel that when you are somewhere, you try to blend in. There's an old Moroccan proverb that says "do as your neighbor does or leave." That means that I shouldn't come to France to affirm my convictions, cultural or religious. If I want to wear "babouches" and put on the veil ... well I should stay in my country, or I blend in. Otherwise, if I'm in France, well I'm sorry, I dress like the French. If I eat with them, live with them, if I go to their schools, I don't see why I'd make myself be noticed because I want to wear, um, they should wear it when they're at home or at friends. I don't have anything against it. But when she's at school and everything, I don't think so.... No, I would totally agree with them outlawing the veil.

Deha (a 34-year-old Algerian):  I come from a school in Algeria where the veil was already starting, but it's not just the way she dresses; it's what she is herself. There, the way she dresses implies a lot of things; so there are no sports, philosophy is forbidden. ... The girl who wears the veil there thinks that she's pure and that the girl who doesn't wear the veil, she's not pure. Well, it's not that she's not pure; it's that she's a slut. You see? And it's there that you say to yourself, well, okay, the veil represents all of that.