Islamic Scarf Controversy in France

The Islamic scarf controversy in France, referred to there as l'affaire du voile (the veil affair), l'affaire du voile islamique (the Islamic veil affair), and l'affaire du foulard (the scarf affair) among other bynames, has arisen since the mid-1990s, especially pertaining to the wearing of the hijab in French public schools. The debate raises questions as to:

• the place reserved for Muslim women;
• differences between Islamic doctrine and Islamic tradition;
• the conflict between communitarianism and the French policy of minority assimilation;
• the frequent confusion of the terms Muslim, Arab, and Maghrebin in France;
• the reality of an Islamist threat to French society and the reality of Islamophobia;
• strict secularity in state institutions.

This article is intended to give a synopsis of this controversy, starting from l'affaire du foulard and the vote on laïcité (secularity) in France to the present, and the arguments of the different parties involved.

The controversy over the Islamic scarf (hijab) sparked in October 1989, when three female students were suspended for refusing to remove their scarves in class at Gabriel Havez Middle School in Creil. In November 1989, the Conseil d'État ruled that the scarf's quasi religious expression was compatible with the laïcité of public schools. That December, minister of education Lionel Jospin issued a statement declaring that educators had the responsibility of accepting or refusing the wearing of the scarf in classes on a case-by-case basis.

In January 1990, three girls were suspended from Pasteur Middle School in Noyon, a banlieue north of Paris. The parents of one of the girls previously suspended from Gabriel Havez filed a defamation suit against its principal. Following these events, teachers at a middle school in Nantua held a general strike in protest against the scarf in school. A second government statement reiterated the need to respect the principle of secularity in public schools.

In September 1994, a new memorandum, the "François Bayrou memo" was issued, delineating the difference between "discreet" religious symbols able to be brought into classrooms, and "ostentatious" religious symbols (including the hijab), which were to be forbidden in public establishments. In October of that year, students at St. Exupéry High School in Mantes-la-Jolie organized a demonstration of protest in favor of the right to wear the veil in classrooms. In November, 24 veiled students were suspended from the same high school as well as from Faidherbe High in Lille.

Between 1994 and 2003 around 100 female students were suspended or expelled from middle and high schools for wearing the scarf in class. In nearly half of these cases, their exclusions were annulled by the French courts.