The Muslim Headscarf and French Schools Author(s): Harry Judge Source: American Journal of Education, Vol.

111, No. 1 (Nov., 2004), pp. 1-24 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3566880 Accessed: 20/02/2010 06:30
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Forum
The MuslimHeadscarf and FrenchSchools

HARRYJUDGE of University Oxford

The particular circumstancesof French history explain why that nation has adopted an unusually severe policy in attempting to suppressthe wearing in schools of the Muslim headscarf.The long struggle to create French identity and then to resolve the bitter conflicts between traditionalsupportersof the Catholic Church and those of the secular Republic resulted in a distinctive connotation being acquired by a number of commonly used words, of which most Englishtranslationsare misleadinglyinadequate.The events leading from the exclusion of three Muslim girls from a school in 1998 to the passing of the new law of 2004 are analyzed.

The Identity of France In 1996 a much-traveledpope embarkedupon an official visit to France to

celebrate the fifteen-hundredth anniversary of the baptism of Clovis, who in popular and pious ideology is honored as the true founder of that remarkable nation. President Chirac, a center-right president then governing uncomfortably alongside a Socialist prime minister, proposed to honor the event with his presence. But even so astute a politician had not realized just what a storm this apparently harmless gesture would raise (Berge 1996). In the eyes of the outraged critics of the president, his official presence would be worse than an act of apostasy: the head of the Republic-one and indivisible and above all laique(a word for the moment left untranslated)-was presuming to endorse a deeply contested definition of French identity, one which the Revolution and two centuries of bitter wrangling had successfully challenged.1 Earnest anticlericals, resentful of being statistically counted as Catholics simply because they had been baptized in early infancy, lined up in provincial cities to sign certificates of debaptism. It was a scene that Voltaire would have appreciated. The president discreetly withdrew: politics, religion, and French identity reAmerican Journal of Education111 (November 2004) ? 2004 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0195-6744/2004/11101-0001$05.00

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Muslim Headscarfand FrenchSchools mained, as they always had been, inseparableand entangled (Braudel1986; Tallett and Atkin 1991). On February 10, 2004, the National Assembly approved,by 494 votes to 36 with 31 abstentions,the first reading of a brief law that prohibited (after September2004) the wearingby pupilsin any publicschool of any conspicuous sign of religiousaffiliation(AssembleeNationale 2004). This draconianmeasure often puzzles, and sometimes offends, liberal opinion abroad-and especially in what the French themselvesquaintlydescribeas the Anglo-Saxon countries. Why, it is asked, should a nation that ranks so high among the champions of individualliberty and human rights think it necessaryor even wise to be so proscriptive? And, even more curiously,why has the measure received so much support across so wide a spectrum of public and political opinion? This article proposes to addressthose two puzzles, and to do so in terms that representan effortby an Englishmanto explain to Americanswhy the French are as the French are.2 Americans,who are well enough aware of the conflictsand contradictions that led to the creation of their own nation, are neverthelesspredisposed(as are many British)to regard "France"as a given, as a natural and inevitable product of geography,ethnicity,and language, and thereforeto conclude that the hexagonal nation simply emerged from medieval mists without pain and without fuss. Nothing of course could be furtherfrom the truth:if historyhad followedthat imaginedpath, there would be no great commotion today about whether Muslim schoolgirlsmay or may not cover their hair. This is why it is necessaryto begin with Clovis. France was createdby conflict,by war and the suppressionof alternative identities (think only of Brittany or the Lanweakguedoc, where regionallanguagesand cultureshad been systematically The successors of Clovis created France, by expanding aggressively ened). from their heartlandaround Paris, by expelling the intrusiveEnglish,by imposing formal suzeraintyand eliminatingfeudal rivals. Eventuallyit became plausible to assert that the naturalfrontiersof "France"were the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees. In that prolonged expansion the Catholic Church became an indispensable ally:the extinctionof the Catharsin southwestFrance was only the most notable of many examplesof the allianceof the two powers. Catholic orthodoxy and state centralization,in however rudimentarya form,
HARRYJUDGE was from 1973 to 1988 the directorof the Department of EducationalStudiesat the Universityof Oxfordin the United Kingdom,where he remains a Fellow of Brasenose College. He has been a visiting professor at several universities in the United States, where most of his work and publications have been concerned with teacher education policy. His more recent writingshave been comparativestudies of the public funding of religiously affiliatedschools in France, the United States, and England.

American Journal of Education

Judge were mutuallyreinforcingaspects of the same unifying development. So was the imposition, sometimes ruthless, of one law and one language: in 1539 FrancisI by edict made French and not Latin the officiallegal language. Une loi, unefoi,un roiwas the founding axiom of a unified francophoneFrance, in which Protestants,for example, could be only fleetingly and uncomfortably accommodated. Louis XIV-who systematized the government of his extended dominions, banished the Protestants,and championed the arts and literature-remains the dominantsymbolof Franceas a greatpolitical (French) and culturalpower. (No modern state has devoted so much money and effort to promoting its own language and projectingits own prestigiousimage.) The creation of France therefore representsan act of will, not a fact of nature. In that process the indivisibilityof France becomes a dogma, even if its practical implications are changed profoundlyby such upheavals as the Revolution of 1789. That revolutionmay have nationalizedthe church, but it was stillthe churchof the nation (Ravitch1990).Evenwhen that domesticated church was temporarilyabolished, the state promptlysubstitutedthe worship of the supreme being and a new national calendar (Vovelle 1976). When Napoleon, as the administrativeheir of the revolutionarybut centralizing Jacobins, wished to reimpose unity and uniformity,he signed in 1801 a concordat with Rome ensuring that the French church remained distinctively French as well as traditionallyorthodox in doctrine and definingCatholicism as the religionof "themajorityof Frenchmen"(although,a modestconcession, no longer as "the religionof France").The officialchurchwas certainlyCatholic without being excessivelyRoman (thatis to say,foreignor ultramontane). tradition,celebratingthat same specNapoleon reaffirmeda strong"Gallican" ificity and autonomy of the French church that FrancisI (the very king who had made the Frenchlanguagesupreme)had endorsedthree centuriesbefore. All the Catholic clergywere to be paid salariesby the state and their churches Cathof maintainedby it. The nationaladministration the nineteenth-century olic Church, leaving some modest space within the law for Protestantsand Jews, was entirelyconsistentwith the rule of Paristhroughoutthe provincesthrough its powerful agents, the prefects-and the management of the commanding heights of the educational system through that equally remarkable institution,the Universityof France (Basdevant-Gaudemert 1988). The Napoleonic empire itselfmay have been short-lived,but its institutions proved both durable and resilient.They survivedas, over the next hundred years, the pendulum of power rocked back and forth between monarchies and republics, Catholics and anticlericals,between what came to be well characterizedas "the two Frances"(Mauduit 1984; Poulat 1987). Yet what united the two Frances was more important than what divided them: they agreed that one ideology had to dominate, that peaceful coexistence (of the kind a pragmatic Napoleon might have favored)was impossible because it NOVEMBER 2004 3

Muslim Headscarfand FrenchSchools implied partition and segmentation-and France must remain one and indivisible.If either ultramontanesor Freemasonshad known the words "pluralism"and "multiculturalism" would have hated them. they The Napoleonicequilibrium provedunstableas powerfuland opposingforces in the society continuedto battle for the control of the national identity.The restoration the Bourbonmonarchyin 1815 led within a few yearsto a sharp of tilt toward an exaggeratedform of Clovisism:the coronationof CharlesX in the cathedral at Reims was a spectaculardemonstrationof the resuscitation of a France that was more medieval than the Middle Ages themselves.Within a decade it was followedby the Revolutionof 1830 and an Orleanistmonarchy, with a king who is rememberedfor his umbrellarather than his sceptre.His able minister,Guizot-Protestant, Anglophile, and enlightened diluted the influence of the Catholic establishmenton education by laying solid foundations for a system of elementary schooling and of teacher training that would furnisha viable alternativeto a clericalmonopoly (Nique 1990).Guizot had more in common with Montesquieuthan withJoan of Arc. This moderate bourgeois regime was terminated by a tentative lurch toward the Catholic right after the restorationof a Bonaparte as emperor.Secondary education was reopened to the Catholics and the monopoly of the secular University of France successfullychallenged: the Falloux Law (1850) was to reappear at the center of educational argument in the last decade of the twentieth century (Judge 2002). The collapse of the Second Empire in 1870 was followed, after a short period of uncertainty,by an emphatic return to the authentic, if still uncertain,Republican tradition.France, while remaininga deeply Catholic and religiouslyobservantsociety,was to be ruled according to the principlesof secularity(a provisionaland inadequate English version of laicisme) of neutrality. and Citizenshipwas to be open to all loyal Frenchmen, of religiouspreferenceor affiliation.Specifically, regardless public elementary schooling became compulsory and free, with all its teachers lay (and not imbued with auclerical),trained in state normal schools, and systematically thenticRepublicanprinciples.Jules Ferry,the authorof many of these reforms, became and remains a hero of the laique movement. Anticlericalism, not but religion, was famously declared to be the enemy (Gaillard 1989; Remond 1985). The conflictbetween a traditionalist monarchicalright (rootedin the Catholic Church and the army) and a bourgeois Republican left (linkedto Freereached a climax in one of the most dramasonry and liberal Protestantism) matic seriesof events in Frenchhistory:the Dreyfuscase (Brodin1994; Cahm 1994). All the most naked prejudicesand conflictingprinciplesboiled to the surface, and as a consequence the Napoleonic settlementwas legally terminated. A 1905 law decisively separatedthe churches from the state (or that at least was its intention),ending the payment of the clergy by the state and
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Judge handing over churches and other religious buildings-since the Revolution, effectivelystate property-to legally constitutedreligiousassociations,the associations cultuelles (Larkin1974; Merle 1991). On the surface,althoughnot far beneath it, such a settlement closely resembled the prohibition of an establishment of religion enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The central principlewas that no religion should receive official state recognition, and none should receive support from public funds. A naive reading of history might therefore suggest that when a "new" religion was later introduced on a major scale into France (alongside Catholicism, two and forms of Protestantism, Judaism) there would be no major difficulties,at least in law and financing,in accommodatingand integratingthe new arrival. Unfortunately,the "settlement"of 1905 was by no means as final or as geometricallyclear as the textbooksmisleadinglypretend. The French State and Religion Nothing is ever quite so clear in French practice as it in theory appears to be: like the language itself, principlesmay be clear (cequin'est clairn'estpas pas but franfais), the French have an admirableand necessarytalent for adapting such precision to the untidinessof everyday life. The 1905 law could not in truth be immediately and ruthlesslyapplied: confrontedwith physical resistance by Catholics,the hardheadedClemenceauresolvedthat countingchandeliers (for the law required the prefects to draw up detailed inventoriesof all churchproperty) was not worth the life of a singleFrenchman.Recalcitrant Catholics refusedto hand over their propertyand their duties to newfangled associations,insistingthat canonical authoritymust rest with the bishops and the hierarchy. The governmentwaited until 1924 to arriveat some settlement and then acceptedthat subsidieswould stillbe providedto repairand maintain Catholic churchesbuilt before 1905. Ingenious compromiseswere arrivedat to regulate the use of church bells, important as village timekeepers and emergencysignals(Corbin 1998). Of the presentfifteenofficialpublic holidays in the self-styledsecular Republic, six are related to Christianfestivals,one of them to the ultra-Catholicfeast of the Assumptionon August 15. When the Ferry laws had been introduced in the 1880s, one day a week was set aside for religious education, to be provided out of school by a minister of the appropriatedenomination:this concession survivestoday in some truncated form. The lawswere never appliedfullyin dependentoverseasterritories, even when some of those territorieswere classifiedas an integralpart of an undividedRepublic.When Alsace-Lorraine recoveredby Francein 1918, was after nearly fifty resentedyears of German occupation,the 1905 law was not, and never has been, applied, and the terms of the concordat of 1801 are NOVEMBER 2004 5

Muslim Headscarfand FrenchSchools thereforestill in force there (Schlick 1975). ThroughoutFrance, chaplaincies, for the most part Catholic, have always been preservedwith state funding in prisons, hospitals, the army, and, especially,public schools (Bourdoncleand or Moitel 1978; Swerry 1995).All these adjustments anomalieswere preserved even in the heated anticlerical atmosphere of 1905 and were significantly reinforcedin the second half of the century when copious state funding was extended to faith-based(and overwhelmingly Catholic)schools. The 1905 law may have changed much, but Catholic power remained a reality,perceived as an ever-presentthreat to the purity of Republican belief (Poulat 1987). Such fears of Catholic power were nourished,and to some extentjustified, by the bitter experience of the Vichy years (Paxton 1970). This short and painful period, until recently regardedas an aberrationfrom rather than an integralpart of the historyof France, encourageda resurgenceof reactionary and intermittentlyCatholic sentimentand legislation:normal schools, as seminaries of atheist and radical republicanism,were abolished;Jews were excluded from teaching; subsidieswere providedfor Catholic schools, many of them now in seriousfinancialdifficulty(Atkin1991; Halls 1981; Handourtzel 1997). It was as a postwar reaction against such measuresthat the new constitution adopted in 1945 explicitly and for the first time a definition of the in without sayingpreciselywhat that meant. Republicas being laique character, This short-livedRepublic(theFourth)came to an abruptend with the Algerian war,which led to a large-scaleimmigrationinto mainlandFranceof Muslims from North Africa, as well as of displacedFrenchcitizensfearfulof the effects of independence.This crisisled directlyto the formationof the FifthRepublic (Gildea 1996, p. 43; Guillaume 1989). Although this Republic was formally as as lai4ue its predecessor,and so advertiseditself in the preambleto the new constitution,General de Gaulle had other and more immediate preoccupations. His determination,in the cause of restoringFrench greatnessand prosperity,to preside over a massive expansion of educationalprovision obliged him to find some way of mobilizing in the service of such an expansion the resourcesof the financiallyembarrassedCatholic schools. Against ferocious oppositionMichel Debre, his prime ministerwho was acting also as the minister of nationaleducation,rammedthroughlegislationthat achievedprecisely that goal. Voluntaryreligious schools, the great majority of which were of course Catholic, were given the opportunityof entering into unprecedented contracts, on a school-by-schoolbasis, with the state (Judge 2002, p. 149). Such schools were allowed to preserve their distinctivecharacter(the much debated caractere propre) provided that they opened their doors to students of all religious affiliationsor of none, submitted to inspection, and agreed to follow all the national educationalprograms.In return they received copious infusionsof public funds.Massivepetitionsand protestswere mounted against what were denounced as a fundamentalviolation of the letter and the spirit
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Judge of the law of 1905 and as a frontalattackon the secularsanctityof the school of Jules Ferry. Such disputes were reignited in both 1984 and 1994 when attempts were made to revise the terms of the Debre law-in the first case to make it less generous to the Catholics and in the second to make it more with the treatment so-and illuminate contemporaryMuslim dissatisfaction of their own faith by the French state. No Muslim school in metropolitan France, and only one in its overseas territories,has yet received comparable financial or legal treatment. The Gaullist coup of 1958 led not only to this fundamentalmutation in the relationshipbetween public fundingand religiousschools but also marked the end of the bitterlyfought war in Algeria. The French-bornsettlers-the so called pieds noirs,over one million of whom returned to France-were unlikelyto be welcomingin their attitudetowardother,very differentmigrants from North Africa, and they fortified a prejudice that being French meant leader of being French in the sense thatJean-Marie le Pen, the controversial the National Front, was later ruthlesslyto exploit. Many of these new immigrants, especiallyin the early waves, were harkis-North Africansloyal to the French power, fearful of staying at home, and bitterly resentful of the ambivalentwelcome they received in the France they had served. Over the years, the numbers of other immigrantsmultipliedas prosperityattracted(as in many European countries) impoverishedimmigrantsfrom the Maghreb and other African regions. Of these many had, again as in several other European examples, not intended to settle permanently but did. (Bernard 2004; Bouamana 1994).The culturaldistancebetween them and the classical, neutral public school of Ferry-the "School of the Republic"-proved hard to bridge (Benbessa 2004; Berque 1985). As a result of successivewaves of immigration,Islam is now in numericalterms the second religion of France, and (if the regularpractice of religion is regardedas even more relevantthan census estimates)probably "the first." Some estimates of the number of Muslims in France today approach the five million mark,but the most carefuland recent analysisyields a nevertheless remarkabletotal of 3.65 million (Keppel 1991; Zarka 2004). Equallystriking is the heavy concentrationof Muslimsin sociallydisadvantaged areas:in some banlieues which "suburbs"is a dangerously misleading translation)the (for concentrationof poor immigrantsrises as high as 80 percent. Many of them live in unappealingcites, typicallyin tower blocksthat the police are sometimes forced to treat as no-go areas. Muslims constitute 50 percent of the prison de April 2004). A comparable imbalance is population (LeMonde l'Education, reflected in the statisticsof unemployment. Such figures, readily matched in the United States and especially in Britain, underline the crude and cruel sociological fact that immigrant communities are concentrated in deprived areas, where both the cycle of disadvantageand a widespreadsense of grievNOVEMBER 2004 7

Muslim Headscarfand FrenchSchools ance and frustrationare reinforced.Sympatheticobservershave commented on the poor quality of the leadershipavailableto Muslims.Ninety percent of imams in France are trained abroad (if at all), and much of the money for the support of Muslim communities and their more expensive and visible mosquescomes from Saudi Arabia.Nor do Muslimssharethe real advantages (freelyenjoyed by Catholics,Jews, and Protestantsas well as by other smaller and more recently significantgroups,includingBuddhists)of adequateforms of organizationand representation(Etienne 1989, 1991). This deficiency,related only in part to the diverseand nonhierarchical characterof Islam, magnifies the problems of establishingeffective contact with and support from government agencies of many kinds, including educational ones. The impressive building in the capital (La Grande Mosquee de Paris) is itself an exception that in many ways provesthe rule. Currentlypresidedover as recteur by the moderate and influential Dalil Boubakeur,it was establishedin the 1920s with government support and funding and in part as a recognitionof the contributionmade in WorldWar I by loyal troopsfrom North Africa.But its authorityis regularlychallengedby other mosques and their local leaders. Serious official attempts have been made to provide some forum in which Muslim opinion could be shaped and articulated:the 1990 Conseil de Reflexion sur l'Islam en France (CRIF) proved to be no more than a talking shop. Other groups have proved, in some cases deliberately,to be divisive rather than unifying: the Union des Organisations Islamiques en France (UOIF) is associatedwith the Muslim Brotherhoodwhile the FederationNationale des Musulmansde France (FNMF)has stronglinksto Morocco. More recently the active (many critics would prefer hyperactive)Minister of the InteriorNicolas Sarkozyestablishedthe Conseil Francaisdu Culte Musulman (CFCM) to serve as an official intermediarybetween Islam and the state:its to early electionsgave most representation groupsregardedas tendingtoward an extremistposition.While it is obviouslytoo earlyto form a view of CFCM's effectiveness, it did prove to be uneasy and divided in its reaction to the problem with which this article is centrallyconcerned, namely, the new law of 2004. The Headscarf In 1989 three girls were excluded from the local college lower secondary (the or junior high school in the French system)in Creil, a town of some thirty thousand inhabitants,forty miles to the east of Paris (Altschull 1995). The principal-who later became a member of parliamentfor the party to which Chirac belonged-alleged that they had persistentlyattempted to come to or school, and to attend classes,wearing a Muslim headscarf(thefoulard hiab).
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Judge This he regardedas a violation of the principlethat the Frenchpublic school was an uncompromisingly secular(or laique) institution.All studentsmust have free access on terms of absoluteequalityto all the resourcesof the school and take part in all its educational programs.This is what egalite meant. For the defendersof L'Ecole la Republique hastened into print to reinforce de who many such arguments,any substantialconcession in such a matter would call into question all that had been achieved by the historic defeat of a clerical monopoly, by the separation(in the interestof both institutions,it could now be claimed) of church and state, by the Ferry laws and all that had flowed from them. For many such critics the Debre law itself had of course been a dangerous aberration(as they had recently demonstratedin 1984 by an attempt to limit its effects).The religiousbeliefs of school students,while enjoyingthe full protectionof the law, remained a purely privatematter,of no concern to the school or to any public authority.It is clear that, as in many similarcases that arose over the next decade, activist Islamic groups had, from whatever the motives, to some extent engineeredor magnifiedthis confrontation: issue had not previouslysurfacedin the public domain. The Koran (e.g., 24:30-31 or 33:59) requiredonly that women and girls should be modestlydressedand covered, and such injunctionshad been interpretedin significantlydiffering ways in various Islamic cultures. The headscarfnow in France became for the firsttime an issue relatedto identity,and (in the eyes of its critics)toleration of its wearingin schoolsrepresentedan unacceptablesubordination women. of the Unsurprisingly, media were now fully alert to the confrontationin Creil and all that followed it (Debray 2004). An easy and informal accommodationhad long since been reached with Catholic students who chose to wear an unobtrusive crucifix, as with the smaller number of Jews who chose to adopt distinctivebut discreetforms of On dress, notably the skullcapor kippa. the other hand, the state and the law had never conceded any general right of members of the Jewish community to absent themselves from school on Saturdaymornings, when many lycees (seniorhigh schools) are regularlyin session. The duty of regularattendance at a public institutiontakes precedence over any private rights derived from a religious or cultural affiliation.But it was unlikely to prove so simple to extend implicitand superficially modest concessionsto a communitythat was large in number (and in that sense threateningto a French sense of identity), resentfuland discontented,and supportedby well-orchesvisibly "different," tratedgroupsof activistspresentingthemselvesat the school gates. More than symbolic habits of dresswere involved. In many of the cases that now arose, students(or their parentsand others acting in their name) refusedto take part in physical education, demanded separate provision for the two sexes for swimming lessons, found the teaching of music unacceptable, and objected to many specific elements in the general curriculum.The teaching of human NOVEMBER 2004 9

Muslim Headscarfand FrenchSchools

reproductive biology was found objectionable. Montaigne, Moliere, Voltaire, and many other heroes of French culture were denounced as dangerous heretics. The daily discipline of the school, deeply valued elements in a distinctive French national culture and the hard-won values of the Republic-all seemed to be directly challenged. Many teachers, bred in those pervasive traditions and values and who themselves were formally committed to observing an absolute neutrality in their own professional conduct, were especially incensed January 2004). The unions took up the cudgels. Some, (LeMondede l'Education, but by no means all, feminists injected further controversy into an already seething dispute by identifying the headscarf issue with an exploitation and domination of vulnerable Muslim girls and young women by aggressive males. The exclusion of the offending students now raised more problems than it had attempted to solve (Gaspard and Khosrokhvar 1995). LionelJospin, minister of education during the presidency of Francois Mitterrand, temporized by referring the matter to the Conseil d'Etat, the highest administrative court. In November 1989 it produced a closely argued opinion that carefully balanced two principles. The first guaranteed the freedom of conscience of the student, which public law must never invade. Students must be free to hold and to express their own opinions, preferences, and loyalties, and this guaranteed freedom must embrace the right to such expression not only of speech but also in dress or symbols. That freedom is not, of course, enjoyed by teachers and other public servants for, as agents of a laiqueRepublic, they must be and be seen to be scrupulously neutral. (History echoes throughout this debate: a public school student may not be taught by a cleric wearing a cassock or by a Catholic sister in her habit.) A second principle required, however, that no such expression of belief may disturb the orderly conduct of a school or any other public institution, affect the duty of each student to be assiduous in attendance and participate fully in all the normal work of the school, or constitute an act of pressure or proselytization. Two of the founding principles of the Republic-liberte and egalit--had always to be carefully balanced. Successive official circulars of the Ministry of Education, culminating in that promulgated in 1994 by the center-right Francois Bayrou, emphasized the importance of resolving each conflict on a case-by-case basis and endorsed disapproval of the wearing of any dress or symbol that might be ostentatoire, or ostentatious (Conseil d'Etat 2004, pp. 338-42). But that term of course itself implies a deliberate but arguable intent, and it proved administratively and legally treacherous to distinguish between what was ostentatious and that which was merely conspicuous. Even the nose of Cyrano de Bergerac could not properly be described as ostentatious, although conspicuous it undoubtedly was. Administrative decisions could be, and were, challenged at every point. Wearing a headscarf was clearly not in itself a disruption of the serenity of the school: but if it led to noisy demonstrations, what then? Swimming may 10 American Journal of Education

Judge indeed be part of the national curriculum,but did that render inadmissible a request for separate times for swimming for the two sexes? If a headscarf (never very precisely defined)was unacceptable,what about a bandanna?If it was wrong to teach the catechism in public schools, why was it right to "teach"Voltaireor contested doctrines of evolution?If it was acceptablefor one student to wear the hgab,why was it wrong for twenty or one hundred to do so? If other students could wear a crucifix or a kippa,on what basis could such concessionsthen be denied to French citizens who were Muslims (Vianes 2004)? It is therefore hardly surprisingif the jurisprudencethat across the next decade emerged from the lower administrativecourts and even from the Conseil d'Etat itself proved to be complex, tentative, and sometimescontradictory. It was the responsibilityof the school, of its principal and its duly withinthe general appointedcouncil,to make and applyclearlocal regulations, frameworkof the laws of the Republic, and then to apply any appropriate sanctions,includingexclusion.It soon became plain that any generalregulation simply banning the wearing of the hyabwould be reversedby the competent courts.The precedentswere thoughtto be clear.Justas any generalconcession to Jewish students excusing them from attending school on Saturdaycould never be allowed (although individual concessions in appropriatecircumstances might be), so too would any general prohibition of the wearing of religioussymbolsbe illegal,while school regulationsrequiringorderlyconduct, would assiduityin attendance,and abstentionfromany form of proselytization be upheld on appeal to the courts. "Liberty"in the French sense protected individualrights. "Equality"ensured that all studentsbe treated in the same manner and have access to the same resourcesand opportunities.But neither hallowed principle, as articulatedin the classical French provision as it has evolved since 1789, allows any space for the rights or privilegesof groups. In France there can be as many differingindividualsas there are citizens-but only one community,the Republic, one and indivisible. Those directlyresponsiblefor the daily managementof secondaryschools, in and the principalsin the colleges, would not find it the proviseurs the lycees general guidance from the center simple to follow such uncharacteristically and naturallyresentedthe burdennow thrustupon them. Many arguedagainst the doctrinethat rulesshouldbe interpretedin the light of local circumstances, insisting that rules should, in the authentic French tradition, be both clear and universal:in this case they were clearly neither.There was ample space for argument,confrontation,litigation,anomalies,and appeals.Uncertainties were prolonged by the requirementthat, before formal sanctions could be applied, every effort had to be made at reconciliationand compromise.Nevertheless,as the 1990s advanced,most disputeswere in fact amicablyresolved, often as a resultof the effectiveinterventionof the officialmediator (in effect, NOVEMBER 2004 11

Muslim Headscarfand FrenchSchools an ombudsman),Hanifa Cherifi. But at the same time opportunitiesfor exploitation and manipulation,and the levels of media attention, continued to increase. Underlying the specific issue of dress was the more fundamental problemof the integrationof the Muslimcommunity.Indeed, many thoughtful citizens and commentators are unwilling to accept that there could be in France any recognitionof such distinct communities.Although France is far from being the only European country to grapple with such problems, its distinctivehistoryand deep-rootedcommitmentto a particularunderstanding of the nature of citizenshipexacerbatessuch universaldifficulties. These were of course made tragicallymore complex and bitter by the attackon the Twin Towers in New Yorkin September 2001. Reaction to and misinterpretation of that disastermagnifiedthe fears and doubts of many Europeans,injecting a freshand aggressiveurgencyinto Muslimclaimsfor fairand equal treatment. Superimposedon this tragic developmentwas the shock of the French presidentialelectionsin the springof 2002. The partiesof the extremerightgrasped every opportunity to inflame islamophobic sentiment and to attract voters from the mainstreampartiesof the center and left. The resultwas a shattering defeat ofJospin (the Socialist presidentialcandidate)and the unanticipated elevation to second place ofJean-Marie le Pen in the polls of the firstround. All the mainstreamparties, with varying degrees of enthusiasm,now united temporarilyto secure the defeat of the extreme right in the second round of the elections:Chirac won the Elysee by default. It is from this political background,national and international,that there emergedthe proposalto deal once and for all by a definitiveand unambiguous law with the persistentproblem of the headscarf. Teachers, in spite of the apparentprogressrecentlymade, were weary of being landed with imprecise responsibilitiesand powers: many of the more openly laiqueamong them bitterly resented the continuing challenge to the "School of the Republic." Jospin's successorsas leaders of a demoralized Socialist party were unlikely to weaken their position any furtherby appearingto be halfheartedin their advocacyof an emotive left-wingcause, namely,the vocal defenseof the school ofJules Ferry.Chirac and his allies of course needed to recapturevotes from their far-rightcritics.Paradoxically, only le Pen and his party were unambiguously against any law: let the Muslimspersistin their defiance, demonstrate yet again that they had no wish to be integratedin Frenchsociety,and therefore be "sent home" more quickly.The astute and ambitious Nicolas Sarkozy doubted the wisdom of introducinga new law that might prove to be unenforceable,but his position was relativelyisolated.In spite of the strenuousand enlightened efforts of mediators, the problem had certainly not gone away, and it showed no sign of doing so or of losing its media appeal, outsideFrance as well as within. In October 2003, after a long and highly visible dispute, two sisters were excluded from the lyceein Aubervilliers,a mere five miles
12 American Journal of Education

Judge from the center of Paris. Interviewswith them were made the subjectmatter of a book. Their own backgroundindicates something of the complexitiesof the issues and of the dangers of stereotypingthose who became involved in the successive affairs.Their father is Jewish by origin, a lawyer and a communist. Their mother does not wear the headscarfand is a teacher from the Kabylia, a Berber region in Algeria not noted for its commitment to tradide tionally conservativeforms of Islam (LeMonde l'Education, February2004; and Levy 2004). Levy The New Law of 2004 The year 2003 was a decisive one in the campaign to assert the integrityof the school of the Republic and to mobilize resistanceto what was increasingly representedand resented as a pernicious drift toward fragmentation,multiand communautarisme. culturalism,Anglo-Saxon "liberalism," Jean-PierreRaffarin, the prime ministerchosen by Chirac, amplifiedthis theme in a speech in April. "The teacher,"he declaimed, "does not have in his class Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Muslims. He has first and foremostFrenchyoungsters, all of whom are members of the school of the Republic"(LeFigaro, April 30, 2004). Parliament appointed a committee to reflect on the problems and their possible solutions, while the president himself nominated the members of a prestigiouscommission,with Bernard Stasi as its chairman. He was the mediator of the Republic, a high office roughly equivalent to that of an omnicompetent national ombudsman.The memberswere carefullychosen to represent a variety of views, but none challenged the basis of the doctrine that Raffarin had recently endorsed and that no respectablepolitician wished or dared to challenge.The commissionwas constitutedto addressall the complex issues related to the principles of laicit, and its conclusions covered a wide range of subjects.But it was the issue of the headscarfthat was pounced on The by the media, politicians,Muslim apologists,and the apostlesof laicisme. in December 2003 formulated a number of recommendareport published tions. It recognized that underlying the tensions between Muslims and the Republic there lurked a legitimate sense of grievance and economic deprivation: this was a problem that needed to be addressedby, for example, those concerned with urban planning and the provisionof housing. This suggestion seems as vague as it is benign. Anything that compromisedthe neutral character of the French state in matters of religion must be detected and condemned, and offending anomalies removed. In districtswhere (as in some parts of Brittany)the only school providedwas in fact Catholic, an alternative and fully public school should be opened. The special status of the three NOVEMBER 2004 13

Muslim Headscarfand FrenchSchools there, departmentsof Alsace-Moselleshouldbe reviewed.Religiousinstruction insteadof being a part of the public curriculum fromwhich specificexemptions had to be requested,should be made voluntary.Islam should be added to the list of religions to be taught in the public schools in this special region. But the commissionneverthelessconcluded, somewhat unconvincingly, that since the current special status (in substance, that establishedby Napoleon's concordat)was popularwith inhabitants,it need not be fundamentallymodified. For France as a whole, the list of public holidays should be revised. Half of them are currentlyrelatedto Christian,indeed Catholic,festivals.One should now be set aside for an Islamic festival,and one for aJewish. The displayby pupils of any conspicuous religious symbols was deemed to be inherently unacceptable.The Star of David, the Hand of Fatima, a small crucifixshould all be allowed as legitimateexpressionsof belief, but a large crucifix,theJewish kippa,and the Muslim hiab formally banned. These proposed regulations should be applieduniformlyin all public schoolsbut not in the "private" (and of course predominantlyCatholic) schools under contract to the state (Commission de Reflexion 2003; Le Monde, December 12, 2003). The official responsewas immediate:within days of the publicationof the report, PresidentChirac not only welcomed it but announced that a law on the wearing of conspicuoussymbolswould be promptlyintroduced.The necessary legislationwas speedily adopted by Parliament.To the public dismay of one of its influentialmembers, Henri Pena-Ruiz, other proposals of the Stasi Commissionwere-for the moment at least-simply ignored (Liberation, April 23, 2004). Every effort was, and is being, made to present the new law and (effectivefrom September 2004) as neutral and nondiscriminatory, above all as not being aimed specificallyat Muslims.The presidentstroveto convey a message of Republican inclusivenessby inviting the rector of the Paris Mosque to join the leaders of the other principal faiths in the traditional exchange of New Year greetings at the Elysee. At the same time, he seized this opportunityto reiteratethe one true doctrine. The presidentmade clear that while the inclusion of Dalil Boubakeurdid indeed convey a message of openness and inclusion, it must not be misinterpretedas an endorsementof "which communautarisme, Francerejects"(LeFigaro,January 2004). Boubakeur 7, (while regrettingit) appealed to Muslims to observe the new law and not to demonstrateagainst it. Although other Muslim leaders predictablydisagreed were by French standardsrelativelysmall with him, the early demonstrations and peaceful. The general sense was of an uneasy truce. While the new law applies to all public schools, except universities,it has no force in the state-fundedprivate, and mostly Catholic, schools. The reactions of those responsiblefor the Catholic system were muted and ambivalent:while this exemptionrepresentedan importantfreedomthat they would obviouslynot wish to lose, there was anxiety lest these schoolswere perceived
14 American Journal of Education

Judge as being set apart from a loyal and national system of schooling. They had and fought long enough to preserve the caractlre propre had no wish to upset the delicate balance that had been achieved in 1959, and directlychallenged in 1984. The law extending financial support to them required that in admitting pupils they should respect the same criteriaas applied to the public schools and that there should thereforebe no discriminationon the grounds of religion.The Catholic authoritiescould thereforehardlyobject to the wearing of the hijabin their own schools, provided that it presented no physical dangers.Many Muslimparentswere alreadytakingadvantageof this freedom, in any case preferringa school that had some religiousbasis to a public school that had none. They also tended to prefer what is generally believed to be the more disciplinedenvironmentof many of the privateschools. The interest of Muslim families in such schools had already contributedto a rise in the number of places available in them: the year 2003 witnessed an unexpected addition of some twelve thousandplaces. In one Catholic school in Roubaix, part of the industrializedconurbationcentered upon Lille, 80 percent of the studentscome from a Muslim background; anotherschool in Marseillethat in de December 2003). proportionis as high as 90 percent (LeMonde I'Education, One Catholic educational association estimates that as many as 10 percent of all Muslims of school age now attend Catholic schools;the proportionfor the populationas a whole at any one time is about 15 percent (Conseild'Etat 2004, p. 334). Establishingfor themselvesany Islamic alternativeto the Catholic schools is unlikely to be easy and even less likely to attract very much government enthusiasm.The legal difficultiesare not insurmountable: Muslims,likeJews in France, are unlikely to be concerned about the insistence upon nondiscriminationin the admissionof students,since very few of other faiths, or of none, are likelyto seek admissionto Muslim schools.3Schoolswith an Islamic characterdo confront formidablefinancial and planning obstacles, and they have to operate successfullyfor five years before being eligible to apply for contractualstatus and state support.Some early examples of such schools do neverthelessexist. The College Reussite opened in 2001 in Aubervilliers, the same town in which yet another dispute over the headscarfwas to erupt two years later. Its style is moderate, and the model is that of the French schools that had flourished during the colonial period in North Africa. In 2003 it admitted only students in the two youngest age groups. It follows all the national programsrequiredin public schools, adding to them religiouseducation and Arabic. It is coeducational,and all the girls wear thefoulard. With annual fees of fifteen hundredeuros, it is now anxious to secure state funding. The responseof the ministryhas so far been notably cautious. The school in Lille was opened in order to provide for girls wearing the headscarf and excluded from the public schools in the period 1994-97, and its plans to NOVEMBER 2004 15

Muslim Headscarfand FrenchSchools

extend its age range to form a lyceeare already well advanced. It is connected with the UOIF and therefore represents a very different tradtion from that associated with either the school in Aubervilliers or with the Paris Mosque

de (LeMonde l'Education, February2003).

The vast majority of Muslim students, however, will continue to attend the public schools and to be subject to all the requirements of the 2004 law.

A Lexicon That new law, it has been argued above, can be understood by an overseas observer only in the context of the history of France and with reference to the tonality given to a cluster of words in the common language of that country. The reader of previous pages will have noticed, and perhaps been irritated by, what may well have seemed a perverse refusal to translate frequently recurring words. Of these the most obvious are laicite and the terms closely related to it. But although that is the most striking example, it is far from being an isolated case. Apparently transparent words like "exception," "identity," "community," "Republic," "solidarity," "equality," "public service," "state," "school," "secular," and "city" are not in fact the unambiguous equivalents of the superficially similar terms in French. They are what the French themselves callfaux amis:although they may indeed appear to be closely related, the similarities are deceptive. This section of the "effort by an Englishman to explain to Americans why the French are as the French are" will therefore attempt to explore the resonances of a dozen French words or phrases echoing through the preceding pages and seek to illustrate how those same resonances interact with one another and so generate a distinctive understanding of "society" and "nation," and of the relationship of both to the "state." How distinctive in fact is that understanding? How general and real is the The so-called exceptionfranfaise? debate swirling in France around the secularity (not secularism) of the school obviously finds some parallels in the theory and practice of several other European nations (Bauberot 1994). It has recently been argued that the French position on many matters represents a singularite and France therefore stands toward one end of an rather than an exception, unbroken spectrum (Conseil d'Etat 2004, p. 359). Whatever the force of that perhaps oversubtle distinction, the French themselves certainly work hard at proclaiming their "difference." At an international meeting in the United States in June 2004 (something of a vintage year for events revealing the ideological distance of Paris from Washington and London), President Chirac declined to adopt the casual style of (Texan?) dress assumed by his host and by many of his fellow guests. This was not the French way of conducting diplomacy. In a country that was then about to ban the foulard in schools, 16 American Journal of Education

Judge what you wear does have symbolicweight. Similarlyin matters of economic and social policy, even right-wingFrench governments are careful to distinguish their defining principlesfrom those of a "brutal"or liberal capitalism, emphasizingagain that they are simply not like other people. This cultivation of a distinctivestyle and way of life often shades into overt anti-Americanism. Jose Bove, the antiglobalizationactivist and somewhat atypical advocate of French peasant interestswith a degree in sociology from Berkeley,attracted in wide public sympathyfor his assaulton a McDonald'srestaurant southwest France (LeMonde, July 11, 2003). If a critic wishes to denounce a proposed reform of the school curriculum,he will describe it as a Disneyfication.The protection of the French language, and deep pride in the richnessof French culture (from the established classics to the contemporarycinema), are recurringthemes in the policiesof all governments(Regourd2002). The minister of cultureis a significant,and typically franco-franfais, phenomenon. Impressive investmentsof effort and money are devoted to the preservationand propagation of the French language. The school leaving examination, the baccais laureat, a national institutionsubjected annually to intense public scrutiny and believed to incarnate basic French or Republican values. Similarly,the is beginning of the school year, the rentree, a ritual occasion rather than a event. Not only traffic simple administrative jams but educationalcontroversy and political infightingengage public interest.The rentree 2004 markedthe of introductionof the new law on religioussymbols. These-a distinctiveforeign policy, a distrustof untrammeledcapitalism, a persistentstrain of anti-Americanism,a determinationto preserve French language and culture at home and abroad, a commitment to a specifically French educationalsystem-are all constitutiveelementsof the Frenchidentite. They form a powerfulcluster,within which the variouscomponentsreinforce is is one another.To be Frenchis to be Republicainto be laique to be committed to egalite Lemosse 1997). This composite identity has been forged (Coq 1994; over many centuries,repeatedlycontested and modified, often imposed from Paris on recalcitrantdissidents,transmutedfrom a monarchicalto a constiand tutionalframework, by the end of the last centurybroughtto an apparently stable equilibrium.The maintenanceof that equilibriumis widely believed to depend on the exclusion of religion from the public school, for religion had or proved to be inherently and inevitably divisive. It follows that eclatement, form of fragmentation,is to be deeply feared (Jelen 1996). Even the any generally benign English word "community"troubles the French, by whom must communautarisme therefore be rejected. Given such perceptions, multiculturalismcan only be inherentlydestructiveof the integrityof society,which must be only an agglomerationof individual and equal citizens and never degenerate into a patchworkof diverse communities. La Republiquethereforeone and indivisible.Such a "rhetoric," term not is a NOVEMBER 2004 17

Muslim Headscarfand FrenchSchools in used in any pejorative sense, underpins a pervasive sense of solidarite: the best Republicantradition,citizenssupportone another,and employersdo not lightly dismissredundantworkers.The state by law thereforeseeks to ensure that they shall not. Only in France, perhaps, could it be officiallyproposed that a gap in the fundingof old-age pensionsshouldbe pluggedby the sacrifice of one public holiday to generate extra government income. The parallel while not requiringany form of social leveling,does extend principleof egalite, far beyond the realm of the law and the courts. Agalite and solidarite together imply, for example, that electricitymust be available to all French citizens, however inconvenientlyremote their homes or farms, at a uniform price. A change in the status of the employees of the state-owned utility company (embeddedin a proposalto open up its capitalbut never of courseto privatize it) provokedan outraged responsein June 2004. The employees of the stateowned utilitiesregardthemselves,alongsideteachersand many others,as part of the service public-another term that does not chime in English as it does in French. In British as in American ears the very word "state"(as in state power, or state control) often has a vaguely threateningring: in France it is most often understoodin a more desirablypositive sense, as guarantorof the values of the Republic. The assassinationof the prefect of Corsica, Claude it Erignac, in February 998 was more than an act of brutal terrorism: was a frontal challenge to the state and its values (LeMonde, June 3, 2003). de Preeminentamong those values is a deep-seateddevotion to the Ecole la In means first and foreRipublique. practicaleverydaylanguage the term ecole most the elementary school, as distinctfrom the secondaryschool (the collge and lycee). can also referto some prestigiousinstitutionsof higher education, It In as in ecole normale superieure. Republican rhetoric, however, it has a much wider significance,covering the whole of primary and secondary education and claiminga directfiliationfrom authenticRepublicanvalues. For that very reason, "progressives" seeking to reform the structuresof the traditionalcurriculum must always expect to be denounced as enemies of the school of the Republic, deliberatelyundermining the sacrosanctprinciple of equality.In this context, a respectfor egalite requiresthat all pupils,of whateverbackground or ability,must have access to the same pure national curriculum.Attempts to provide a curriculumadapted to suit particularstudents(or even worse to addressthe alleged needs of membersof a particularclass or community)are denounced as Disneyfication, as a trahison clercs des (Finkielkraut1982). Exfrom swimminglessons, or from the study of the Enlightenment,are emption for precisely the same reasons offensive. But none of the values of the Ecole de la Republique of course, as central and reveredas that of laicite. is, Secularity is perhaps the least misleading of available translationsfor this word, but it remains woefully inadequate. Muslims cannot easily digest and absorb its

18

American Journal of Education

Judge meaning and implications,not least because a common Arabic translationof the slipperyword correspondsroughlyto "scientism," than which few offerings could be more misleading.4The word laicite was classifiedas a neologism in the 1880s, and it served as a convenient banner for the contemporarycampaign to expel proselytizingforms of Catholicismfrom the public school of the day. On the other hand, the noun laichad for centuriesbeen used simply to designate a layman, as that term would still commonly be understoodin had likewiseenjoyed a long and uncontroversial English. The adjectivelaique indeed, even today in the educational context it can still be used as history: a colorlessequivalentof the English"lay"-as, for example, in lepersonnel laique de l'cole catholique. from as early as the 1840s the word steadilyacquired But, ideological overtones, implying a rejectionof any influence by organizedreligions upon public education (or indeed on other areas of social life). Indeed, the adjectivecame to be commonly used as a noun, so that nowadaysnobody would be in danger of being misunderstood.Finally, claiming to be a laique the strongerterm laicsmecame to be more widely deployed, carryingfor its adherents and critics alike clear messages about the kind of place a public school must be. The Conseil de l'ActionLaique,a powerfulcoalitionof teacher unions and pressure groups, is therefore as opposed to the subsidizing of Catholic schools as it is to the wearing of the headscarfin public schoolsand for precisely the same reasons (Bauberot 1990; Bauberot et al. 1994; Barbier 1995; Costa-Lascaux 1996; Harscher 1996; Maury 1996; Mayeur 1997). It is then hardly surprisingif attempts during the 1990s to deal with the problem of the foulardby discussion and mediation on a case-by-casebasis generated a sense of growing discomfort. Teachers and heads of schools, imbued with a sense of public service to the citizens of the Republic, increasto ingly resentedbeing left alone and unsupported resolveissuesthat politicians found too hot to handle. Why should laicite mean differentthings in different courtsgive places and at differenttimes?Why should differentadministrative On what basis were school principalssupapparentlydivergentjudgments? and What provisionwas to posed to distinguishbetween ostentatoire ostensible? be made for studentswho had been excluded?Could they be allowed to work privately within the school but not to attend courses?Were judgments and exclusions to be determined on the basis of the amount of damage done to public order or that done to the serene conduct of the establishment?The pressureon the governmentto settlethe matterby passinga new law mounted, and the political shock of the elections of 2002 and persistentand growing public anxiety about the visibility and impact of Islam in France probably made the outcome inevitable.

NOVEMBER 2004

19

Muslim Headscarfand FrenchSchools Coda The Muslim headscarfis a highly emotive symbol and revealingsymptomof complex social and culturaldifficulties.Any adequate discussionof those difficulties would exceed both the brief and the space assigned to this article. They are, of course, in no sense peculiar to France:in the early summer of 2004 a great deal of media attention in Britainwas devoted to a high court case in which the right of a Muslim girl to attend a secondaryschool wearing the jilbab (a loose outer garment) was denied. Equally significant,however, was the widely accepted, and legally endorsed, right of the same girl to wear the hiab (Times[London],June 16, 2004). The problem lies not in agreeing that a line must be drawn but in determiningwhere and on what authority that line should be located. All developed societies, and especiallythose that lay some claim to Christianroots, grapple with the paradoxes of preserving the a distinctnationalidentitywhile at the same time incorporating diversities new streamsof immigration.The strongerand more distinctive imported by and more unfamiliarthe cultural and religious (includingthe vestimentary) habits of such immigrants,the more strained the tensions between the imperatives of coherence and those of pluralism. Acceptance of any striking differencesin the dress adopted by school students connects directlyto such issuesas the common curriculum (whetherin the sciencesor in the humanities), the content of meals to be provided at schools, the official recognition of different religious calendars and obligations, marriage and burial customs. about the Weavingthroughthem are profoundand principleddisagreements place of women in society:feministtheoristsmay disagreeamong themselves, but there persists(and especiallyin France)a broad liberal consensusthat the wearing of the headscarfis totallyunacceptableon the groundsthat it negates the fundamentalprinciple of egalite (Badinter2003). Underlying, and often such disagreementsare the patent disadvantagesfrom which embittering, immigrantcommunitiesgenerallysuffer,the problems of access to the range of social services available in principle to all citizens, their segregation in with the languageof the so-called depressedurban estates,frequentdifficulties host country,and their vulnerabilityto radicalization. While these are indeed universalproblems,the argumentof this articlehas been that in the French context they are given a particularsharpnessby the of circumstances nationalhistoryand by the natureof "theFrenchexception." That exceptionalitywas tentativelyexplored in the attempt made above to French define or at least characterizea numberof common but untranslatable The last fifteen of which by far the most relevantand resonantis laicite. terms, years have been markedby an uneven effort to apply and adapt that deeply encoded concept to the novel challengespresented by the expanding significance of a large Muslim minority,some members of which are perceived as
20 American Journal of Education

Judge being unwilling to conform with the prevailing orthodox norms of the Republic. Principlesthat were hammered out over the centuriesin the struggles to generate a French identity,and thereafterto create in public life an open and neutral space where "the two Frances"(Catholicand Republican)could constructivelycoexist, were now applied in the very differentcircumstances created by a significantMuslim immigration.But the two Frances that now face one another have little in common with their ideological ancestors:the "threat"of the headscarfis totally differentfrom that of the cassock, and it becomes increasinglydifficult to apply the same principles of laicite to both now complain with some justice that (Bauberot 1990). Old-fashionedlaiques their traditionalconcerns (e.g., with state subsidiesfor Catholic schools or the anomalous status of Alsace-Moselle)have been swamped by the currentpreoccupation with thefoulard(Liberation, 6, 2004). Such a shift of attention July Catholic clearly has some perverseeffects. Some, but not all, state-supported schools allow the wearing of the headscarf.For this and for a range of loosely relatedreasonssome Muslim parentspreferthe Catholicto the public schools. The number seeking entry is restricted,as in most cases a financial contribution, albeit relativelymodest, is required.The Catholic responseto a growing Muslim interestin their schools has been uneasy:they have no desire for their schools to become some kind of refuge for such families(Liberation, July 6, 2004). They have good reason to fear that any such development might even reignite the old but apparentlylatent hostilityto the generoussettlement secured from the state for their schools: although for the moment eclipsed, 1959, 1984, and 1994 have not been forgotten. In the meantime, although modest effortsare being made by Muslim communitiesto securestatesupport for their own schools, complex legal and financialproblemsmake it unlikely that such controversialfunding will be secured. The government is most unlikely to welcome such commitments and has every reason to be apprehensive of thereby again calling in question the elaborate compromiseswith Catholics that have been negotiated over the years. For most Muslims, therefore,the central question refersto how the school authoritieswill in the coming months and years react to the new law and determine how they themselves are to respond. It seems highly improbable that the new law will of itself solve very much. The early signs were certainly not all that promising.Parliamentmay well have been meekly supportiveof the initiative,since few members of any political party could be expected to vote against a reaffirmationof an emotionallycharged Republicanprinciple. But such unanimity of opinion began to crumble as the months went by. Before being finally published in May 2004, the all-importantcircularregulating the precise terms on which the new law is to be applied was the subject of intense debate within the educationalestablishment.Only 26 members of the representative council responsiblefor preparingthe text actuallyvoted for NOVEMBER 2004 21

Muslim Headscarfand FrenchSchools

it, with 28 abstaining and 8 opposed (Le Monde de l'Education, June 2004). Much, indeed everything, will now turn on establishing workable distinctions between discreet (acceptable) and conspicuous (unacceptable), and between religious (unacceptable) and other (acceptable) reasons for adopting any particular form of dress. It is conceded, for example, that a bandanna may legally be worn for nonreligious reasons, but how will it be possible to determine the motives for wearing one? The early response to this circular offered by the moderate Dalil Boubakeur was that, in his opinion, the wearing of a discreet headscarf would therefore be permitted. Less moderate spokesmen, never overly obedient to the moral authority of the Paris Mosque, went a great deal further. The principal imam in Lyon asserted in July, when French politics traditionally take a long holiday, that he and his colleagues in the UOIF would encourage girls to go to school in September dressed as they previously had been and would support them and their families if action was taken against them. The situation was abruptly, but not permanently, changed in the early September days when students returned to their schools. By a perverse twist of fate, two French journalists were taken hostage in Iraq, and the repeal of the headscarf law was the price demanded by the terrorists for their release. Public opinion, previously lulled by a belief that consistent opposition to the war in Iraq sheltered France from such attacks, was outraged. It was at once clear to Muslim leaders that they could not possibly afford to appear to countenance, and still less to approve, either Islamic extremism or external interference in their domestic affairs. A deputation, its three members carefully dressed as ordinary Frenchmen, was dispatched to Iraq to make statements distancing their community from all such actions and explaining carefully that France was in fact friendly toward its Muslim citizens and that to be laique was not incompatible with being a good Muslim. That delegation included not only a representative of the Paris Mosque but also a leader of the UOIF, which only a few weeks earlier had been encouraging resistance to the new law. In these circumstances, the early days of the school year were very much more peaceful than had been anticipated. Even at the gates of the embattled school in Aubervilliers, there were more television cameras than protesters. Only in Alsace was there significant opposition, and that is of course a very special part of France (LeMonde,September 3, 2004). Fundamentally, however, nothing had changed. The new minister of national education had already insisted that the application of the new law was not negotiable, and on the first day of the school year-after celebrating an unprecedented mood of national cohesion-he went out of his way to emphasize in a television broadcast that the government had no intention whatsoever of devoting one of the nation's public holidays to a Muslim feast (Le Mondede l'Education, September 2004; Liberation, September 4, 2004). The current atmosphere of uneasy suspense is unlikely to endure for long. 22 American Journal of Education

Judge Notes
1. At the risk of irritating the reader, this is the first of a nexus of words left untranslated,for their meanings are interdependentin a complicatedway.It would be grossly misleading at this point to translate the first of these terms as, for example, A "lay"or "secular." later section of this article returnsto this theme. and 2. This is a dangerousenterprise.This articleincorporates personalperspectives perceptions,but I have tried to avoid the grossererrorsby persuadingthree experts, in differentfields, to warn me of any such mistakes.One is well informed on matters related to Islam, one on the complexitiesof French culture and history,and one on the American understandingof educationalpolicies in other countries.I am grateful to Chris Hewer, Michel Lemosse, and Bill Boyd for their friendlybut critical efforts on my behalf, but I remain responsiblefor the errorsthat survive. 3. There are some thirty thousand studentsin Jewish schools, all but four thousand of them supported by the contracts with the state establishedby the Debre law (Le Monde l'Education, de January 2004). of is 4. Characteristic "scientism" the belief that the inductivemethodsof the natural sciences are the only source of authenticknowledgeand that they alone can yield true knowledge about man and society.

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