A presidential commission in France has recommended the banning of the hijab — the Islamic headscarf — in public buildings, including most importantly state schools, along with other conspicuous religious attire such as crosses and Jewish skullcaps. It is a decision that has split France. Religious leaders, Catholic bishops and Jewish rabbis as well as Muslim clerics have condemned the proposed ban saying it would harm the integration of schools. President Chirac is to decide on the matter this week but has hinted he will support it.
The justification in French minds for this recommendation is the notion that France is a rigorously secular state. That is what the law says.
But this separation of church and state is not all it is cracked up to be. Because French churches are owned by the state (the 1905 church-state separation act confiscated all Catholic church buildings), it is the state which has to maintain them. But it is the Catholic church which has the sole right to decide what goes on inside. Not even a concert can take place without church permission. In reality the French state subsidizes the Catholic church.
There is another anomaly. The separation of church and state is not nationwide. In Alsace-Lorraine, the public University of Strasbourg has courses in theology, the state subsidies Catholic, protestant and Jewish schools and pays their clergy’s salaries. There are historical reasons: Alsace-Lorraine was seized by Germany in 1871 and did not become part of France again until 1919, thirteen years after the 1905 act. But the fact remains that the separation is not universally applied.
Whatever way it is presented, the recommended ban is an attack on French Muslims. It was complaints about the hijab that started the ball rolling, and the whole debate has been about it and the role of Muslims in France. It has not been about crosses or skullcaps or other religions. Moreover, the recommendation is self-evidently unfair. Christians do not have a particular attire, apart from clergy; but this is not about what clergy wear. Many Muslim women feel a religious obligation to wear a hijab. They are not trying to proselytize in doing so. It is a personal statement of faith — no different to a Catholic woman wearing a small cross. But that is to be allowed in schools and other public buildings.
What difference does it make if a teacher wears a hijab? What matters is what she is teaching and that she is a good teacher.
The belief that French Muslims are not being treated as equals is further confirmed by the fact that in Alsace-Lorraine, the right of state subsidies extends to Catholics, protestants and Jews, but not Muslims. There are six million Muslims in France. They are the second largest faith community in the country. The question is whether the French want them to have a place there.
