Why did the french rally to a law against scarves in schools?

Droit et Societe

Volumn 68, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 33-52

  Bowen, John R ^a  

^a WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

France; Headscarves; Islam; Law and religion; Religious signs

Indexed keywords

EID: 67549121063     PISSN: 07693362     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3917/drs.068.0033     Document Type: Article

References (39)

1. W. B. GALLIE, Philosophy and the Historical Understanding, London, Chatto&Windus, 1964.
2. Olivier ROY, La laïcité face à l'islam, Paris, Stock, 2005.
3. Jean BAUBÉROT, Histoire de la laïcité française, Paris, PUF, 2000;
4. ID., Laïcité 1905-2005: entre passion et raison, Paris, Seuil, 2004.
5. Pierre ROSANVALLON (Le modèle politique français, Paris, Seuil, 2004) traces this tension within Rousseau, although he emphasizes the victory of associations more than might others.
6. Eugen Joseph WEBER, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1976.
7. On the history of the battle over the schools, see Mona OZOUF, L'école, l'Église et la République 1871-1914, Paris, Colin, 1963;
8. Sarah CURTIS, Educating the Faithful: Religion, Schooling, and Society in Nineteenth-Century France, DeKalb, Northern Illinois University Press, 2000).
9. For the longer-term history of laïcité as a set of ideals, see Jean BAUBÉROT, Laïcité 1905-2005: entre passion et raison, op. cit.
10. On this period, Jacqueline LALOUETTE (La séparation des Églises et de l'État: genèse et développement d'une idée 1789-1905, Paris, Seuil, 2005) covers developments through 1905;
11. Alain BOYER («Comment l'État laïque connaît-il les religions ?», Archives de sciences sociales des religions, 129, 2005, 37-50) focuses on Catholic reactions to the 1905 law;
12. Jean-Paul SCOT (L'État chez lui, l'Église chez elle: comprendre la loi de 1905, Paris, Seuil, 2005) on the law itself.
13. Marcel GAUCHET, Le désenchantement du monde: une histoire politique de la religion, Paris, Gallimard, 1985.
14. For similar analyses of «recognition», see Alain BOYER, «Comment l'État laïque connaît-il les religions ?», op. cit.;
15. and Jean-Paul WILLAIME, «2005 et la pratique d'une laïcité de reconnaissance sociale des religions», Archives de sciences sociales des religions, 129, 2005, 67-81.
16. Rémy SCHWARTZ, «La jurisprudence de la loi de 1905», Archives de philosophie du droit, 48, 2005: «La Laïcité», 85-94.
17. Le Monde, December 17, 2003.
18. See the Council's own reflections on this history in CONSEIL D'ÉTAT, Rapport public 2004: jurisprudence et avis de 2003. Un siècle de laïcité, Paris, La Documentation française, coll. «Études et documents», 2004.
19. Le Monde, December 4, 1994.
20. Le Monde, May 2, 2003.
21. Notes taken during the proceedings and checked against the official record.
22. Libération, April 1, 2002.
23. Le Monde, October 25, 1989.
24. Le Monde, May 30, 2003.
25. See detailed accounts in John R. BOWEN, Why the French Don't Like Headscarves, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2007.
26. The moment is captured on the official film biography of the hearings, the 52-minute "Behind the Veil" produced by the government cable and internet station Public Sénat.
27. Three federations of educational unions asked the President to reaffirm existing laws and warned that a new law risked "stigmatizing a part of the population. " The largest federation (the FSU), representing 44% of all public school teachers, supported the appeal, but the second most important such federation, the UNSA, representing 14% of teachers, abstained from taking part. In general, school principals were for the new law, teachers doubted its effectiveness (Libération, December 17, 2003).
28. Le Monde, September 9, 2003.
29. References are to the hearings, viewable as streaming video on the Public Sénat web site (www.publicsenat.fr) with time markers as follows (using the RealPlayer viewing option) : Jocelyne Charruel from Lyon on September 12, 2003, at 1:33:42;
30. Louis Arvaud from Paris on September 9, 2003, at 11:00; Thérèse Duplaix from Paris on October 14, at
31. and Philippe Piedvache from Lyon (from Santana's lycee) on September 12, at
32. Arvaud's testimony was on October 14, 2003.
33. Le Monde, December 17, 2003.
34. Libération, November 13, 2003.
35. Libération, November 21, 2003;
36. December 8, 2003.
37. Le Monde, March 13, 2007.
38. Le Monde, September 26, 2004.
39. Ibid.