France banned veil for domestic political reasons

By Kamal Sanjakdar

February 2004

BEIRUT -- France’s embarrassment on the international and domestic levels concerning war on terrorism led to the latest decision of prohibiting the Islamic veil in French public institutions.

The motivations of President Jacques Chirac in taking this decision are hence definitely political and not philosophical.

If secularism or personal freedoms are at stake in this issue is beyond the point. What matters in this analysis is how things reached a point where such a decision had to be taken. Before the war on Iraq, France was the spearhead of international official opposition to the war, a position that cost it aloofness from the United States and the United Kingdom.

Despite millions of demonstrators around the world to oppose the war, France’s embarrassment was not alleviated especially that it had a big share in consolidating the former Iraqi regime and had a direct interest in its survival due to oil contracts signed by French oil companies in Iraq.

France had not only supported tyrannical deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, but was also not taking a firm position against terrorism, as defined by the Americans, and threats to international security.

On the French domestic level, a drift towards the extreme right was clear ever since the 2000 presidential elections when the National Front’s candidate Jean Marie Le Pen collected 18 percent of the nation’s votes, throwing the left out of the race for the presidency.

This has lead to several counter measures by the Chirac-backed Rafarin government especially by Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy such as tightening of immigration laws.

Hence the decision to ban the Islamic veil in French’s public schools comes as a continuation for the attempts of the French moderate right to overcome its national and international embarrassments.

This is most conceivable when taking a look at the life of the six million Muslims in France before the veil prohibition decision. These have always worn the veil and such a controversy never appeared before.

Meanwhile, Muslims in France and around the world are not helping by any means in giving a good impression. After the French decision, most Muslim clerics opposed it on account that it was an intolerant move targeted against the principles of individual freedoms.

The same Muslim clerics never opposed the intolerance of the Muslim countries forcing women to wear the veil such as Iran or even more than the veil such as some Gulf countries.

Also, for similar political reasons, the grand Mufti of Egypt’s al-Azhar Mosque Sheikh al-Tantawi argued that the French government had the right to impose such a ban.

Here too, Muslim clerics attacked al-Azhar for this fatwa, on religious basis. Whether theologically founded or not, we cannot ignore the fact that the Azhar is close to the Egyptian regime, which definitely influenced such a decision.

While the philosophical, social and religious aspects of the veil issue have been extensively discussed, few are those who commented on its political aspect. While some rightfully argue that this decision is intolerant, few considered the issue from a global viewpoint.

While for some regimes in the Middle East it is advantageous to push clerics to fustigate this law, for some others it is more beneficial to ‘‘support it.’’

The victim in this turmoil remains the Arab and Muslim public opinion whose media play an important role in shaping their views according to the agendas of the different regimes.

Kamal Sanjakdar is the Editor-in-Chief of Alternative