Secularity in a world ‘torn by difference’: A consideration of the French headscarf affair from South Africa

Abstract

This paper attempts to raise questions about the model of multiculturalism that is the ideal in South African state schools, by examining the debates around secularity in the public space that came to a head in France in 2003, which have very different philosophical and historical antecedents from those that inform South African principles. The paper focuses on the arguments made by members of the Stasi commission, convened by president Chirac in mid 2003, to make recommendations about the continuing viability of secularity (la laïcité) in contemporary France.

Acknowledgement

My thanks to Antoine Bouillon, who first introduced me to the concept of la laïcité and alerted me to its significance, to Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, who confirmed some of my ideas about la laïcité and neo-liberalism, to Janine Oesi for help with difficult translations, to Benoît Schmutz and Philippe Gervais-Lambony for keeping me up to date with the French press, and to Alan Mabin for locating literature on la laïcité and for his critical reading of the first draft of this paper. Needless to say, the errors that remain are mine. Recent research in France was funded by a grant from the Anderson-Capelli fund, University of the Witwatersrand.

Notes

1. Lessons observed by the author and interviews conducted with teachers at Voltaire, Amiens, France, 17 October 1997. ZEP stands for Zone d'éducation prioritaire—schools prioritized for additional state resources because of poverty. This policy was implemented from 1981.

2. For an exceptional rendition of this point of view, see Pieterse and Erasmus (1999, pp. 167–87).

3. The law of 1905 began: ‘The Republic guarantees freedom of conscience and freedom to practise religion … except if it threatens public order’ and goes on to say that the Republic will not recognise or subvent any religion (Jean-Jaures quoted in Gresh, 2003, p. 19).

4. Gresh (2003) remarks on how highly charged the debate is and notes that it traverses a broad spectrum of French society. The Internet site www.laic.info created on 14 July 2003 had (by the beginning of 2004) 2,000 hits a day according to Le Monde des Religions, 3, January–February 2004, p. 36.

5. The average age of the members of the commission was 61, with none under 40 years old. Most had connections with prestigious French academic institutions. Fourteen were men and six were women. The commission held over 120 interviews with teachers, union members, members of militant associations, religious representatives, doctors, nurses, directors of prisons, the commissioner of police, social directors, veiled women and lycée scholars. The research and interviews were conducted between July and December 2003. The commission members particularly dealt with in the paper are Bernard Stasi himself—who is described in the body of the paper—Hanifa Cherifi—who is 50 years old and a sociologist as well as a mediator on juridical affairs in the Ministry of Education. She arrived in France when she was nine years old and was formerly a member of the Haut conseil de l'intégration—Jacqueline Costa-Lascoux, who is 64, and a jurist and psychosociologist. She is Director of Research at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), ex-president of the Ligue de l'enseignement, expert consultant to the Conseil d'Europe on questions of citizenship and the Rights of Man and a member of the Haut conseil de l'intégration—and Henri Pena-Ruiz, who is 56, is a philosopher, writer and lecturer at l'IEP in Paris, a teacher at the lycée Fenelon in Paris, and the author of Dieu et Marianne, a philosophical study of la laïcité.

6. The word cacophonie is used in an article in Le Monde (2003), ‘Chirac crée une commission pour repenser la laïcité’, 2 July, p. 1. It should be noted that there were different items of headgear at issue, and one of the points of the debate came to be whether or not less obtrusive kinds of headdress (scarves rather than veils) should be tolerated. Paul Ricoeur, for example, argued in the press that headscarves should be permitted and veils banned.

7. It has been pointed out in several sources that incidents were actually quite limited and that many of the families who associated themselves with the so-called ‘Creil Revolt’ were actually converts to Islam. A circular from the Minister of Education in 1994 revived the issue by reminding heads of institutions to be strict about ostentatious religious signs. Le Monde reports that there have been very few cases of conflict and only 6 exclusions over the wearing of headscarves over the past 14 years. It notes the rise of a ‘racist discourse’, however, and signs of resistance from some Muslim children when certain ‘contentious’ subjects were presented in the classroom, pressure imposed on children who did not observe Ramadan or wear headscarves and men who refused to shake hands with women principals. Le Monde, ‘Foulard a l'école: l'etat des lieux avant le rapport Stasi’, 11 December 2003, p. 11.

8. Cherifi (2001, p. 15) is quoted as saying that with the decision to put on the headscarf the young girl stigmatizes herself (note French reflexive construction: s'auto-stigmatise').

9. Communautés is meant to emphasize fragmentation and exclusivity in a negative sense.

10. The debate on laïcité within the Union Pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) seems to have accelerated in 2003 with the impetus probably coming from prime-minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin. President of the UMP, Alain Juppé, wanted a law against religious signs. Minister of the Interior, Nicolas Sarkozy did not and caused a furore by suggesting that France adopt a policy of affirmative action. There are suggestions in the press that Juppé and Sarkozy used the issues around laïcité to test for popular support. Chirac reprimanded Sarkozy for his ideas on affirmative action on the occasion of the former's visit to a lycée in Tunisia and spoke about headscarves representing ‘aggression’ (Fabre and Weill, 2003, p. 8).

11. ‘L'Appel du Nouvel Obs: Nous, Cityoyens de toutes origines …’, Le Nouvel Observateur, 2040, 11 August–17 December 2003, p. 106.

12. My thanks to Kai Horsthempke for bringing this article to my attention and thereby providing me with a springboard for my argument.

13. Le Monde, ‘Le rapport de la commission Stasi sur Laïcité’, Document, 12 December 2003, p. 20. Henceforth cited in the text as ‘Le rapport’.

14. Fysh and Wolfreys (1998, p. 176) note that of a sample of Muslim parents polled in 1989 only 30 percent favoured allowing the headscarf. Five years later only 22 percent did.

15. Gurey (2003) mentions Stasi's 1984 book, whose title translates as: Immigration: An Opportunity for France.

16. Left-wing journalists remarked wryly on Chirac's penchant for ‘cohesion nationale’ (Coroller, 2003a). See also Emtaz (2003, p. 2), The caricature accompanies an article in the same edition of Le Canard entitled: ‘Feux d'artifice de Légions d'honneur’, p. 2.

17. Conflict was generated over higher medical aid fees and taxes and the postponement of retirement age for civil servants justified in terms of EU regulations aimed at keeping the public deficit below 3 percent of the Gross Domestic Product. Conflict in the Education sector was exacerbated by the cutting of posts and by a proposal to transfer non-teaching staff, including school psychologists, to the jurisdiction of local rather than national authorities.

18. A poll conducted by Le Monde in 2001 found that of the sample 36 percent of Muslims said they were ‘practising believers’, 42 percent described themselves as ‘believers’, 16 percent as being ‘of Muslim origin’ and 5 percent said that they had no religion. 79 percent said they never went to mosque (Galbaud, 2004, pp. 40–41).