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Abstract
The title of this article refers to the campaign carried out by the French government, in April and May 2011, to publicize and promote the law banning the full veil from public spaces, ‘la République se vit à visage découvert.’ The article examines ways in which political discourses, during the 2009–2012 period over which this law was first discussed, and then applied, used specific norms of female dress in order to establish a certain understanding of citizenship. Drawing on Rancière's notion of the ‘police’ and Dikeç's theorization of ‘aesthetic regimes,’ the article discusses the entanglements of female dress with French republicanism. These are illustrated through controversial representations of ‘Marianne,’ the female embodiment of the Republic, which raise the issue of color, in a country where race remains taboo. Turning more specifically to the report produced by a Parliamentary committee prior to the discussion of the burqa ban, the article discusses the paradoxical promotion of skirts as the epitome of French femininity, and shows how the discussion of women's right to wear skirts challenged ideas about the location of sexism, and the subject of politics, in French society.
“La República se vive a cara descubierta” (y con una falda): (des)vistiendo ciudadanas francesas
El título de este artículo se refiere a la campaña llevada a cabo por el gobierno francés en abril y mayo de 2011 para publicitar y promover la ley de prohibición del uso del velo total en los espacios públicos, “la République se vit à visage découvert”. El artículo analiza las formas en que los discursos políticos, durante el período 2009–2012, en el que esta ley fue discutida por primera vez, y luego aplicada, utilizaron normas específicas de vestimenta femenina para establecer una cierta manera de entender la ciudadanía. Basándonos en la noción de “policía” de Rancière y la teorización de Dikeç de “regímenes estéticos”, el artículo discute los entrecruzamientos de la vestimenta femenina con el republicanismo francés. Estos son ilustrados a través de representaciones controversiales de “Marianne”, la encarnación femenina de la República, que plantea la cuestión de color, en un país donde la raza continúa siendo un tabú. Volviéndose más específicamente al informe producido por el comité parlamentario antes de la discusión de la prohibición de la burka, el artículo discute la paradójica promoción de las faldas como el arquetipo de la feminidad francesa, y muestra cómo la discusión de los derechos de las mujeres a vestir faldas desafió las ideas sobre la localización del sexismo y el tema de la política en la sociedad francesa.
“共和国的生活无需掩面 ”（但穿着裙装）：为法国公民（褪去）着衣
本文的标题指向法国政府于2011年四月至五月间，为了公共化并提倡禁止在公共场所穿戴全罩式面纱的“la République se vit à visage découvert”（共和国公开生活）法案所推动的政策倡议。本文检视在此一法案最初进行讨论、随后并付诸执行的2009年至2012年间，政治论述如何利用特定的女性穿着规范，建立对于公民权的特定理解方式。本文运用朗西埃（Ranciere）有关“警察”的概念，以及迪凯奇（Dikeç'）对于《美学体制》的理论化，探讨女性穿着与法国共和主义的纠结。上述议题，将透过充满争议的共和体制女性体现——玛丽安娜（Marianne）之图像描绘之，并在一个种族仍然是禁忌的国家中提出有关有色人种的议题。本文特别聚焦一个国会委员会在讨论蒙面罩袍禁令（the burqa ban）之前所生产的报告，探讨推广裙装作为法国女性特质缩影的矛盾性，并展现有关女性有权穿着裙装之讨论，如何挑战法国社会中有关性别歧视的场域及政治主体的概念。
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Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank Hülya Arik and Hilal Özcetin for organizing a great session at the AAG in 2012, entitled ‘Dress(ing) in Public: Dress, Ideology and the Female Body,’ which allowed for the discussion of parts of this paper, Mélina Germes for her insights into the appearance of the pregnant Marianne, and Jean-François Staszak for his support. Thanks are also due to Anissa Ouamrane for her assistance, and our research participants for all they shared with us. Without Mustafa, my life would be sadly Rancière-less. Lastly, heartfelt thanks to the reviewers and editors who assisted with the revisions of this paper with great generosity.
Notes
1. This is not to suggest that wearing the veil is necessarily intended as political, as pointed out by Bilge (Citation2010) who advocated moving beyond the ‘subordination vs. resistance’ binary that structures many discussions about the veil.
2. The reports are available at http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/13/rap-info/i2262.asp and http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/publications/unveiling-truth-why-32-muslim-women-wear-full-face-veil-France. Both include extremely rich material of which I select only a few points of particular resonance.
3. As Scott has pointed out, law in France cannot be targeted at a specific group, but has to be worded as though it concerned the entire population. Because the wording had to be so general, it was therefore necessary to list, in the law and in the campaign, a large number of exceptions: covering one's face with a mask for medical reasons, for professional reasons (in the case of workers in the building industry, in particular), for safety reasons (wearing a helmet on a motorbike), or, more ironically, in the case of ‘traditional demonstrations such as carnivals or processions.’
4. See, for instance, ‘Niqab, la Marianne de Guéant, visage découvert, poitrine cachée,’ www.rue89.com(published April 11, 2011).
5. There are specific forms of secularism, called laïcité in France, laiklik in Turkey, the discussion of which falls outside the scope of this paper but which I discussed elsewhere (Hancock Citation2008). In the French context characterized by what has been called ‘combat secularism’ (Roy Citation2005), the separation of Church and state was made law in 1905, and President François Hollande has talked of enshrining it in the Constitution.
6. President Hollande is known to support a proposal to ban veil-wearing women from childcare, and his Minister of the Interior Manuel Valls criticized a March 2013 Court of Appeal decision whereby the veil-wearing employee of a private, but publicly subsidized, childcare center in Chanteloup-les-Vignes, on the western outskirts of Paris, had been unfairly dismissed in 2008.
7. In his first discourse as President on 6 May 2007, Sarkozy said ‘to all martyrized women in the world … I want to say that France's pride and duty will be to stand by their side. (…) France shall not abandon women condemned to the burqa … France shall not abandon women who are denied freedom.’
8. This was further illustrated by President Hollande's pledge to erase the word ‘race’ from the French Constitution, where it is mentioned in the preamble which states that France ‘ensures the equality of all citizens before the law, without distinction of origin, race or religion.’
9. Two soldiers of North-African origin, one of them Catholic, were killed by Mohammed Merah in March 2012, in what was believed to be a racist crime until the terrorist assassinated a rabbi and three children in front of a Jewish confessional school a few days later. See http://www.rue89.com/rue89-presidentielle/2012/03/26/nicolas-sarkozy-invente-le-concept-de-musulmans-dapparence-230532
10. This is one of the differences between the niqab, which does not cover the eyes, and the burqa, which does. Therefore, the word burqa, most used in public debates, was in fact inaccurate.
11. This cross-party Commission was presided by André Gérin, a Communist, and Eric Raoult, from the right-wing UMP, drafted the report, which was handed in to the Assembly on 26 January 2010, and which also includes verbatim reports of many of the hearings conducted by the commission.
12. Badinter has taken many controversial positions in recent years, about feminism as ‘man-hating’ or about the fact that mainstream parties, in her view, have ‘abandoned laïcité to the Front National’ (see http://blogs.mediapart.fr/blog/jean-bauberot/300911/elisabeth-badinter-et-la-laicite-lepenisee); what undermines her credibility is also the fact that she is a major stakeholder in Publicis, one of France's main advertising companies, founded by her father (see, for instance, http://www.rue89.com/2010/02/11/elisabeth-badinter-actionnaire-feministe-dun-publicis-sexiste-137891).
13. This movement which originated as a genuine grassroots movement led by women of immigrant background lost credit when its founder, Fadela Amara, accepted a ministerial job in a right-wing government in 2007. It had already been widely criticized for accepting to play into the hands of several political parties' racist depictions of banlieue youth (see Guénif-Souilamas Citation2004).
14. Incidentally, at the time, 18.5% of députés (113 out of a total of 576) were women, despite the 2000 law on ‘parité’ which was supposed to ensure that parties nominate equal numbers of men and women in national elections. This accounts for one of the most enjoyable asides in the Raoult report, when the esteemed historian of laïcité Jean Baubérot reminds a député who is challenging his ‘grasp of reality’ of ‘the paradox of an Assembly, male at 80%, from parties which pay fines not to have to respect the law on parity, giving lessons to Islam’ (Baubérot, in the Rapport Citation2010, 428).
15. See http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/05/18/are-french-women-more-tolerant/feminism-a-foreign-import?scp = 1&sq = joan%st = cse, ‘Feminism, a foreign import?’ May 20, 2011.
16. For example, there were many comments about Hollande's weight loss in the run-up to the election and how this made him fitter for the function.
17. Ecologist Minister Cécile Duflot was booed and whistled for showing up in Parliament in a dress in July 2012, and a right-wing député made chick-like sounds during a speech by a female colleague in October 2013.
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Claire Hancock
Claire Hancock teaches geography at the University of Paris-Est Créteil. She recently edited a special issue of the online journal Justice Spatiale/Spatial Justice on ‘gender, sexual identities and spatial justice’ (www.jssj.org/archives/03). She is carrying out a research project on figures of Muslim Others in European cities funded by the Institut Universitaire de France.