Why was a law banning the wearing of headscarves passed?
The French had been debating this issue for two decades, but it intensified in the past couple of years, with dozens of girls expelled from secular schools for refusing to remove their head covering. Few things declare religious identity so emphatically. The visible Muslim presence has therefore added a pronounced religious dimension to rising French concerns about immigration and integration. In addition, many French people regard the headscarf as a symbol of oppression of women, as well as the embodiment of a political worldview that rejects secularism and even, for some, embraces Islamic extremism. And then there was a centre-right government under pressure from the far right National Front. The law was passed in March, ahead of regional elections. Polls at the time suggested that between 60-70% of the population supported the ban. Q: Why is there such sensitivity to overt religious symbols in a Catholic country? Secularism in France has a unique definition, more accurately expresse
